shelf_reflect10n's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
hopeandhoping's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
fant_ine's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
smbla's review against another edition
4.0
Immediately from the title you know that your heroine will be an exceptional and controversial character. "The Blazing World" was the title of a work by Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. While Margaret Cavendish published under her own name a rarity in the 17th century for a woman- Siri Hustvedt's heroine Harriet Burden decides to utilize 3 male artists as her "masks" to expose the art world’s dismissiveness towards female artists through an equation of her work-their name.
The novel reads like an exhibition catalog with varying viewpoints, interviews, personal remembrances and fabricated criticisms. You follow Harriet through her marriage to Felix Lord the philandering Uber Art Dealer, lukewarm reception to her exhibitions, motherhood, marginalization, widowhood and her decision to morph her art into a quasi-collaborative process taking on a certain amount of persona from her male mask. Harriet is quoted in the book as utilizing the "masculine enhancement effect".
Philosophical references play a crucial part in the narrative. Rune's work The Banality of Glamour is a direct reference to Hannah Arendt's attributed statement of the Banality of Evil when discussing Eichmann. Rune is Hannah's "Third Man" and by far the most successful and destructive of her collaborations.
The book is much more complex than a simple straight art narrative exposé in the style of the Guerilla Girls. Harriet has a lot of rage towards the men in her life-a distant father, secretive husband and duplicitous collaborator. I liked Harriet. Yes she is deeply flawed, but she is also loving and creative and interesting and I look forward to exploring more of Hustvedt’s work
The novel reads like an exhibition catalog with varying viewpoints, interviews, personal remembrances and fabricated criticisms. You follow Harriet through her marriage to Felix Lord the philandering Uber Art Dealer, lukewarm reception to her exhibitions, motherhood, marginalization, widowhood and her decision to morph her art into a quasi-collaborative process taking on a certain amount of persona from her male mask. Harriet is quoted in the book as utilizing the "masculine enhancement effect".
Philosophical references play a crucial part in the narrative. Rune's work The Banality of Glamour is a direct reference to Hannah Arendt's attributed statement of the Banality of Evil when discussing Eichmann. Rune is Hannah's "Third Man" and by far the most successful and destructive of her collaborations.
The book is much more complex than a simple straight art narrative exposé in the style of the Guerilla Girls. Harriet has a lot of rage towards the men in her life-a distant father, secretive husband and duplicitous collaborator. I liked Harriet. Yes she is deeply flawed, but she is also loving and creative and interesting and I look forward to exploring more of Hustvedt’s work
branca's review
challenging
emotional
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
katdid's review against another edition
3.0
Didn’t love this as much as I wanted to love it. I was torn over the style (each chapter collated from different sources/characters), which gave interesting perspectives but also felt bitsy at times. It worked though to give an impression of Rune as a cipher. I think (from the two books of hers that I’ve now read) that Hustvedt has a real knack for bringing everything together at the end, but that presupposes that a reader is going to hang in there.
maddie_09's review against another edition
4.0
Intricate, engrossing, intellectually challenging read. Hustvedt creates story rich in philosophical, literary details. Her characters are alive on pages. It is not a quick read but so rewarding. Highly recommended!
jackwwang's review against another edition
3.0
The book jacket does not do this story justice. I expected an overwrought piece of bloviated intellectual masturburation meant to serve as ice breakers for pretentious dinner party conversation. Instead there's a rich story here, filled with countless themes and even a great story underneath filled with one of the most memorable characters in my recent novel reading memory to boost.
Reminiscent of DFW in her profound intelligence (rare to find such prolific readers of non-fiction thought in novelists), Hustvedt and her work is not (intentionally) showy, but the references are like a lightning round tour of the great books (and some more obscure, lesser known, but no less interesting ones). Hustvedt jumps effortlessly from Margaret Cavendish to Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard to Husserl. Hers is is not a superficial intelligence, with ornate words that don't amount to meaning. The opposite almost; there is almost too much meaning condensed into each paragraph. Combined with such lucidity, it's like staring into the sun. Dazzling, but overwhelming for the normal human.
