Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels

by Toby Ferris

Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes , an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist’s work, and a moving and intimate memoir.

In 2012, facing the death of his father and impending fatherhood, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down and look at—in situ—every painting still in existence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most influential and important artist of Northern Renaissance painting. The result of that pursuit is a remarkable journey through major European cities and across continents. As Ferris takes a keen analytical eye to the paintings, each piece brings new revelations about Bruegel’s art, and gives way to meditations on mortality, fatherhood, and life. Ferris conjures a whole world to which most of us have probably lost the key, and in the process teaches us how to look, patiently and curiously, at the world. Short Life in a Strange World is a dazzlingly original and assured debut—a strange and bewitching hybrid of art criticism, philosophical reflection, and poignant memoir. Beautifully illustrated with sixty-six color images, it subtly alters the way we see the world and ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Memoir, History, Travel, Art History, Biography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 25, 2020

Reviews

[Judith Johnson]

Reading is such a subjective activity - when I love a book it's often with a passion, and I'll champion it to friends, re-read it, make it a keeper, and feel a warm glow when I think of it (e.g. Ruth Park's Swords, Crowns and Rings). But when I'm disappointed with a book I can feel quite vehement, and personally affronted, which I admit is fairly ridiculous.

When I spotted this book in my local library in the new non-fiction section I grabbed it, as I am, along with my artist/art teacher son, a big Bruegel the Elder fan, and also a Europhile, so I thought that I might learn more about Bruegel, the paintings, the settings they depict, and where they now hang.

To an extent I did learn something about the paintings, but I found I was slogging through the book, and occasionally speed-reading, something I rarely do, in order to finish it (yep, I'm a completer-finisher where books are concerned). Since I like concrete detail (in poetry too) rather than philosophy and conjecture, and in this case am very much more interested in Bruegel rather than the forensic description of the author's experience of seeing every painting in situ, I guess I was doomed to find it all a bit too cerebral. The author writes: 'I have very little interest in biography. It is not Bruegel's completeness that I am interested in but my own'. Mmm.

Also, I found the links to Toby Ferris's musings on his father quite contrived. I'd rather have read a memoir about this relationship rather than the (to me) tenuous links to the subject of the book.

The publisher's blurb on Goodreads states:
'Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist's work, and a moving and intimate memoir.'

Having read both of the above and found them fascinating and interesting, I can't agree. It's no Patrick Leigh Fermor either. The visits to some of the galleries involved a flight in and out with barely a glimpse of anything other than the painting. I have seen several of the works myself, in Berlin, Naples, New York etc, and would hate to think that I'd used up all that energy just to meet such a narrow aim without taking in at least some of the culture of its host country. I was lucky enough to see Bruegel's The Blind Leading the Blind in the Capodimonte in Naples, but would have been distraught not to have also taken the opportunity to see Caravaggio's magnificent and heart-stopping The Flagellation of Christ. To be fair, maybe the author did.

Art is admittedly hard to write about, but when I have to read a paragraph over several times to get its meaning, I suspect it's not very clearly written. Steinbeck managed it without the reader needing a dictionary close at hand!

Fair play, I did mine a few nuggets though: my ears pricked up when I read that 'The Roma and Sinti refer to the Holocaust as the Porajmos, or the Devouring. No survivor was called to testify at the Nuremberg trials.' That's a book I'd like to read, if anyone's written one on the subject.

Having said all this, I'm sure there are readers whose taste will be wholly satisfied by this book. Robert Macfarlane, he of many devoted followers, provided the back cover blurb:
'I was reminded a little of Sebald, a little of Teju Cole, a little of Geoff Dyer - but mostly I knew I had met a book that kept its own rules and knew its own voice. Oddly beautiful and beautifully odd, it will draw many readers into its strange world, and the short lives that it contains.'

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was eagerly waiting to read this not knowing anything more than it was a book about Bruegel. I vaguely recall an art teacher showing our 8th grade class (probably “Hunters in the Snow) and being bored stiff. That all turned around in old age in having the opportunity of seeing several of his works in person throughout Europe with those in the Prado and Kunsthistorisches Museum being the standouts. You can keep your renaissance Italians and 18th century French painters – the most interesting part of the museums to me are walking into the Flemish masters and beyond Bosch, Bruegel is always the standout.

Mileage out of the book itself will likely hinge on one’s appreciation (or disinterest) in the author’s personal musings, as he weaves both his tale of grappling with his relationship to his father (which likely in some metaphysical sense ties in with his views on Bruegel’s art), the story his journey to most of the locations often with his brother in tow to where the art resides. The reflections on the art itself are worthwhile, the road trip portions are sometimes interesting, but as the story strays into very personal territory my interest waned at times. Having said that, I am glad that the author created this work and it has provided inspiration for future trips and Bruegel sightings.

[Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-4.5/5

[Magnus Jorgensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I’ve taken out from the library in a long time. A character flaw of mine is buying way too many used books, so I’m definitely never lacking something to read. Something about Short Life in a Strange World though really lit a fire under my ass. I came across a copy at The Strand in NYC last year, and it’s been on my mind ever since. So I finally got a copy (shoutout Toronto Public Library) and it floored me, as expected.

It’s at once an art history odyssey through the works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a travelogue of museums and galleries across the new and the old world, and a very personal story of the author’s family, and his grief. Just the title alone drew me in, but the description seems like a book that was written for me. I didn’t know much about the 16th century Dutch painter before picking this up, that’s not what made me interested. I think it was more the endeavour of a normal man just deciding to travel the world on a unnecessarily completist mission to visit all extant Bruegel artworks. Now that’s my idea of a fun literary adventure, no matter what that says about me.

This is Toby Ferris’ first book, but I couldn’t tell. He writes with an erudite ease that glides the reader into these deep explorations of art, history, philosophy, and life itself. If this wasn’t a library book I would have done a lot of underlining, that’s for sure. He writes so evocatively about these artworks and their contexts, but not in an inaccessible or pretentious way. Ferris is not an art historian, and he’s not writing for them either. He’s writing for himself it seems, and I admire that. This is a hard book to classify, but if it sounds at all interesting to you then I really recommend it.

[Chris Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable an interesting read, particularly as a fan of Bruegel's art (which is what drew me, and I guess would draw most people, to the book in the first place.) Discussions about the paintings and Breugel's life are interweaved with a travelogue and the autobiographical musings. By and large this worked well, although the author has a tendency to over-complicate things in an apparent search for profundity. More often that not, this just left me confused rather than enlightened, and I much preferred the sections where he wrote more simply and allowed the reader to draw their own parallels.

The book is nicely illustrated, although for some reason the illustrations - usually details of the paintings rather than the whole thing - were often of some other part of the painting than that being discussed. You will need either another book of the paintings on hand, or to look them up online. There are also a couple of inexcusable errors in layout (or labelling) - where the works of Bruegel and his son (which we are supposed to be comparing) have been transposed.

I'm not sure how much enjoyment someone who is not a fan of Breugel, or who is not familiar with his work, would get out of this book. Ferris has some interesting stories to tell, and the occasional flash of insight, but Sebald he is not (despite what the blurb might tell you.) But if you, like me, enjoy these paintings, then like Icarus you can dive right in.

[Susan Collinsworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

"It is not Bruegel's completeness that I am interested in, but my own." Well, I'm not interested in Toby Ferris or his little thoughts.
There's a genre that consists of the author working their way through something and writing/ blogging about it. They learn things, they are changed by the experience, we are entertained and/or edified, we all come out better people for it. Two examples that come to mind are Julia Powell and Gretchen Hirsch. The former got a book deal and a movie with major stars out of it, and the latter has continued on the path she was on already, albeit hopefully with more followers/ customers than she would have otherwise at this point in her career. Julia Powell's effort was dismissed as a stunt by her target. Gretchen Hirsch improved her own skills and possibly built her base. Idk what Mr Ferris hoped to achieve; I didn't read that far.

The book had a good premise but reeked of being a self-indulgent stunt. You're facing impending fatherhood (meaning, your partner is PREGNANT), and you support her and prepare for the baby by LEAVING TOWN? Do we ever learn how he bankrolled his odyssey? I'll never know because it's on my "abandoned" shelf, and will probably never come down from there. I gave it the one star because at least the book itself was good quality.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything in this world has an explanation...not always available to us. Contexts, common habits of thought are erased over time. p197

We are a social animal, and we cluster around the fires of society for warmth, but in so clustering , we also jostle and riot and steal and kill; we seek advantage and we manipulate; we consume by the gallon...and generate great streams of waste; we grow drunk and fat, petty and small-eyed; we find no answers and live by no code. p191

This is a strange hybrid of of a book. The social commentary spans the centuries of change linking the artist Bruegel to the author, who turned his fascination into a quest. Someone wanting a more formal account may be frustrated by the fact that Short Life in a Strange World is as much about Toby Ferris as it is about Bruegel. Someone as ignorant as I was about his genius will find much of interest to inform them, not least the colour reproductions. Not everybody will be as interested in the many personal anecdotes nor appreciate his lengthy philosophical asides.

