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THE PEN AND THE BRUSH

Name: THE PEN AND THE BRUSH
Author: Anka Muhlstein
ISBN: 978-1590518052

HOW PASSION FOR ART SHAPED NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVELS

by Anka Muhlstein translated by Adriana Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2017

An enlightening exploration of the symbiotic relationship between art and literature.

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How hundreds of stolen paintings affected 19th-century French writers.

Goncourt Prize–winning author Muhlstein approaches literature in a unique way. In Monsieur Proust’s Library (2012), she explored his lengthy novel via the books he read, while Balzac’s Omelette (2011) examined how food influenced his novels. Here, Muhlstein looks at French authors of the 19th century via art, starting with the French Revolution. Thanks to Napoleon’s victories and his “to the victor belong the spoils” approach, convoys laden with great art made their ways to France (especially the Louvre). The government then did something new, letting their citizens view the art for free. The public and writers went in droves. Thus, “two forms of art were entwined.” Muhlstein focuses on the writings of Balzac, Zola, Huysmans, Maupassant, and Proust to show how they were profoundly affected by these works of art, many of which they had never seen before. Each began creating more artist characters and, more importantly, “truly invented a visual style of writing.” Balzac came under the influence of Rembrandt, Raphael, and Delacroix. “Opening a Balzac novel,” writes Muhlstein, is like walking into a museum,” watching the artists and models “step out of their frames to come into the story.” Unlike Balzac, Zola always lived among painters, and the influence of art on his writing style was immense. Cézanne was a good friend, and Zola often modeled for his paintings. Under the influence of the impressionists and their attention to light, Muhlstein argues, Zola “became the first landscapist writer.” Huysmans’ “extravagant and fantastical” novel Against the Grain clearly shows the influence of the painter Gustave Moreau. Maupassant chose to make a painter his main character in Strong as Death: “his characters’ choice of art would inform readers about their personalities.” The “last great fictional painter” of the century, Proust, was deeply affected by the works of Monet and Turner.

An enlightening exploration of the symbiotic relationship between art and literature.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017

ISBN: 978-1590518052

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Other Press

Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
CAMILLE PISSARRO
by Anka Muhlstein ; translated by Adriana Hunter

- BOOK REVIEW
MONSIEUR PROUST'S LIBRARY
by Anka Muhlstein

- BOOK REVIEW
LA SALLE
by Anka Muhlstein

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)