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Masters and Servants
With his debut into English, 'Masters and Servants' captures the intimate and intricate detail work of five artists' lives through exquisitely crafted fiction. The Arles postmaster Roulin reveals Van Gogh's yellow countryside. Spanish women haunt the corners of Goya's Madrid, singsonging his eccentricities. Watteau's secret erotic portraiture captivates a parish priest. Lorentino, an obscure disciple of Piero della Francesca, daydreams of his master while bartering one of his finest paintings for a pig. A stranger spies on Claude Lorrain, becoming mesmerised by the painter's relationship to his landscape, slowly hypnotised by the beauty of the woodlands, as is Lorrain's brush.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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372 people want to read
About the author
Pierre Michon
53 books116 followersPierre Michon’s writing has received great acclaim in his native France; his work has been translated into a dozen languages. He was winner of the Prix France Culture in 1984 for his first book, Small Lives, the 1996 Prix de la Ville de Paris for his body of work, and the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française. His works include Masters and Sons, The Origin of the World, and Rimbaud's Son.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 27, 2024
Masters and Servants is a contemplation on human relationships… But it is much deeper than that… It is about the nature of art, reason and fame… And every tale is like a colourful painting.
Five artists and five models… Five masters and five servants…
Vincent van Gogh and Joseph Roulin…
Francisco Goya and Maja…
Jean-Antoine Watteau and the curate of Nogent…
Famous artists bequeath to the future not just their glorious paintings but also the images of those whom they painted.
Five artists and five models… Five masters and five servants…
Vincent van Gogh and Joseph Roulin…
In what little van Gogh wrote about him, it’s clear that Roulin was alcoholic and republican – which is to say that his words and beliefs were republican, and he was, in fact, an alcoholic – with an atheistic deportment that the absinthe encouraged; he was a big talker, voluble and occasionally profane, but a good guy, and his fraternal behavior toward the suffering painter made this clear.
Francisco Goya and Maja…
Francisco leans toward me, tells me, squinting, that with some dove feathers and some pink roses we’d have an angel presiding over a paradiso: he described it all, cattlemen, drunk painters, wasps fallen in wine, trees of paradise, and me with him, at his side. He laughs, his head in his arms on the table, amongst impeccable black hats and the carafes. He’s had a lot to drink.
Jean-Antoine Watteau and the curate of Nogent…
My face was painted over two mornings, in the icy little temple I have already mentioned. The painting was all but finished before I had even arrived: it was of a tall Pierrot with his arms at his sides, standing there stupidly. What can I say? I haven’t any ambitions now, but on my way there I had hoped, for once, to find myself in the pose of prelate, or perhaps as a prophet…
Famous artists bequeath to the future not just their glorious paintings but also the images of those whom they painted.
January 14, 2022
The junction between artist and subject; or, how we might view art. There's always a story, no?
One of them had been stationed there by the Post Office, arbitrarily or perhaps according to his own wishes; the other had gone there because of the books he had read; because it was The South, where he believed that money might go further, the woman were more favorable, and that the skies were excessive, Japanese. Because he was running away. Chance dropped them into Arles, in 1888.
Alcoholic, Michon writes of Joseph Roulin, with an atheistic deportment that the absinthe encouraged. . . . He wore a great beard, shaped like an axe, rich to paint, an entire forest; . . . And so Van Gogh, who we know, painted the postman, and his family, and fairly often. They became companions. And Roulin regretted that such violent appetites had been locked into a man so agonizingly unlucky; . . .
----- ----- -----
; he thought about muddy princesses and limpid flesh, about the desire one has for women and how it disappears when you paint them, how it becomes vulnerable, fallen, inglorious, so valiant and carefully made to mask their terror;
So, Francisco Goya painted a portrait of his wife, Josefa, whom perhaps he loved, Michon writes; yet he also implants some doubt; she was his entrée, through her relations, into the world of art, paying art. Yet, we meet Goya here inchoate, not yet a master; a little fatso. What do we see of the artist in the subject, whom he knocked up ten times for nothing, except that one time when little Javier was born, Javier who wasn't to rush double-time to join his brothers and sisters in the grave, lifeless despite their perfect forms, completed like some painting . . .
