As I was cleaning out the art section the other day I decided to rearrange all our essays on art.  In this section we have a variety of biographies on artists, books on art and architecture, and books on the contemporary art world.  There are also books that tell the stories of stolen art and reproductions.  Some of my favorite books in this section that I already blogged on are Loot by Sharon Waxman, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson, and The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr.  Here are some more books that I thought looked very interesting!

Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock by Henry Adams.

“The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock-pulsing clouds of color dribbled or flung on canvas-appear to be the polar opposites of Thomas Hart Benton’s murals-rollicking American landscapes peopled by cowboys and steelworkers.  Yet the two artists had a close and intense relationship dating from Pollock’s earliest days in New York.  When Benton, then one of the most famous artists in America, took the young man under his wing.   Benton gave Pollock the only formal training he ever had, and became a mentor and a surrogate father to him” (flap).

The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories by Edward Hollis.

“Altered layer by layer with each generation, buildings become eloquent chronicles of the civilizations they have witnessed.  Their stories, as buildings and captivating as folk tales, span the gulf of history” (flap).

Each building is discussed based on the contemporary style and methods of the time in which they were built.  The Basilica of San Marco in Italy, Gloucester Cathedral in England, and the Notre Dame in Paris, France are among the thirteen historic buildings mentioned.

Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim by Anton Gill.

“Peggy Guggenheim was one of the greatest and most notorious art patrons of the twentieth century.  After her father, Benjamin Guggenheim, went down with the Titanic, the young heiress came into a small fortune and left for Europe.   She married a writer Laurence Vail and joined the American expatriate bohemian set.  Though her many lovers included such lions of art and literature as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst (whom she later married), Yves Tanguy, and Roland Penrose, real love always seemed to elude her.

In the late 1930s, Peggy set up one of the first galleries of modern art in London, quickly acquiring a magnificent selection of works, buying great numbers of paintings from artists fleeing to America after the Nazi invasion of France.  Escaping from Vichy she moved back to New York, where se was a vital part of the new American abstract expressionist movement.

Meticulously researched and filled with colorful incident and boasting a distinguished cast, Anton Gill’s biography reveals the inner drives of a remarkable woman and indefatigable patron of the arts” (flap).

-Sarah Clinton

Okay, well……..Since I had never read Coetzee, I decided to give him a try. So, I picked up Summertime from the literary fiction room since it was staring me right in the face each day I came to work.  What can I say? I was curious! And I very much liked the fact that Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for literature. Then, I went to the foreign fiction shelf and pulled his acceptance speech given in Stockholm in December of  2003 and speed read the first few pages. Surprisingly, Coetzee spends the first few pages referring to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, an unlikely, but interesting  pick, I thought. I digress……

So, back to Summertime, a challenging novel to describe. First of all, the modus operandi exudes cleverness.  The narrator, an English biographer, chooses four women and one man to interview about their relationships with and opinions of the writer Coetzee during the 1970s in South Africa. The women, one a close cousin who spent much time with Coetzee as a child; another, a woman who erroneously suspected him of creating a romantic involvement with her teenage daughter; another, a lover and the fourth a married woman with whom he also had a relationship; and the fifth person interviewed, a male professor who taught with Coetzee at the University of Cape Town, rounds out the unlikely selection.

The biographer, who has already written a basic account of the time each of the interviewees spent with Coetzee, before the reader witnesses the “actual” interview, seems relentless at times in trying to get to the essence of Coetzee, the man himself. Commonalities emerge concerning the basic perceptions that the four women have on the young writer Coetzee. All seem to agree on one basic premise: the young writer is aloof and avoids close heart felt relationships, even though he seems to yearn for them. The reader eventually surmises that part of the problem must lie in the fact that Coetzee’s aging widowed, sick father, probably now in his 70s, is seemingly destitute and lives with his writer son in what is basically a shack with only the merest of modern amenities. One of the most intriguing elements of this complex novel resides in the basic questions that the biograher chooses to ask the four women and one man. He is relentless and  angers the interviewees often for his misconceptions and assumptions, not only about Coetzee, but also about themselves.  They often remind him that he never met the man Coetzee in person!

