Lust for Life in Around the World in 80 Books

Aug 04, 2007 Suvi rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: _north-america, art, historical, novels, 1900-1939, _europe-western

I did not like this. At all. Years ago I liked Pierre la Mure's biographical novel Moulin Rouge (1950), which is about the struggles of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, another favorite artist of mine. I still don't understand the point of biographical novels though, because I would rather read a proper objective biography. My problem is the same with historical novels: how can you trust that the author hasn't distorted the events, but has actually done thorough research? Must you have blind faith, th I did not like this. At all. Years ago I liked Pierre la Mure's biographical novel Moulin Rouge (1950), which is about the struggles of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, another favorite artist of mine. I still don't understand the point of biographical novels though, because I would rather read a proper objective biography. My problem is the same with historical novels: how can you trust that the author hasn't distorted the events, but has actually done thorough research? Must you have blind faith, that you're not accidentally learning all the wrong stuff? Maybe I should just learn to read novels as they are: fiction.

What was wrong about this then? I think that Stone's story slipped stylistically too much on the biography side. Even though a novel was based in real events or a real person, I would still expect something from the prose. Not colorless and overly simplistic style, but a proper novel with vivid characters. After all, van Gogh's life was incredibly fascinating and tragic, so you would think that there's a lot you can do about that.

The biggest problem was, that I was constantly aware I was reading mere words, because there were no emotion behind them. Even the parts where a burning passion toward painting was described were bland and uninspiring. It would have been more fruitful if more had been said, other than van Gogh worked a lot and painted blue skies and stuff. Occasionally Stone uses three periods really annoyingly, like he wants to emphasize an important or shocking scene. The characters were paper thin and boring, and the descriptions of appearance were horribly clumsy. The kind of interesting conversations about art didn't fit into the dialogue, but seemed like they were cut out of a textbook.

All in all I am a bit annoyed that I wasted my time on this and actually finished the whole thing. Still, this served as a decent vacuum on August nights, when I was just eager to empty my brain from everything else before going to sleep. I just didn't feel like reading anything else when I was too busy selecting my courses and thinking about the lectures that were just around the corner. Sometimes it's like this: you just have to finish a book, even though it annoys you more and more every second. ...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Elaine Kasteler rated it really liked it

I loved reading about Van Gogh - such an interesting story. Started out as a priest and ended up a poor, starving, depressed artist with an incredible life story.

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