A single portrait then: this portrait, which she kept devoutly, which I saw in her room, and before which she was sitting with her hands clasped in front of her and with the same timid smile . . .*
----- ----- -----
I am the curate of Nogent, announces the ungainly creature above. Stepping out of church one morning he is approached by the artist Jean-Antoine Watteau: He apologized for the frivolity of his request; he was in need of a face for one of his big canvases, a face like mine. . . . He insisted, charmingly, flattering me with explanations of how deplorably dull I was; . . .
----- ----- -----
The fourth tale is of the artist Lorentino; poor he is and with a large family. Nonetheless, his little children begged him to kill this pig that he didn't have, as was done at this time of year and elsewhere. A sleepless night.
The next day a farmer comes to his door: to fulfill a promise he needed a portrait of Saint Martin, but to fulfill payment on this portrait he had nothing more than a pig weighing ten pounds. All well-off artists had shooed him away. Lorentino was his last hope.
There are other paintings of Saint Martin, in battle-gear, bending down and giving his cloak to a beggar; El Greco and others. This one went to a church, a promise fulfilled. It hung there until a cannonball made a hole in the sacristy, and the saint was moved to cover it. This for ten years; fifty. And as the back of the wood of this painted surface was cooking ceaselessly, was taking in water and freezing, the image began to warp and became horrible, or laughable;
The heavens afflict those things they love.
----- ----- -----
There is a fifth story, invented I think. I won't tell it. Instead, this:
The translator, Wyatt Mason, was doing an independent study in translation in Paris, 1990. He was told to pick a French author who had not been translated into English. Well, everyone said Michon, Michon. And so he translated the first one, The Life of Joseph Roulin. Publishing houses were dismissive in their rejections.
Mason was an admirer of Guy Davenport, however, and knew Davenport had written a book about writing that had often been dismissed as weird, at first. Off it went, and Davenport replied, saying Mason should send it on my recommendation to the following publishers.
And there you have it. Except this: this is a book that joins an artist with a subject, an explanation in combination. A translation, maybe. Mason, the translator, drew this face of Michon, a man who saw beyond the canvas:
___________
*My wikiresearch unfortunately disagrees with the story and, instead, states the belief that the model was a distant relative of Goya's who resembled his wife, and that the painting was done after Josefa was deceased. Perhaps a better story.
One of them had been stationed there by the Post Office, arbitrarily or perhaps according to his own wishes; the other had gone there because of the books he had read; because it was The South, where he believed that money might go further, the woman were more favorable, and that the skies were excessive, Japanese. Because he was running away. Chance dropped them into Arles, in 1888.
Alcoholic, Michon writes of Joseph Roulin, with an atheistic deportment that the absinthe encouraged. . . . He wore a great beard, shaped like an axe, rich to paint, an entire forest; . . . And so Van Gogh, who we know, painted the postman, and his family, and fairly often. They became companions. And Roulin regretted that such violent appetites had been locked into a man so agonizingly unlucky; . . .
----- ----- -----
; he thought about muddy princesses and limpid flesh, about the desire one has for women and how it disappears when you paint them, how it becomes vulnerable, fallen, inglorious, so valiant and carefully made to mask their terror;
So, Francisco Goya painted a portrait of his wife, Josefa, whom perhaps he loved, Michon writes; yet he also implants some doubt; she was his entrée, through her relations, into the world of art, paying art. Yet, we meet Goya here inchoate, not yet a master; a little fatso. What do we see of the artist in the subject, whom he knocked up ten times for nothing, except that one time when little Javier was born, Javier who wasn't to rush double-time to join his brothers and sisters in the grave, lifeless despite their perfect forms, completed like some painting . . .
A single portrait then: this portrait, which she kept devoutly, which I saw in her room, and before which she was sitting with her hands clasped in front of her and with the same timid smile . . .*
----- ----- -----
I am the curate of Nogent, announces the ungainly creature above. Stepping out of church one morning he is approached by the artist Jean-Antoine Watteau: He apologized for the frivolity of his request; he was in need of a face for one of his big canvases, a face like mine. . . . He insisted, charmingly, flattering me with explanations of how deplorably dull I was; . . .
----- ----- -----
The fourth tale is of the artist Lorentino; poor he is and with a large family. Nonetheless, his little children begged him to kill this pig that he didn't have, as was done at this time of year and elsewhere. A sleepless night.