When a man encounters a resistance to the fires of self-infatuation he becomes quarrelsome and disturbed.p174

Not only is there nothing new under the sun, it has all been commoditized for your convenience.... one tyranny ...is much like another.. There are, even so...fine gradations of freedom. We are not all equally free and we are not all equally bound. p16

TF was not born into an especially cultured family. His father apparently had never even been in a museum but preferred on occasion to wait for the others in the adjacent bar. Others from his circle of family and friends were occasionally convinced to join him on his quest to view all of the 42 extant authenticated panels of the painter Bruegel, or in some cases by his son who took over his workshop after his fathers early death.

Considering the fair amount of travel this project required, it makes sense that TF concocted a plan with spread sheet and a schedule that had no room for exploration. I was rather appalled that he carried out this agenda on the lines of a military operation. Imagine going all the way to Vienna or Rome to view a single painting, and considering anything else a distraction.

And yet. Evidently he gets it. The evolution of the social dynamic is well represented here and his commentary, regarding the panels or directed at the persistence of social ills is generally lucid even if his methodology seems random.

There are degrees of engagement, disengagement. Survival, on all sorts of levels is a joint endeavour. In isolating ourselves we dehumanize ourselves. We remove ourselves not only from the foolishness of the world, but from it's love, from its communal possibility. p193

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book annoyed me so much that as soon as I finished it I put on my shoes and went for a walk to dump it in a little free library somewhere. I had no expectation going in that it would be just about Bruegel and his work, but I guess I was expecting something in the vein of “Still Life with Oysters and Lemon” by Mark Doty. The author never justifies why he’s visiting all of the Bruegel’s and discussing them, there’s really no sense at all to the structure of using them as a springboard for discussions about himself. The only good part of this book was the high quality images of Bruegel’s paintings, which it should be noted were barely ever properly credited. The caption for the images would be something dumb like “reminds me of the time I was 24 with my shirt unbuttoned wearing aviators and riding my bike around Rome carefree”, I really couldn’t give a shit I would instead prefer to know what painting I’m looking at. The author loves to namedrop his buddies as well and I have to imagine they’re all as smug and arrogant as he is.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meandering book. Over the course of several years and on a tight budget, the author has toured all the museums he can that own and display the paintings of Pieter Bruegel. He seems to have no particular training in art or art history, but I found his comments on the paintings very informative and insightful. He also writes extensively about the adventures he had in traveling to the various museums, mostly in Europe and North America. The reader also learns about his father's life, working at GE in England and, mainly, his retirement. At one point, late in the book, he actually writes,"I do not know that I have all that much coherent to say myself."
This book would be of interest only to Pieter Bruegel fans as I have been since becoming aware of his 16th century works. They have helped me imagine the life of my unknown peasant ancestors. Also, the format is too small for the subject matter. Some, but not all, of the pictures written about in this book are reprinted, but they are too small to examine the details the author has written about. And it took me quite a while to read this book because of all the flipping back and forth to find the pictures as they are described.

[Micki James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an unusual book. The author has made it his mission to visit every Pieter Bruegel the Elder painting in the world.and each chapter takes us to a new one. There are lots of full color illustrations with paintings and details of paintings. But Bruegel packed lots of figures into his paintings so I recommend using a book of his works as an accompanaiment; I used Taschen’s Bruegel the Complete Paintings. So many interesting insights: the snowball (a deft flick of paint) in the Census at Bethlehem, the egg with legs running around because it wants to be eaten in The Land of Cockaigne, the unbowdlerized details revealed by Bruegel the Younger in his copy of The Massacre of the Innocents.
In The Hay Harvest “People are becoming their hats—the small figures at work in the middle ground, for example, where the great straw hats entirely replace heads or faces. And some are becoming baskets of fruit.” There should be more books like this.

[Jeff Hoppa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Put me in mind of William Least Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways." Brueghel through a Ferris filter (the ghost of Ferris's father hovering over all). Ferris is a gifted writer. Occasionally slow going. Maybe appropriate given the subject matter: the passage of time, winter, Breughel, grief, isolation, evanescence. Found myself losing interest then connecting again, hard. This is a meditation more than it is art history, though it's that too, in a way. Found myself wishing entire paintings had been reproduced, rather than details. Were there copyright issues? Found it necessary to Google the paintings being discussed to experience the "full Brueghel."

