A little, amazing jewel by Milorad Pavic about the dangerousness of words. Pay attention: by reading this novel written in 2005, you could be killed! Are you so brave? In the short novel “The Tale that Killed Emily Knorr”, storytelling (the story) kills the listener (the reader). Thus literature, with Pavić, becomes dangerous to the reader. “In this book the author is accused of being able to kill with a story. Off course this is not possible, but when the world wants to make somebody look bad, then all means are used. In my novel the story is, after all, able to kill. It can kill the one that created it, that is to say – its writer.” - Milorad Pavic " ...over the course of its six short chapters, we witness meditations on stories, on the beliefs that people have in the efficacy of the written charms (even today we see remnants of this in the signs that many families post in their homes regarding warmth and charity), and the power of words to create and transform images. Like most fables, it has a certain charm to it, a sense that it is not the mystery that is important as much as it is what creates a mystery out of words that possesses our thoughts as we read it." - Vaguely Borgesian, 2011 Reviews