The next day a farmer comes to his door: to fulfill a promise he needed a portrait of Saint Martin, but to fulfill payment on this portrait he had nothing more than a pig weighing ten pounds. All well-off artists had shooed him away. Lorentino was his last hope.
There are other paintings of Saint Martin, in battle-gear, bending down and giving his cloak to a beggar; El Greco and others. This one went to a church, a promise fulfilled. It hung there until a cannonball made a hole in the sacristy, and the saint was moved to cover it. This for ten years; fifty. And as the back of the wood of this painted surface was cooking ceaselessly, was taking in water and freezing, the image began to warp and became horrible, or laughable;
The heavens afflict those things they love.
----- ----- -----
There is a fifth story, invented I think. I won't tell it. Instead, this:
The translator, Wyatt Mason, was doing an independent study in translation in Paris, 1990. He was told to pick a French author who had not been translated into English. Well, everyone said Michon, Michon. And so he translated the first one, The Life of Joseph Roulin. Publishing houses were dismissive in their rejections.
Mason was an admirer of Guy Davenport, however, and knew Davenport had written a book about writing that had often been dismissed as weird, at first. Off it went, and Davenport replied, saying Mason should send it on my recommendation to the following publishers.
And there you have it. Except this: this is a book that joins an artist with a subject, an explanation in combination. A translation, maybe. Mason, the translator, drew this face of Michon, a man who saw beyond the canvas:
___________
*My wikiresearch unfortunately disagrees with the story and, instead, states the belief that the model was a distant relative of Goya's who resembled his wife, and that the painting was done after Josefa was deceased. Perhaps a better story.
October 8, 2014
This tasted good, and was nutritious too. I hadn’t previously heard of Pierre Michon before picking this up the other day, but the Guy Davenport blurb on the back, along with the look and feel of the book, and the fact that there was another book about Rimbaud by Michon next to this one on the shelf, as well as one published by Archipelago books, was enough for me to make an impulse purchase.
The book somehow exuded compact smartness, while the drawing fragment on the cover suggested a spare emotional depth. I couldn’t wait to read it, it just looked and felt so good in my hands, and the introduction detailing the translator’s efforts to get it published in the mid-1990’s, with Guy Davenport as a key player, made me even more eager, more hungry.
It tasted good, and was nutritious too. Michon’s writing has a passionate headlong quality, but gets emotionally and syntactically convoluted at times. These two convolutions often occur simultaneously, one mirroring the other, which amplifies Michon’s passion and draws the reader further in. His writing is remarkable in its ability to create tangible living settings and landscapes, transporting the reader back to specific times and places, while creating timeless characters as if from the inside out, via their inner impulses.
This is a series of five novellas/stories, which while not explicitly linked are linked by common themes, and when read in the order offered create a larger work of ebbing and flowing emotional tides and gravity and lightness. The main theme is the intersection of art with life, either the life of the artist, an apprentice, or an “artless” companion. Also explored are themes of what drives someone to create art, and what impact that art has on the world at large. These themes are explored through the intimate acquaintance of Van Gogh with Joseph Roulin the postman, who he painted numerous times; through Goya’s relationship with the shadow of Velazquez; through Watteau’s relationship with his model for his famous painting Pierrot; through a minor Renaissance painter and his auspicious gift of a pig from a farmer; and through a brief disciple of Claude Lorraine’s who once witnessed Claude’s lady pissing in the woods.
All of these tales have a concentrated emotion, and all are mesmerizing, though the Goya somewhat eluded me even as it mesmerized. Standouts are the Roulin, which manages a new angle on Van Gogy and is nearly a tearjerker as Roulin struggles through his life and struggles with selling off his portrait to a nice but unscrupulous dealer; the Watteau in its portrayal of an emotionally flippant and confused painter and his partially wasted life; and the Renaissance painter and his pig which is inspirational (as well as devastating) in its delineation of a reason to paint even as it’s known the painting (indeed all painting) eventually ends up on the trash heap.
I look forward to reading more Michon. Indeed, I returned to the bookstore today and bought two more of his books.
The book somehow exuded compact smartness, while the drawing fragment on the cover suggested a spare emotional depth. I couldn’t wait to read it, it just looked and felt so good in my hands, and the introduction detailing the translator’s efforts to get it published in the mid-1990’s, with Guy Davenport as a key player, made me even more eager, more hungry.