It's also rare to come across an author who can write with such prodigious knowledge, AND a knack for powerful, almost verse-like prose, with shiver-inducing paragraph endings like... "there will be three, just like in fairy tales. Three masks of different hues and countenances, so that the story will have its perfect form. Three masks, three wishes, always three. And the story will have bloody teeth."
Ultimately, for me the story is about identity. Early on, one of Harry's journal entries hits the thee almost a little too on the nose "isn't it strange that we don't know who we are? I mean, we know so little about ourselves it's shocking. We tell ourselves a story and we go along believing in it, and then, it turns out, it's the wrong story, which means we've lived the wrong lives."
From there, Hustvedt spends almost the rest of the book elaborating on the tricky thing that is identity. How it forms from childhood, how our parents carve the first indelible grooves into our souls. How identity is a dance partner to performance, each feeding off the other, and driving each other. The author makes a compelling case that identity is constructed, TRULY constructed. Her art falsely attributed to each of her facades were however indelibly shaped by the setting of their creation. The art would not have been the same had it been created under different pretenses, with different audience in mind.
Identity is also in the eyes of the the perceiver as much, if not more than of the eyes of the perceived. The art was understood differently, impacted viewers differently. They were touched not by art from Anton Tisch or Phineas or Rune, nor of Harry, not them themselves, but a new third creative entity wrapped up inextricably within the collaboration of a sort.
Identity is also shaped by masks. Hustvedt dispenses with the facile notion that true identities is what is under the mask, rather masks shape and create identity. We become something else when we put on masks, and to the extent that our identity shaped both by ourselves and by those who perceive us, the masks we wear are fundamental parts of our mosaic identities.
There's a lot in here about father and daughters, parents and children. Harry's relationship with her father is a difficult one, that left a hole in her heart for the rest of her life. But the good is here with the bad too, there are beautiful depictions of maternal relations especially, Harry's tender but awkward yearning to connect with her son. And one of my favorites, a short vignette of Harry's grandmother mask:
"Aven looked long and tall and thin today. She has entered what I call “high middle childhood.” She examined my mischievous little people, turned red when she saw my copulating pairs, and laughed wildly at my Ursula who’s taking a shit. She let me draw her into my lap today, let her grandmother revel in the tactile pleasure of holding her young body close to my ribs. I put my nose into her short brown hair. Today, it smelled vaguely of apples."
Lastly, yes, the book is also about the male, the female, and all the trouble wrapped up in these distinctions. The whole plot conceit, woman finds deserved success only when disguising her art behind men, the whole freudian "Ruina" subplot with Rune... But in my opinion this is not the primary subject, not the most compelling lens to read the story in.
And I'd be remiss to not mention the fascinating cast of characters that people this story.
Rune - a caricature but one that nonetheless comes off as inscrutable and mysterious
Maisey - a saint of a daughter that the world doesn't deserve
Bruno - comic and emotional relief, but one that knows how to write a verse, and has a potent joie de vivre
Sweet Autumn - bit of a plot resolution device, but wrapped in warm fuzzy feelings and a certain poignancy
Lastly, the novel would be nothing with Harry, the beating heart. An endlessly fascinating human being, rendered in more vivid flesh and blood than most real human beings. A formidable intellect, with endless curiosity, but whose emotional landscape is surprisingly more compelling than her intricate intellectual mind. She is defiant and strong willed, yet deeply vulnerable and sensitive. Her intelligence and deep understanding of the world lives side by side with her cavernous blind spots for her egomania, pride, temper, and all rest of the what makes a complete set of human flaws. Beyond serving as a treatise on all these lofty intellectual themes, the story above all is ultimately the story of Harry's life, and it's one worth reading.
Reminiscent of DFW in her profound intelligence (rare to find such prolific readers of non-fiction thought in novelists), Hustvedt and her work is not (intentionally) showy, but the references are like a lightning round tour of the great books (and some more obscure, lesser known, but no less interesting ones). Hustvedt jumps effortlessly from Margaret Cavendish to Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard to Husserl. Hers is is not a superficial intelligence, with ornate words that don't amount to meaning. The opposite almost; there is almost too much meaning condensed into each paragraph. Combined with such lucidity, it's like staring into the sun. Dazzling, but overwhelming for the normal human.
