Your rating:
A brilliant, provocative novel about an artist who, after years of being ignored by the art world, conducts an experiment: she conceals her female identity behind three male fronts. Presented as a collection of texts, edited and introduced by a scholar years after the artist's death, the book unfolds through extracts from Burden's notebooks and conflicting accounts from others about her life and work. Even after she steps forward to reveal herself as the force behind three solo shows, there are those who doubt she is responsible for the last exhibition, initially credited to the acclaimed artist Rune. No one doubts the two artists were involved with each other. According to Burden's journals, she and Rune found themselves locked in a charged and dangerous psychological game that ended with the man's bizarre death. From one of the most ambitious and internationally celebrated writers of her generation, Hustvedt's The Blazing World is a polyphonic tour de force. It is also an intricately conceived, diabolical puzzle that addresses the shaping influences of prejudice, money, fame, and desire on what we see in one another. Emotionally intense, intellectually rigorous, ironic, and playful, this is a book you won't be able to put down.
Publication Year: 2014
No posts yet
Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update
Your rating:
A grand book with far reaching goals, which it truly does achieve. Extremely well written. There are many great things I can write about this book, a fantastic premise, one worthy of a real life experiment. The fact it's told through, letters and interviews (who doesn't love an epistolary novel?). The one downfall for me, the diary entries of Harriet, the main character. Her entries put me off, they were over the top, with multiple references to all types of psychology and philosophy, art, and literature, enough that the 'author' of the book needed many, many footnotes to explain her meaning. Her theories and ideas became cumbersome to read, and maybe this is my fault because I, even after reading the footnote, sometimes still didn't grasp/understand what she was going for. I realize this was her main problem in life, not being understood or recognized, she was too smart for most people. The rest of the book though was a delight to read. We really saw the character brought out in other people accounts of her through their relationships. Everyone is someone different to different people. I think I would guardedly recommend this one.
0
© 2024 Pagebound