It tasted good, and was nutritious too. Michon’s writing has a passionate headlong quality, but gets emotionally and syntactically convoluted at times. These two convolutions often occur simultaneously, one mirroring the other, which amplifies Michon’s passion and draws the reader further in. His writing is remarkable in its ability to create tangible living settings and landscapes, transporting the reader back to specific times and places, while creating timeless characters as if from the inside out, via their inner impulses.
This is a series of five novellas/stories, which while not explicitly linked are linked by common themes, and when read in the order offered create a larger work of ebbing and flowing emotional tides and gravity and lightness. The main theme is the intersection of art with life, either the life of the artist, an apprentice, or an “artless” companion. Also explored are themes of what drives someone to create art, and what impact that art has on the world at large. These themes are explored through the intimate acquaintance of Van Gogh with Joseph Roulin the postman, who he painted numerous times; through Goya’s relationship with the shadow of Velazquez; through Watteau’s relationship with his model for his famous painting Pierrot; through a minor Renaissance painter and his auspicious gift of a pig from a farmer; and through a brief disciple of Claude Lorraine’s who once witnessed Claude’s lady pissing in the woods.
All of these tales have a concentrated emotion, and all are mesmerizing, though the Goya somewhat eluded me even as it mesmerized. Standouts are the Roulin, which manages a new angle on Van Gogy and is nearly a tearjerker as Roulin struggles through his life and struggles with selling off his portrait to a nice but unscrupulous dealer; the Watteau in its portrayal of an emotionally flippant and confused painter and his partially wasted life; and the Renaissance painter and his pig which is inspirational (as well as devastating) in its delineation of a reason to paint even as it’s known the painting (indeed all painting) eventually ends up on the trash heap.
I look forward to reading more Michon. Indeed, I returned to the bookstore today and bought two more of his books.
December 22, 2015
I can best praise this by saying that, of the books I read in 2015, only Eugene Onegin surprised and delighted me more.
April 11, 2014
I'm kind of at a loss for how to describe this. It's 5 portraits of various painters, some of them famous, some of them the disciples of the famous. Each one is told from a beguiling outside perspective, sometimes by a famous subject (the weirdly poignant Joseoph Roulin of Van Gogh fame), sometimes by a person who merely seems to observe them in the course of their work, sometimes the narrator seems to be Michon himself.
These are complex profiles, full of rich allusions to European painting, it's history, and the challenges it presents to the lives of those who practice it, and animated by a series of repeating motifs that at times are confined to each tale but which occasionally bleed over to the other stories. Michon's prose has a dense, almost babbling quality (Wyatt Mason deserves major credit, translating these must have been excruciatingly hard).
None of these stories is longer than 50 pages but each feels as densely alive and as intricately wrought as a full novel. Michon seems to be a part of that European tradition of writers who don't merely write about the past but dive full bore into it with an intense level of psychological insight that makes it feel less like your reading a fiction and more like your listening to a ghost speak (think W.G. Sebald, Marguerite Yourcenar, etc), which is something I really tend to enjoy. I'm giving this maximum star-age because I think it deserves more attention.
These are complex profiles, full of rich allusions to European painting, it's history, and the challenges it presents to the lives of those who practice it, and animated by a series of repeating motifs that at times are confined to each tale but which occasionally bleed over to the other stories. Michon's prose has a dense, almost babbling quality (Wyatt Mason deserves major credit, translating these must have been excruciatingly hard).
None of these stories is longer than 50 pages but each feels as densely alive and as intricately wrought as a full novel. Michon seems to be a part of that European tradition of writers who don't merely write about the past but dive full bore into it with an intense level of psychological insight that makes it feel less like your reading a fiction and more like your listening to a ghost speak (think W.G. Sebald, Marguerite Yourcenar, etc), which is something I really tend to enjoy. I'm giving this maximum star-age because I think it deserves more attention.
January 5, 2023
Five stories written about famous and not so famous artists. Michon's writing is absolutely spectacular. His elegant prose is very dense, sometimes bordering on incomprehensible, but always magnificent. The first story, The Life of Joseph Roulen, was probably the most difficult to read because of the long convoluted sentences he used, some almost an entire page long, that told the story of Vincent Van Gogh from the vantage point of a man who modeled for him many times. The second story, God is Never Through, was about Francisco Goya: the third story, Io Mi Voglio Divertir, was about Jean-Antoine Watteau, also written from the view point of a man who modeled, that was told, in a very unflattering description, of a very egotistical man: the fourth story, Trust This Sign, was about Lorentino d'Andrea, and was mostly about his struggles and how he made a painting in exchange for a pig: and the last story, The King of the Wood, about Gian Domenico Desiderii and, probably, the most magnificently written of the stories in the book, was about his youth as a poor sheepherder and how he watched painters out in the field. All of the books I've read by Pierre Michon have been sensational but this one I especially liked because it was about art and I spent almost my entire adult life in the art world, both as an artist and a gallery owner.
March 22, 2015
Snatching a few pages of this book on late nights, lying in bed, sometimes made me feel terribly lonely. It is not hard to imagine how restless the life of an artist is,but here, their lives are laid out like sad tales of rootlessness, a never-ending search for perfection, of sudden, accelerated aging and a palpable sense of memento-mori.
The language was beautiful at times, but there were many times Michon wanted to hide behind a dense fog, and I felt like I had to struggle to find his words - many times I gave up.
It was a difficult book to read, but enriching. Anyone wanting a glimpse in the heart of the artist or his subjects, should give it a try.
The language was beautiful at times, but there were many times Michon wanted to hide behind a dense fog, and I felt like I had to struggle to find his words - many times I gave up.
It was a difficult book to read, but enriching. Anyone wanting a glimpse in the heart of the artist or his subjects, should give it a try.
November 8, 2015
What a beautiful little book this is.
The author has been cited as one of the best living French writers but - as so often in our Anglophile dominated world - is relatively unknown outside his natural habitat. This is a literary tragedy because his delightful prose poetry deserves to reach a far wider audience. Thanks then to Wyatt Mason for this masterful translation - another of the unsung heroes of modern fiction,helping to bring such works to the attention of those like me who, despite considered capable in several languages, struggle to read entire books in their native tongue. Okay I'm lazy.
Margellos World Republic is a wonderful series of books and this is no exception. The five vignettes included here present insights into the lives of painters and their associates, some famous some lesser known. Other reviewers have enthused over the chapters featuring Van Gogh and Goya but the ones that captured my attention were those featuring the lesser lights - perhaps because I was drawn to the quality of the prose itself rather than the subject matter. The chapter "Trust this sign" for instance is concerned with Lorentino, a little known disciple of Piero della Francesca. This poor painter is mentioned in the seminal "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters" by Vasari, but does not warrant an individual entry. Michon even suggests that perhaps Vasari is not infallible and goes on to paint an impassioned prose portrait of this disillusioned painter that is tender and quite astonishing in its conception. Michon possesses a powerful imagination.
The final chapter "King of the Wood" is incredibly poignant and moving. I found myself enchanted by the authors description of an encounter between the twelve year old farm boy narrator and a girl of the nobility squatting to piss at the side of the road. His description of Mantua as "a sad town, the sort that always seems muddy even when the sun is out" or the way he describes the encounter with this celestial maiden as a visitation "yes, this was some other flesh, another species altogether" when he contrasts it with the women of his acquaintance - "young heavyset girls smelling of sheep".
This surely is a book I shall return to again and again. An absolutely delightful private treasure. It's writing that is perhaps dense and impenetrable at times but rewards keen attention. There is bounteous truth and beauty to be found among its pages, and for that the effort is worthwhile. Devotees of the art of these geniuses - and lesser mortals - and those of us who find painters irresistible, will enjoy this immensely.
It's remarkable after all this time to find that such a writer still exists today, an author whose prose can lift ones soul. This is the highest form of literature, it's writing for its own sake. Magnificent.
Reading Michon is addictive and I hope to discover more of his works being translated soon. Please?
The author has been cited as one of the best living French writers but - as so often in our Anglophile dominated world - is relatively unknown outside his natural habitat. This is a literary tragedy because his delightful prose poetry deserves to reach a far wider audience. Thanks then to Wyatt Mason for this masterful translation - another of the unsung heroes of modern fiction,helping to bring such works to the attention of those like me who, despite considered capable in several languages, struggle to read entire books in their native tongue. Okay I'm lazy.
