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The Invention of Truth: A Novel
An intertwining of two narratives follows three hundred of the most talented women in a kingdom in Northern France as they bring to life their queen's vision of what will become of the famous Bayeux tapestry.
99 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 21, 2024
I wanted this novel to be much better. It had a perfect combination of subject matter; part of the story is about the creation, the actual stitching of the Bayeux Tapestry in northern France just a few years after the Norman invasion of England. And the other thread is about the writer, critic and artist John Ruskin writing about Amiens and its cathedral. Both pieces of history are ones that fascinate me, and I have some strong links to Ruskin who founded an art gallery/museum in my home town of Sheffield for the benefit and education of the working classes. Those were my forefathers, working men and women of the city for the last two hundred years.
When I studied mediaeval history we had a source book called English Historical Documents. It had lots of contemporary documents – land charters, laws, any rare surviving fragment from Anglo-Saxon England. It also had the whole of the Bayeux Tapestry reproduced – one of the few near contemporary sources for the history of the period. I studied it as a piece of history and I wanted to see how it would be used as a piece of fiction.
The two threads do not complement each other as well as they could. We know that Amiens was a favourite place of Ruskin’s, but the link to the tapestry is only made by having one of the expert sewers coming from Amiens. Murazzoni has two main characters in each story. In the tapestry story (which by the way was not a tapestry at all but embroidery) there is the unnamed queen who commissions the work and brings together 300 women to sew the cloth. Alongside her is Anne Elisabeth, expert sewer from Amiens. And in the story of Ruskin we also have George, Ruskin’s manservant and sometime photographer. These lower status characters provide a view of those above them. They give us an insight into their lives. One works better than the other. The overlap between Anne Elisabeth and the Queen is powerfully done – there is an unspoken tension between them over who is the most skilful. There is a night when, unable to sleep, the Queen goes to the sewing room and completes a piece of embroidery that Anne Elisabeth has been working on.
The story of the Queen us the most successful part of the book. Take this passage when the 300 women arrive for the first time to begin their work:
Ruskin does not come across so well in the story. He is less likeable. But occasionally his story does touch on something fascinating, such as these paragraphs:
When I studied mediaeval history we had a source book called English Historical Documents. It had lots of contemporary documents – land charters, laws, any rare surviving fragment from Anglo-Saxon England. It also had the whole of the Bayeux Tapestry reproduced – one of the few near contemporary sources for the history of the period. I studied it as a piece of history and I wanted to see how it would be used as a piece of fiction.
The two threads do not complement each other as well as they could. We know that Amiens was a favourite place of Ruskin’s, but the link to the tapestry is only made by having one of the expert sewers coming from Amiens. Murazzoni has two main characters in each story. In the tapestry story (which by the way was not a tapestry at all but embroidery) there is the unnamed queen who commissions the work and brings together 300 women to sew the cloth. Alongside her is Anne Elisabeth, expert sewer from Amiens. And in the story of Ruskin we also have George, Ruskin’s manservant and sometime photographer. These lower status characters provide a view of those above them. They give us an insight into their lives. One works better than the other. The overlap between Anne Elisabeth and the Queen is powerfully done – there is an unspoken tension between them over who is the most skilful. There is a night when, unable to sleep, the Queen goes to the sewing room and completes a piece of embroidery that Anne Elisabeth has been working on.
The story of the Queen us the most successful part of the book. Take this passage when the 300 women arrive for the first time to begin their work:
When the rattling of the gates resounded in the courtyard, she herself opened the heavy portals of the palace, without help from the servants. But at the echoing of all those feminine voices coming towards her, she took a step back and fell silent: how could she ever have thought to control and command that number of women and lead them to completion. And suddenly the spectre of chaos flashed before her, the infernal chaos of a work done arrogantly.
On the other hand her appearance silenced the voices and the needlewomen stood poised and breathless, waiting for the commands of the queen whom none of them had seen or heard before.
Ruskin does not come across so well in the story. He is less likeable. But occasionally his story does touch on something fascinating, such as these paragraphs:
The cathedral of Amiens has, so to speak, the big and rough voice of peasant wealth when it celebrates its ceremonies; the thick-set God of the main portal has the same voice, affecting as He does the sturdy and distinct features of a man of Picardy. He is barely credible as the son of the golden Virgin with the swaying hip and fine, delicate face.
Ruskin had dedicated himself to her for some time, from his first visits to Amiens, drawing her repeatedly. He had penetrated carefully every feminine feature of the small Picardy Lady, and had finally seen the kinship between her and the man. And in some young woman or girl he came across in the town, he would notice the beginning of that maturity that flowered in the statue. The Virgin seemed younger than her son: in the Annunciation she had the shadow of a pout, and now from her still place in a niche warmed by the sun, she gloried in the past travail, presenting to mankind the fruit of her labor and hope, and imagined her son already a man with his hand raised to bless his Picardy brethren.
July 9, 2010
a jewel of a book. I began by savoring, parsing out little bits of reading to myself but then I devoured it.
Two stories recounted in parallel, the making of the Bayeux tapestry by queen Matilda and 300 women, and John Ruskin readin the Cathedral in Amiens; together these create a meditation on the making and experiencing of art. The implicit comparison between thread and stone is brilliant, heartfelt narrative, talent, and skill joining the two.