[Kirk Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author meanders through his physical viewings of the Bruegel panels, including tales of Bruegel, of the paintings, of his own journeys, and his own wandering thoughts. Some truly lovely passages result, and the book is beautiful with its interspersed detail paintings. Some pages have less of an impact, but on the whole it's a quiet, worthwhile journey. Be prepared, however, to have your computer or your high-end smartphone at the ready, as unless you're already intimately familiar with Bruegel, there's a lot of looking up of images to do on your device.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Wonderful Journey

This is the perfect book to escape to. I knew little of Bruegels work before reading it and at the end I felt educated and entertained.

[💾 Coté · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruegel's world is one worth indulging...and living in...

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read.

"At some point in your progress through the world you must experience a magical bereavement."

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toby Ferris's adventure through Europe and the USA to see 42 different paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder is a strange undertaking. His way of weaving in an autobiographical tale of his own family, of coincidence, and of travel is nicely worked although occasionally clunky in its verbosity. The tone too can be robotic, even when personal, which creates an enjoyable dream-like experience of reading the book, as if Ferris was observing himself from outside his body and writing down the uncanny activities of a creature he couldn't fully understand.

It also serves as a nice way to become familiar with the work of Bruegel without reading more technical biographies. Unfortunately, many of the paintings are only reproduced as details (or not at all) so at times it is frustrating to have to leave the book and sift through unreliable internet reproductions to see the details referred to. Still, the book is fun, poetic, and an enjoyable story told in an unusual way.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this one a solid 3 ½ stars.

In this book, we follow the author as he travels to seek out the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. As he does so, he discusses the painter’s life, the lives of other historical figures, his own life, the life of his father, and life and death in general.

I don’t suppose this book is for everyone, being a somewhat slow-moving meander through history and philosophy. Still, as he wrote about each painting, I was fascinated. There is a lot to unpack in a typical Elder Pieter Bruegel painting. He fills them to overflowing with details about everyday life and the life of the mind in his fast-changing age.

If you enjoy visual art and history, you might, like me, have a decent time.

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook, beautifully read by Jot Davies. What an exceptional book this is. I can’t hardly describe the mesmerising effect it had on me as I listened alone in bed, wrapped in the velvety darkness of the small hours, drifting in & out of sleep. Art & Life magically compressed into an intense listening experience, that I will revisit often as I cannot imagine ever getting enough of it. A superb book.
(Having just read the comparison with H is for Hawk & Hare with Amber Eyes, I’d say it knocks both of these fine books into the proverbial cocked hat… & I keep both of these books on my shelves in case I want to reread them.)

[Fee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hefty chonker of a book intertwining reflections on the author's grief over the death of his father and the slow decline of his mother's health with a study of the intricate, allegorical works of Bruegel the Elder. Some really beautiful writing in here: musings about the shifting tides of familial love, the persistence of memory, and, of course, the life and times of the eponymous Pieter Bruegel.

From now on whenever someone calls him Mr Brew-gill, I will softly tut and mutter 'Broy-ghel' under my breath, and think of Toby Ferris.

[Frank Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the books I see everyday, this book cried out to me to be read. So I bought it home and took my time reading it every night and I was sad to have finished it but there are only so may Bruegels in the world and it ended aptly with Toby's quest completed. There are great illustrations and the text meanders but the Bruegels let the center hold for a fulfilling read. It inspired my upcoming trip to the Met in NYC to see the Harvesters by Pieter the Elder. Thanks for reading

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t read many books on art and I had no understanding of the Elder coming into this book.
I learnt a lot here about Peter Brueghel the Elder, the main thing being that the extent that masterpieces were copied in the day & his by his own Son.
I didn’t really warm to Ferris ‘cod’ philosophy and musings on his own Father so my interest in the book came & went really.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just loved this book. Unusual and quirky, but full of learning and insight about the legacy of Bruegel the Elder while simultaneously being a memoir of his own relationship with his parents. The only reason for docking a star was the infuriating habit of just including details from the artworks rather than full reproductions. V frustrating!

[Junior Pope]

Added it

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting take on the paintings by Bruegel.

[Bleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful chronicle, where the personal never blurs the professional, but rather expands it

[Heep · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version and this is probably not the best format. The narration is as excellent as the narrative. I was able to download PDF copies of the Bruegel paintings from the publisher's website. But therein lies the issue - I found it difficult to coordinate the text to associated pictures. The book is still thoughtful and captivating. It opens a window on the work and times of the artists, elder and younger. The remarkable inventiveness, intrigue and brilliance of the art is even more evident to me now. However, I suspect the paper copy would be even more impactful and revealing. This is one of my favorite books about art - how it reflects and helps define culture. Hopefully, I find a softcover in a used bookshop to better explore the story.