Margellos World Republic is a wonderful series of books and this is no exception. The five vignettes included here present insights into the lives of painters and their associates, some famous some lesser known. Other reviewers have enthused over the chapters featuring Van Gogh and Goya but the ones that captured my attention were those featuring the lesser lights - perhaps because I was drawn to the quality of the prose itself rather than the subject matter. The chapter "Trust this sign" for instance is concerned with Lorentino, a little known disciple of Piero della Francesca. This poor painter is mentioned in the seminal "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters" by Vasari, but does not warrant an individual entry. Michon even suggests that perhaps Vasari is not infallible and goes on to paint an impassioned prose portrait of this disillusioned painter that is tender and quite astonishing in its conception. Michon possesses a powerful imagination.
The final chapter "King of the Wood" is incredibly poignant and moving. I found myself enchanted by the authors description of an encounter between the twelve year old farm boy narrator and a girl of the nobility squatting to piss at the side of the road. His description of Mantua as "a sad town, the sort that always seems muddy even when the sun is out" or the way he describes the encounter with this celestial maiden as a visitation "yes, this was some other flesh, another species altogether" when he contrasts it with the women of his acquaintance - "young heavyset girls smelling of sheep".
This surely is a book I shall return to again and again. An absolutely delightful private treasure. It's writing that is perhaps dense and impenetrable at times but rewards keen attention. There is bounteous truth and beauty to be found among its pages, and for that the effort is worthwhile. Devotees of the art of these geniuses - and lesser mortals - and those of us who find painters irresistible, will enjoy this immensely.
It's remarkable after all this time to find that such a writer still exists today, an author whose prose can lift ones soul. This is the highest form of literature, it's writing for its own sake. Magnificent.
Reading Michon is addictive and I hope to discover more of his works being translated soon. Please?
July 5, 2015
I bought this book for the plane trip from Detroit to Los Angeles. And I pretty much read the entire (not long) book on the plane trip. Five separate stories that deal with the same subject matter. Not exactly a page turner, but nevertheless a very detailed account of the borderline between the artist (painter) and everyone else. In other words, those who do, and those who don't. Pierre Michon dwells into European history like if it still exists in his backyard - yet all the tales are quite contemporary, even though it took place hundreds of years ago. The writing is fairly dense, so it is not easy to grasp all at once. I had to re-read certain pages to make it sink in. I can't imagine that this was an easy book to translate from French to English, but I think Wyatt Mason did a remarkable job in capturing the author's voice. This is a worthwhile book for those who paint, because the text gives that medium an extra presence or thought. Not for everyone, but for those who are curious, a great exploration in the psychic world of those who are painters, and their viewers.
October 24, 2022
sonunda bitti, sıkıcıydı ama dayanıklıyımdır :)
Read
March 9, 2025Este pequeño libro llevaba unos años en mi lista de posibles lecturas, recomendada por un usuario del entonces twitter que sigue siendo un referente intelectual a día de hoy para mi (grande, Guillermo de Letras Corsarias). Ha sido una lectura corta pero intensa y la conclusión es: ¿de verdad hay tantas palabras en el diccionario? ¿Cómo puede una persona tener esa sensibilidad, esa capacidad para describir un cuadro u otro y ficcionar en torno a él, con un arsenal de palabras a su alcance que parece imposible?
Han sido especialmente satisfactorias las lecturas de los ensayos dedicados a Van Gogh y Goya. Al fin y al cabo, son los pintores cuya obra conozco mejor de los que Michon trata en el libro. Además, la cercanía, el cariño, la familiaridad con la que habla de ellos y su contexto permiten bucear en ello con soltura y emoción. Me recuerda, por cómo rebosa de literatura y erudición, al Danubio de Claudio Magris.
Como lector, un gozo.
Como persona que escribe a veces, una envidia positiva.
Han sido especialmente satisfactorias las lecturas de los ensayos dedicados a Van Gogh y Goya. Al fin y al cabo, son los pintores cuya obra conozco mejor de los que Michon trata en el libro. Además, la cercanía, el cariño, la familiaridad con la que habla de ellos y su contexto permiten bucear en ello con soltura y emoción. Me recuerda, por cómo rebosa de literatura y erudición, al Danubio de Claudio Magris.
