María Gainza

Really enjoyable book if you like art and art history. Or maybe even if you only kinda like art and find traditional art history boring, because Gainza takes an engaging, companionable approach, her novel’s narrator intertwining strands from her personal life with a novelist’s talent for insightfully getting across the essence of a person in a few paragraphs, a few anecdotes, a few pages - such as in Rothko’s embittering realization during lunch at the Four Seasons that his wealthy collectors neither see nor care what his artwork is trying to communicate, or in Lautrec’s wistful desire to visit Japan, a land where he’s heard the men are as short as he is.

This blend of autofiction and art history takes a work of art on public display in Buenos Aires as each chapter’s center, so the book feels solidly grounded in the author’s Argentina even as it ranges across centuries and continents. Most of the artists are well known internationally but a few are local as well.… (mehr)

This book had so much potential. I loved the idea of it. An art lover in Buenos Aires reveals aspects of her own life through her relationship to art. Her story is interwoven with anecdotal tales of the artists that are meaningful to her.

I just finished, and really wavered between 3 and 4 stars, but in the end had to settle upon three.

My art background is nil, but I actually loved the anecdotal stories about the artists. It would have been great if the book had been illustrated, but it didn't really matter as I felt the descriptions were enough. A less lazy reader can google all the works and that might add another dimension to their enjoyment of the book.

Where I'm a little less enthusiastic is whether the main character/narrator was really developed enough. At first, I felt the book was working. We learn of her relationship with her mother being difficult. She speaks of her unusual marriage. But as the book progressed, I felt she became less known to me as opposed to more. I just had too many unanswered questions about her, and at the end, I didn't really feel anything when she ultimately falls ill. The emotional impact was just lacking for me, but the stories of the artists were educational and intriguing. I felt like I learned a lot from this short novel about a subject where my knowledge is very limited.

Glad I read it, and I would recommend it (especially to those interested in art), but it felt more like short stories (which I do love) than a novel to me . . .… (mehr)