Two stories recounted in parallel, the making of the Bayeux tapestry by queen Matilda and 300 women, and John Ruskin readin the Cathedral in Amiens; together these create a meditation on the making and experiencing of art. The implicit comparison between thread and stone is brilliant, heartfelt narrative, talent, and skill joining the two.
February 16, 2014
It would have been hard for this book to have been as good as The Alphonse Courrier Affair, and it isn’t. It is instead an almost ethereal novella with two alternating stories, neither of which is really a story and which are related aesthetically. This makes the work sound more intellectual than it is. The prose is not, nor so much are the themes, especially in the tapestry story (the other, about John Ruskin, is certainly aided by having read Ruskin, or at least knowing who he was).
In short, this is a singular work. But sadly, despite my love for Ruskin and medieval tapestries, the novel did not fully engage me, and I did not feel fully satisfied at the end. I also didn't feel the translation was first-rate. This is not the place to start reading this wonderful writer.
In short, this is a singular work. But sadly, despite my love for Ruskin and medieval tapestries, the novel did not fully engage me, and I did not feel fully satisfied at the end. I also didn't feel the translation was first-rate. This is not the place to start reading this wonderful writer.
August 16, 2013
An exquisite little novella that links the tapestry (an imagined creation that is) and the aesthetic master John Ruskin's final voyage to the continent to see Amiens Cathedral - delicious in ever detail
September 14, 2025
I read this book 30 years ago when it first came out, and when packing for a trip I decided to take it along because it was small.
I ended up reading it through twice in the time I'm indicating as started and finished. The second reading was entirely during a 7 hour flight.
It's a slightly puzzling but very interesting book. Some paragraphs, I had to read two or three times to decide what they meant. The writing style which I assume was the translator's equivalent of the original Italian, was simple on the surface but filled with shadows and allusions.
I think the idea that the Bayeux Tapestry was made in Bayeux has pretty much fallen out of favor, but it made for a good story.
I never really got John Ruskin so I kind of took those sections on faith because they were in there.
I'd read it again. It bears repeated readings.
I ended up reading it through twice in the time I'm indicating as started and finished. The second reading was entirely during a 7 hour flight.
It's a slightly puzzling but very interesting book. Some paragraphs, I had to read two or three times to decide what they meant. The writing style which I assume was the translator's equivalent of the original Italian, was simple on the surface but filled with shadows and allusions.
I think the idea that the Bayeux Tapestry was made in Bayeux has pretty much fallen out of favor, but it made for a good story.
I never really got John Ruskin so I kind of took those sections on faith because they were in there.
I'd read it again. It bears repeated readings.
June 23, 2022
Questo breve romanzo storico è senz’altro l’opera più bella e significativa di Marta Morazzoni. In una bellissima coniugazione della verità storica e la finzione letteraria seguiamo l’alternarsi di due vicende storiche che, nonostante lontane nel tempo, s’incontrano in diversi punti di convergenza che notiamo sopratutto sul piano simbolico-metaforico. Il romanzo è, inoltre, un omaggio all’arte che ha il potere di parlarci in una lingua comune e che rappresenta una “scrittura leggibile a tutti” (p. 8).
November 28, 2023
I’ve read this whole book and I still don’t understand why there were two narratives. I came into this thinking it was complete fiction, with no knowledge of Ruskin or middle age France, so there’s that? Ultimately the writing was good but superfluous in my opinion. Just not the book for me.
December 28, 2017
A lovely little gem of a novella. Spare, lovely, and compassionate without saccharine. Full of questions and quasi fairy tale.
August 1, 2011
A historical-fiction novella from an Italian author, linking two richly-imagined episodes in Anglo/Franco art history. Victorian aesthete John Ruskin makes, late in life, a final visit to a favorite cathedral in Amiens. And--at the same time, trading in 2-page increments--we get a legend-like tale of a medieval queen who gathers 300 needlewoman from her kingdom to produce one massive, inspired piece of embroidery.
The intermingling of private and public truth "invented" through a pursuit of art, here, reminded me both of Paul Auster's Oracle Night and Cesar Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter. Excellent stuff, though there isn't much in the way of plot. It's all aesthetics: composition, balance, counterpoint, tone. Morazzoni writes like an angel; I look forward to reading more from her.
The intermingling of private and public truth "invented" through a pursuit of art, here, reminded me both of Paul Auster's Oracle Night and Cesar Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter. Excellent stuff, though there isn't much in the way of plot. It's all aesthetics: composition, balance, counterpoint, tone. Morazzoni writes like an angel; I look forward to reading more from her.
November 3, 2014
Part John Ruskin on final tour/part seamstress for a queen's tapestry both in Amiens, France. Loved the seamstress part. Definitely in this trend of micro moments, that I am not sure I approve of. Sick of the trend perhaps? Perhaps I am just a malcontent because as much as I love Colum McCann, I get sick of his macro moments in literature too. I intend to check out Morazzoni's Girl in a Turban.
November 11, 2011
One of the all-time greats...to be read again and again.
Read
June 7, 2012a gem
February 27, 2015
A gem to savor.
February 13, 2016
This is a very prettily written book, but despite being slim it felt like a slog and was ultimately an unrewarding read for me
October 27, 2011
I found it very hard to focus on a story which had as little interest and point as this.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews