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Primavera
Natalie Breshnikov earns her living as "the Scribe," writing difficult letters to people she's never met. Taking on the voices of her clients, she has succeeded in sealing engagements, finalizing divorces, executing apologies, and resuming long-lost love affairs.
Even in her own life Natalie is fond of taking on other people's identities. She is obsessed with legends of her mad Russian ancestor and with her remarkable resemblance to the beautiful model in Botticelli's masterpiece Allegory of Spring. Natlie spends hours in fantasy tracing her romantic heritage, believing the lovely laundress model who has her face can also teach her how to live her life. While Natalie is trying to discover her destiny and attempting to embody the creative powers of the muse, her plodding academic boyfriend, Charlie, is picking up all the wrong signals, forcing her to commit herself to a thoroughly modern love affair that is both harrowing and banal. It isn't until Natalie travels to Italy and embarks upon a magical journey through time that she discovers the true secrets of her Renaissance double, and finds the promise and hope of eternal spring.
With a vivid sense of imagination and a gently self-parodying wit, David has written a fresh, funny, insightful modern romance.
Even in her own life Natalie is fond of taking on other people's identities. She is obsessed with legends of her mad Russian ancestor and with her remarkable resemblance to the beautiful model in Botticelli's masterpiece Allegory of Spring. Natlie spends hours in fantasy tracing her romantic heritage, believing the lovely laundress model who has her face can also teach her how to live her life. While Natalie is trying to discover her destiny and attempting to embody the creative powers of the muse, her plodding academic boyfriend, Charlie, is picking up all the wrong signals, forcing her to commit herself to a thoroughly modern love affair that is both harrowing and banal. It isn't until Natalie travels to Italy and embarks upon a magical journey through time that she discovers the true secrets of her Renaissance double, and finds the promise and hope of eternal spring.
With a vivid sense of imagination and a gently self-parodying wit, David has written a fresh, funny, insightful modern romance.
206 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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July 7, 2010
Alluring book jacket description that didn't entirely deliver. I appreciated much about the book, though, including the use of the three like-faced women to represent virgin, mother and temptress, and the wonderful fights Natalie got into with her boyfriend, the intellectual. My sister Amelia, an art historian, walked me through the imagery of the painting during a visit last night and it made the author's intent much more clear.
Bella, the model, is womanhood incarnate: "It has become a conviction with me and I know that it is true. My life is a continually renewing process and I will undergo countless deaths and rebirths, because I am myself the primavera, the spring, ageless even in my oldest ages, ripening and growing until summer bursts full-born from my womb."
Bella, the model, is womanhood incarnate: "It has become a conviction with me and I know that it is true. My life is a continually renewing process and I will undergo countless deaths and rebirths, because I am myself the primavera, the spring, ageless even in my oldest ages, ripening and growing until summer bursts full-born from my womb."
Displaying 1 of 1 review