The Book of Portraiture: A Novel

by Steve Tomasula

A desert nomad struggles at the close of the ancient world to inscribe himself into life, and centuries later a Renaissance artist attempts to overcome his lowly origins by painting nobility. Throughout Steve Tomasula's arresting tour de force, human beings seek to become what they are by representing it. An early twentieth-century psychoanalyst in search of a cure for sexual neurosis discovers the reflection of his own yearning in a female client, and an accidental community of twenty-first century image-makers connects the pixels to bring their group portrait into focus.Across a canvas that spans centuries, the several narrators of this novel look through the lens of their own time and portray objects of desire in paint, dreams, photography, electronic data, and genetic code. Together their portraits comprise a collage of styles and habits of mind. The Book of Portraiture is a novel about the irrepressible impulse to picture ourselves, and how, through this picturing, we continually re-create what it means to be human. 

 

Genres: Fiction, Art, American

350 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2006

About the author

Steve Tomasula is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2); VAS: An Opera in Flatland (University of Chicago Press), an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution; TOC: A New-Media Novel (FC2/University of Alabama Press, and also as an multimedia app for iPad); and IN & OZ (University of Chicago Press). He is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Once Human: Stories. He most recently edited Conceptualisms: The Anthology of Prose, Poetry, Visual, Found, E- & Hybrid Writing as Contemporary Art, an anthology that brings together a wide variety of written works that stand in relation to traditional literature as conceptual visual art stands to traditional art. Ascension: A Novel, a novel about the end of Nature, is forthcoming this summer.

Incorporating narrative forms of all kinds—from comic books, travelogues, journalism or code to Hong Kong action movies or science reports—Tomasula’s writing has been called a ‘reinvention of the novel.' He lives in Chicago, and can be found at www.stevetomasula.com

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Tomasula's five interlocking chapters cross continents and centuries and aesthetic sensibilities to build to a dazzling and dizzying whole. The Book of Portraiture is one of those rare books that manage to be at once emotionally and theoretically satisfying.
--Brian Evenson

Once again, Steve Tomasula has fabricated an incisive and sly commentary on art's way of being in the world, and the manner in which it intersects, and conflicts, with our perceptions. Virtuosic in its execution, and sublime in its discernment, The Book of Portraiture is an able continuation of Tomasula's ongoing project to redraw the boundaries of contemporary fiction.
--Christopher Sorrentino

Think of Swift, Groddeck, Lautreamont, and George Carlin conversing together in a large wastebin--up to their chins in 21st century sweepings--and you will begin to have an idea of Tomasula's very funny, very smart and downright scary epic vision.
--Rikki Ducornet

...brilliant...the overarching theme of representation and self-portraiture, from cave art to computer code, gives this novel a historical sweep that is breathtaking. Like Joseph McElroy and Richard Powers, Tomasula can make intellectually engaging fiction out of forbidding (to some of us) topics like recombinant genetics, microbiology, computer technology, and other hard sciences, and utilizes the advantages of graphic design to go places even those gifted writers don’t go. … Tomasula’s finest creation yet. --Steven Moore

What Tomasula accomplishes with The Book of Portraiture is exactly the resonance between the history in the novel and the history of the novel. …. Certainly, its concern is with different historical periods, and, certainly it offers itself as a reflection on those periods. But the context of the Spanish Inquisition or 19th century psychopathology is not simply "re-created" through the transparency of narrative prose. Instead …. Tomasula basically re-defines the novel…. —Eugene Thacker, Leonardo

...a grand historical account ... The Book of Portraiture reimagines what the novel, particularly the historical novel, might mean in the digital world, and it does so with verve, gusto, and style. --McKenzie Wark, Bookforum

The Book of Portraiture is itself an ambitious portrait of 21st Century America. More than postmodern, more than naturalistic, Tomasula has composed a visionary novel. --Michael Barrett, ebr

The Book of Portraiture fuses the pleasure of reading great literature--a deeply felt connection with characters who live and breathe and think--with the pleasure of great philosophy--mind-bending propositions that force a reader to re-examine everything she had read and thought before. --Emily Perez, American Letters & Commentary

...Tomasula slides smoothly from one setting to the next…retaining his distinctive splashes of humor and perceptive irony. … Whether questioning the ways we represent ourselves in writing and painting, exploring the act of reconstruction both at a subconscious level and a digital level, or presenting the possibilities of genetic creations, The Book of Portraiture interweaves art and science, the tangible and the theoretical, in a search to explain human desires and how these desires drive us to create and re-create the human image. --Erin Frauenhofer, PopMatters

Tomasula 'bout couldn't come no more highly recommended. Endorsed by all the endorsers of the field. All the endorsers that count, that is. Or at least some of the endorsers (vide supra). But too by the likes of FC2 (this volume and Once Human) ; something called "Ministry of Whimsy Press" (vide In&Oz) ; U of Chicago Press (vide VAS) ; FC2 to the DVD (vide TOC). A three [.3.] page Acknowledgements. And yours truly. For what it's worth. --Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

This book was printed on Cougar Opaque Vellum 70 lb. text and 100lb cover. The fonts used are Juvenis, Legato, Metron, and Tyfa.
Design: Robert P. Sedlack, Jr. --Colophon

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book works on quite a few different levels. Conceptually, it's an exploration of the line between representation, the human subject, and the medium of representation (where, throughout history, there's always some disparity between the actual and the ideal), though Tomasula doesn't confine himself to art, but moves from the birth of language, to classical figures, to psychoanalysis, to modern advertising, to... an attempt to make art with a fetus, where, finally, the line between representation and what's being represented genuinely breaks down. Maybe more interesting though is seeing the stylistic changes that come along with the different stories, which cover an impressive range but always remaining beautifully clear. There's not much plot, which might bother a lot of people, but if you're interested in something more conceptual there's a lot here, as well as some great graphic design.

[Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much to think about and consider. Hopeful a review will follow.

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video review
https://youtu.be/L4YDvpspnrA

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book, but again doesn't follow normalities of plot. It's more of a compendium of modes of understanding people/creating portraits through time. Innovative and fun.

[Debra Blasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read if you want to know what's going on in 21st Century literature.

[Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to read through its various styles, changing with every chapter. I wasn’t equally captivated by all of them, but I appreciate how well adapted the style was to the different historical episodes and how certain elements followed through the book, transcending time. The first and last chapters are my favorites!

[Merzbau · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars

[Krk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only made it half way through. I very much enjoyed the first three parts, especially the section about Vasquez and the Inquisition. Tomasula lost me, however, with the style of the fourth section. Too abstract and too modern for my liking. What I did read however, was exceptionally written.