I had to keep reminding myself that I was not strictly reading an autobiography, nor a biography, but a work of fiction, created by an award winning international writer who created a narrator/biographer to record the writer’s life in the 1970s.  On top of that, Coetzee chose the interviewees, the questions which they would be asked, and even their answers. For that matter, I asked myself, did he fictionalize the people themselves? What if these people, or their exact versions, never existed, but are simply compilations of people he wished he had known or with whom he dreamed that he had relationships? After all, isn’t it a writer’s prerogative to rewrite “the truth”? Maybe he did not fictionalize, however, but did the best he could objectively recording his life. I did not feel like I was being manipulated as a reader at all as I was reading this enigmatic novel. It doesn’t really matter, does it, whether Coetzee was being totally truthful?  I am enamoured of Coetzee, the writer, and will look forward to reading more or his work. Did I mention that this novel was a finalist for the Man Booker for 2009?

Coetzee Photo Credit: The Guardian, September 6, 2008

-Nan

Kathryn Stockett’s first novel, “The Help,” finally hits No.1 on the hardcover fiction list, after 41 weeks of trying!

Copyright Jennifer Schuessler, NYT Book Review, Jan. 24, 2010

I’ve read three books by Jungian James Hollis. All three have been helpful to me, and Hollis has expanded my understanding of mindful exploration of my past. He has helped me to grasp the effects of some of my decisions, made consciously or unconsciously.

What Matters Most asks each of us to consider more thoughtfully the relationship we have with ourselves. Also, it is important that we bring no harm or less harm to others. This noble desire asks that we become progressively aware of, explore, and take responsibility for our personal shadow.  This shadow includes parts of ourselves that makes us uncomfortable. Shadow work increases the authenticity we feel about ourselves and creates more genuineness as we relate to others.

Each chapter in What Matters Most is a progression tool designed to help us get into our inner selves. Often Hollis’ uses characters from literary masterpieces to help illustrate his ideas. His blending of fiction types with real life examples adds depth to the reader’s understanding. No other mind doctor I’ve read blends such literary depth with mindwork .

Beautifully written this broad self-help book is easy to understand and relate to. It is a reading pleasure to explore.

Read Pat’s blog on the same book. I have has also written about another one of Hollis’ books, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.

I have just finished reading All Things at Once by Mika Brzezinski.

Name sound a little bit familiar?

Currently, she is the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” with Joe Scarborough, but she also happens to be the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor, during the Jimmy Carter administration. Her book, says The New York Times Book Review,  “is a candid and inspiring motivational book that will help women of all ages confront the unique professional and personal challenges they face in the key moments of their lives.” In other words, she throws in her 2 cents on how or if a woman actually can have it all! She has a very strong voice but doesn’t preach, all the while stating very clearly how her own drive to achieve success professionally and personally led her through some very dark times. As a motivational speaker, she talks to girls and women of all ages about adjusting their expectations and ambitions as well as giving practical advice on accomplishing as much as possible.

She became somewhat infamous in June of 2007, when she refused to read a report about Paris Hilton’s release from jail. One hour later during another news break, her producer again pushed the story as the lead, ranking it over a story having to do with a development concerning President Bush and the Iraq war. After several sarcastic remarks from host Joe Scarborough, she attempted to light the story’s script on fire on the air! She then tore up the script. The incident was quickly popularized on the Internet, and in the days that followed Mika received large quantities of fan mail supporting her on-air protest as a commentary on the tension between ‘hard news’ and ‘entertainment news’.

Don’t you just love that???

Initially, I was more interested in her background than her subject matter. She has wonderful stories of growing up with her brilliant father and artistic mother who she lovingly describes as eccentric! Being European, her parent’s attitude on raising children is in stark contrast to today’s. Now, it seems, we are more inclined to be less stringent and have lower expectations. We want our children to be huge successes but are afraid to put too many demands or restrictions on them! They, on the other hand, expected their children to be very independent, interesting and knowledgeable about the world around them. There was no television to distract them from the myriad of projects and interests they pursued. The children were always included at their parents’ dinner parties for dignitaries around Washington and beyond. Mika tells several great stories about some of those occasions and I loved her account of playing with Amy Carter in the White House and how Rosalyn was always running after her trying to wash her face!

I found her mother to be especially interesting. Her name is Emilie Benes Brzezinski. She is a sculptor and a grandniece of Czechoslovakia’s former president Edvard Benes. It is from her that Mika is primed to search out the highs and lows of a life passionately invested in both family and career. When her father was named national security advisor, the family moved to Washington, leaving her mother’s studio far behind in Englewood, New Jersey, where her father had taught at Columbia. Emilie put her career on hold for those four years and was very open to her children about the personal struggle that caused her. Later, she returned to her art but that dilemma is obviously one every generation of women has confronted.

This book is a quick read but an enjoyable one, especially if you are a young woman in the throws of figuring out this ever present balancing act!