It's also rare to come across an author who can write with such prodigious knowledge, AND a knack for powerful, almost verse-like prose, with shiver-inducing paragraph endings like... "there will be three, just like in fairy tales. Three masks of different hues and countenances, so that the story will have its perfect form. Three masks, three wishes, always three. And the story will have bloody teeth."
Ultimately, for me the story is about identity. Early on, one of Harry's journal entries hits the thee almost a little too on the nose "isn't it strange that we don't know who we are? I mean, we know so little about ourselves it's shocking. We tell ourselves a story and we go along believing in it, and then, it turns out, it's the wrong story, which means we've lived the wrong lives."
From there, Hustvedt spends almost the rest of the book elaborating on the tricky thing that is identity. How it forms from childhood, how our parents carve the first indelible grooves into our souls. How identity is a dance partner to performance, each feeding off the other, and driving each other. The author makes a compelling case that identity is constructed, TRULY constructed. Her art falsely attributed to each of her facades were however indelibly shaped by the setting of their creation. The art would not have been the same had it been created under different pretenses, with different audience in mind.
Identity is also in the eyes of the the perceiver as much, if not more than of the eyes of the perceived. The art was understood differently, impacted viewers differently. They were touched not by art from Anton Tisch or Phineas or Rune, nor of Harry, not them themselves, but a new third creative entity wrapped up inextricably within the collaboration of a sort.
Identity is also shaped by masks. Hustvedt dispenses with the facile notion that true identities is what is under the mask, rather masks shape and create identity. We become something else when we put on masks, and to the extent that our identity shaped both by ourselves and by those who perceive us, the masks we wear are fundamental parts of our mosaic identities.
There's a lot in here about father and daughters, parents and children. Harry's relationship with her father is a difficult one, that left a hole in her heart for the rest of her life. But the good is here with the bad too, there are beautiful depictions of maternal relations especially, Harry's tender but awkward yearning to connect with her son. And one of my favorites, a short vignette of Harry's grandmother mask:
"Aven looked long and tall and thin today. She has entered what I call “high middle childhood.” She examined my mischievous little people, turned red when she saw my copulating pairs, and laughed wildly at my Ursula who’s taking a shit. She let me draw her into my lap today, let her grandmother revel in the tactile pleasure of holding her young body close to my ribs. I put my nose into her short brown hair. Today, it smelled vaguely of apples."
Lastly, yes, the book is also about the male, the female, and all the trouble wrapped up in these distinctions. The whole plot conceit, woman finds deserved success only when disguising her art behind men, the whole freudian "Ruina" subplot with Rune... But in my opinion this is not the primary subject, not the most compelling lens to read the story in.
And I'd be remiss to not mention the fascinating cast of characters that people this story.
Rune - a caricature but one that nonetheless comes off as inscrutable and mysterious
Maisey - a saint of a daughter that the world doesn't deserve
Bruno - comic and emotional relief, but one that knows how to write a verse, and has a potent joie de vivre
Sweet Autumn - bit of a plot resolution device, but wrapped in warm fuzzy feelings and a certain poignancy
Lastly, the novel would be nothing with Harry, the beating heart. An endlessly fascinating human being, rendered in more vivid flesh and blood than most real human beings. A formidable intellect, with endless curiosity, but whose emotional landscape is surprisingly more compelling than her intricate intellectual mind. She is defiant and strong willed, yet deeply vulnerable and sensitive. Her intelligence and deep understanding of the world lives side by side with her cavernous blind spots for her egomania, pride, temper, and all rest of the what makes a complete set of human flaws. Beyond serving as a treatise on all these lofty intellectual themes, the story above all is ultimately the story of Harry's life, and it's one worth reading.
floriannepb's review
5.0
Encore plus génial à la deuxième lecture. C'est un chef-d'peuvre total d'érudition, d'émotions, de relations, et de jeux sur la fiction elle-même.