A steadily thoughtful exploration of artistry, loyalty and choice.
Basson’s debut novel, a work of historical fiction, tells a poignant story of saving works of art from destruction and of salvation through art.
Gabriele “Ella” Münter, a real-life student of “Professor K” at the progressive Phalanx School in Germany in 1902, absorbs her mentor’s avant-garde theories about art. “The truest art should be like music,” he declares: “completely abstract,” with “no picture at all.” Professor K is Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian painter who, in the early 20th century, was one of the first proponents of abstraction in art. Ella, young and self-conscious but talented, falls in love with her professor, and a romantic relationship forms between them—one founded on attraction, admiration, volatility and artistic philosophy. With other artists, they found the influential Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) group, and they travel frequently in an attempt to depict different cultural spheres on canvas. “[F]reeing art from its bonds is our mission,” Kandinsky declares. Hardship, whether pertaining to internal stability or external world events, follows them. When the Nazi Party comes into power in Germany, expressionistic artworks are deemed “threats to German culture”; Ella is forced to make a decision that is both deeply personal and historically consequential. Her dilemma, her struggles and her creativity form the basis of a quietly stunning true story. Although the relationship between Ella and Kandinsky doesn’t lack for tempestuousness, it avoids the prurience of a clichéd, passionate romance between artists, and it’s similarly disinterested in the fireworks of a raucous art-heist narrative. In fact, other than intermittent descriptions of Münter’s paintings—presumably taken from a catalog or wall plaques adjacent to her works in museums—Basson’s novel is straight narrative; there are no stylistic experiments to mirror her subjects, but that directness and lack of pretense don’t make the novel simple. Rather, it’s an evocative study of artistic beliefs and the creative minds that form them. In particular, Basson offers a rare appreciation of Münter, who, despite creating works with mastery of color and form, hasn’t received the same attention as her better-regarded companion.
A steadily thoughtful exploration of artistry, loyalty and choice.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9911496-0-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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