Como lector, un gozo.
Como persona que escribe a veces, una envidia positiva.
April 13, 2024
library copy. got it because i loved rimbaud the son so much. this guy is such a genius. i kept thinking: im so lucky to be reading this amazing book.
July 25, 2020
Curse the world, it will reward you.
That is how the book ends. Will I also feel rewarded, I wonder, if I curse the book enough?
This may be the most broken book I've read for quite a while. The problem is multi-layered. First, the kindle version has many editorial errors. For instance, in van Gogh's story, Arles becomes Aries; in Goya's story, Prado becomes Pardo. It is not just a single case: almost in every occasion the spelling is wrong, and these words occurs quite frequently in the stories to annoy the reader. I have checked the sample pages of the paperback version and it doesn't seem to have the problem, therefore it's very likely due to some errors in scanning and auto-correction procedures. Sure enough, these two words won't be the only errors, they are just more obvious. That create a difficult situation that when I encountered some weird word usage or capitalization, I cannot be sure it's intended by author himself or again another editorial error.
Second, the translation. In the introduction the translator mentioned that it took him eighteen months to translate the first (van Gogh) story, which spans about 60 pages. When I read this, I think, sure, he might do it intermittently and casually so that's fine. Now I doubt it actually reflects the translator's tendency of overdoing it. The flow in English (the target language) is so fragmental, that I cannot be sure it's all due to the original text, or partly because the translator trying too hard and in the end making the narrative unnatural. I may need to read another this author's book -- which is translated by another translator -- to investigate.
That is, if I still have the courage to try the author again. The third and potentially the largest problem is the author's writing style. Some other reviewers praise the author can recreate the time and space for the reader, I vehemently disagree. Let's look into a description about painting process:
... And he did it in the old style or the new, the gothic manner or the antique, which seemed somehow fresher, with the soft Siennese touch or the Florentine precision, all shose thing that don't matter; ...
So here you go, the author's typical "technique". By flooding the book with this kind of "A or B" statements, he basically lists all possible, usually unnecessary or even irrelevant details he can digress and imagine without any certainty. Granted, a fiction trying to reconstruct some art history anecdote will need some speculative imaginations, but that's different from listing all possibilities. Ironically, he doesn't seem to care too much about historical accuracy: words like Manhattan or Floridian are used when describing European scenes, and this is how frescoes are painted, as if drying is not an issue:
... you do nothing for hours until suddenly you rise, extending a theological hand that blesses the wall with a single stroke, and once again sit, meditating, frowning, discontent, perhaps that's all painting is, the perfection of a gesture and instant Revelation.
Instead of a cornucopia of beauty, this book is more like a masturbative, mawkish, murmuring mess.
March 22, 2021
La vida de Joseph Roulin 5/5.
October 13, 2021
Michon, an "acclaimed" contemporary French writer, is lost in translation here.
Michon imagines the lives of five painters (Van Gogh, Goya, etc.), offering literary portraits intended to bring them alive for a modern audience. While a nice conceit, the written style hinders rather than helping. I often found myself lost at the end of long, layered, circuitous passages full of hesitations ("perhaps" is a key word for Michon). This may be a difference between the writerly styles appreciated by French- and English-speaking audiences (since Michon is evidently highly esteemed by the former), or it may reflect the challenges of translating his work into English. I am puzzled that other Goodreads reviewers, after acknowledging the difficulty of the text, awarded four- and five-star reviews.
An example of two sentences from the portrait of Goya (and while it is difficult to judge a text taken out of context, it is also hard to see why this is first-rate literature):
"The prince of the Bon Retrait, the quiet Sevillian who now is no more than the shadow of a cypress or the sound of a clock in the gardens of the Buen Retiro, Velazquez, walking in the gardens of the Buen Retiro, airing his old cloak in the cool of the evening, he wanted to make the grade too. And perhaps his personal prince, his secluded master was the painter-duke of Flanders who did bloody sides of beef and women so white, lost in the Fall, growing fat off the Fall, or on the contrary this Greek from Toledo who rowed against the current, who painted so as to fall less, and all of whose flesh returns to its source, is barely flesh, wings, fraises of lace, air and rustling of air; perhaps it was Titian, whose sunbeams are pure gold, or Tintoretto, who made his out of absinthe; and since he held neither gold nor absinthe in his hand, only perhaps a bit of Earthly honey, perhaps that is why he broke down at night beneath the cypresses of Buen Retiro, something that made him abandon all words that weren't sycophantic, that made him eat from the hand of a king and made him accept these mercenary titles, Great Chambermaid, Great Turnkey, Great Master of Palatial Lodging, Knight of Santiago, such that at last he succeeded in some way, he who failed to conceive an unbridled Fall or even the flight."
