The Uncannily Strange and Brief Life of Amedeo Modigliani

by Velibor Čolić, Celia Hawkesworth (Translator)

The life of the painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was chaotic and tragically brief. Consisting of a series of vignettes, mostly set in the painter's studio and peopled by his lover Jeanne Hébuterne (who ended her own life the day after Modigliani's death), the prostitutes who were his occasional models and several Bohemian visitors, the novel spans the last months of Modigliani's life, evoking the strange workings of the painter's troubled and often drug-fuelled mind and its expression in his paintings, ultimately succeeding in conveying something of the intense artistic life of Paris in the first decades of the twentieth century.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Fiction

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

İtalyan ressam Amadeo Modigliani’nin (1884- 1920) kısa ve garip hayatından kareler. Veremli, alkolik, uyuşturucu bağımlısı, bohem, serseri birbressam. Uzun boyunlu ve göz bebeksiz kadınlar, nü’ler çizen garip bir adam ve güzel sevgilisi Jeanne kitabın karelerini oluşturuyor. Hayatında iz bırakan çoğu ressam birçok çılgın sanatçı, bohem dostları da karelerde yeralıyor. Çok farklı bir kurgu, aşırı sembol kullanımı, postmodern ile modern arasında salınan bir yazı. Deneysel bir edebiyat mı emin değilim, olabilir, çünkü çok değişik.

1900’lerin başları, I. Dünya Savaşı’nın iç karartıcılığı, Paris ve sanat akımları. Modigliani hakkında çokça okudum ve bir film seyrettim bu nedenle bu kitabı okurken kareleri yerine oturtmada zorluk çekmedim, ancak resssam hakkında ön bilgi olmadan yapılacak bir okuma anlamsız olabilir. Zaten zor bir metin, Çelibor yazım tekniği ve seçtiği sembollerle metni olabildiğince yoğunlaştırmış. Bazı yorumlarda yazıldığı gibi bir kurmaca (fiction) biyografi değil kesinlikle. Yaşanmışlıkların farklı bir anlatım tarzı ve uslubuyla aktarılmış, Modigliani’ye de böyle garip fantastik bir portre yakışırdı. Beğendim.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 1 out of 5]

Once again I pick up my least favorite type of book, the fictionalized biography, and am not disappointed in my disdain of this type of exploitation, but in this case, find myself more than usually turned off by unremitting repugnance. The author, Velibor Čolić, is from Croatia, and very few of his books have been translated into English. Thusly, I was reminded of years ago when the SF Film Festival was screening newly arrived material from the eastern bloc, most notably, the balkans, and it took a Romanian viewer to explain why he was laughing at scenes that were causing me to crawl under the chairs. I was informed that the constant struggles faced by people from that region rendered their sense of humor as extremely earthy and basic. This was a few years before the wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia, and granted me a keener insight. Which may be why Čolić focuses on the most sordid details in this novel and fails to illuminate the inner life of one of that era's most original if troubled artists. Thank god it was short.

[ahmet berk duman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Jeanne ressamın ona çok büyük gelen gömleğini geçiriyor sırtına ve pencereye gidiyor.
Güzden söz ediyor.
"Güz mü, nasıl olur bu?" diye soruyor adam, satir görünüşlü başını kaldırarak, “takvime göre hâlâ yazda değil miyiz?”
“Hayır, güzdeyiz.
Kargaların uçuşundan biliyorum bunu” diyor Jeanne.”
.
.
Velibor Çoliç; “Amadeo Modigliani’nin Olağanüstü Kısa ve Garip Hayatı”, (Çeviren: Feridun Aksın), İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları/YKY, Birinci Basım, Eylül 2000, Sayfa: 32.
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[Bohemian Book Lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was finally in the mood to read this "Mosaic Novel" after re-watching the Modigliani movie with Andy Garcia in the lead role.

It was a one-sitting, delightful read, so in the surreal spirit of the book I decided to write my short review with the name Modigliani as an acrostic:

Mesmerising
Oneiric
Dalí-esque
Imaginative
Graceful
Lyrical
Irreverent
Absurd
Nihilistic
Innovative

[belisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

ressamına yaraşır farklı bir metin...

[Hélène Maes · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an interesting starting point when a biography isn't a biography and fiction isn't (really or merely) fiction. Modigliani's short life is drenched in mystery and this book contributes to that as well. Do we need all the dull biographic details about an artist's life? This book was an interesting reading and I would recommend it to all Modigliani lovers - the lovers of his work and of the person itself as well, even if they don't know anything about him for certain.

[Adam Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colic successful recreates the feeling of being stuck in a drunken, opium fuelled blur of incongruity, hallucinations and despair. The non narrative structure needed better writing to work, the aphorisms, metaphors and imagery weren’t striking. The book gets caught between fiction and bio, and if you have questions about Modigliani before, you’ll have more after reading the book - but maybe that’s not the worst thing

[Luke Williamson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking to understand something about Modigliani - how he worked, for example - but this book is just vibes.

[Bill Kidd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange.

[Sjonni]

Roman aussi fantasmagoriquement bref et étrange que le titre. Une évocation hallucinée et enivrante des derniers jours du peintre Amadeo Modigliani. À lire lentement.