Michon imagines the lives of five painters (Van Gogh, Goya, etc.), offering literary portraits intended to bring them alive for a modern audience. While a nice conceit, the written style hinders rather than helping. I often found myself lost at the end of long, layered, circuitous passages full of hesitations ("perhaps" is a key word for Michon). This may be a difference between the writerly styles appreciated by French- and English-speaking audiences (since Michon is evidently highly esteemed by the former), or it may reflect the challenges of translating his work into English. I am puzzled that other Goodreads reviewers, after acknowledging the difficulty of the text, awarded four- and five-star reviews.
An example of two sentences from the portrait of Goya (and while it is difficult to judge a text taken out of context, it is also hard to see why this is first-rate literature):
"The prince of the Bon Retrait, the quiet Sevillian who now is no more than the shadow of a cypress or the sound of a clock in the gardens of the Buen Retiro, Velazquez, walking in the gardens of the Buen Retiro, airing his old cloak in the cool of the evening, he wanted to make the grade too. And perhaps his personal prince, his secluded master was the painter-duke of Flanders who did bloody sides of beef and women so white, lost in the Fall, growing fat off the Fall, or on the contrary this Greek from Toledo who rowed against the current, who painted so as to fall less, and all of whose flesh returns to its source, is barely flesh, wings, fraises of lace, air and rustling of air; perhaps it was Titian, whose sunbeams are pure gold, or Tintoretto, who made his out of absinthe; and since he held neither gold nor absinthe in his hand, only perhaps a bit of Earthly honey, perhaps that is why he broke down at night beneath the cypresses of Buen Retiro, something that made him abandon all words that weren't sycophantic, that made him eat from the hand of a king and made him accept these mercenary titles, Great Chambermaid, Great Turnkey, Great Master of Palatial Lodging, Knight of Santiago, such that at last he succeeded in some way, he who failed to conceive an unbridled Fall or even the flight."
November 8, 2023
Que maestría la de Pierre Michon. En este libro nos regala, por qué es un presente él Michon nos hace, cinco textos que enaltece la vida de otros artistas, en este caso, pintores.
En estas biografías, que pueden estar llenas de ficción o no, y que al final de cuenta no importa, por qué la grandeza en la que Michon narra, es imposible de dejar.
Todas estas vidas contadas no por los protagonistas, sino por personajes periféricos, que ven al artista de lejos, un vecino, un aprendiz, por ejemplo.
Unas biografías fragmentadas, sucintas pero intensas en una prosa llena de colores, y frases llenas de música.
January 11, 2023
#üstatlarvehizmetkârlar konusu bakımından ilgimi çektiği için merak ettiğim bir kitaptı. yazarın anlatım tarzından mı yoksa çeviriden mi kaynaklı bilmiyorum ama okuma süreci tam bir işkenceye dönüştü. sonuç: hayal kırıklığı
August 20, 2017
Jean d'Ormesson a déclaré que Pierre Michon était le plus grand écrivain français contemporain. Il suffit de lire ce livre pour s'en convaincre.
October 17, 2018
Se gana las cuatro estrellas por el primer relato, el dedicado a Van Gogh. Con los demás perdí un poco el interés.
July 31, 2024
Decided not to read. Wasn’t in the mood and a tremendously long cue.
Read
July 29, 2011Un des plus beaux Michon - tout ce qui touche à Watteau m'excite particulièrement, mais le texte central est vraiment un chef-d'oeuvre, variation autour du Gilles et de tableaux imaginaires... Extraordinaire.
September 29, 2013
Very difficult to read ( at least for me). Nevertheless a great book. You can feel how difficult it is to paint as well as surviving on different environments and situations by doing it. A fiction; however, tasting very much like reality.
October 13, 2014
My god. My god.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews