This World Fantasy Award-nominated novel is set in New York City of the 1890s, the era of Sherlock Holmes, and has a rating of 3.8/5 on GoodReads. I was hooked by this premise blurb:
And when I started reading at the beginning, I knew almost at once that I wanted to finish it. The writing quality was excellent. It passes muster quite well for its time and place, feeling initially like a potential historical novel, and then when you read a bit further, like magical realism rather than sff genre. That is a ticklish distinction of course, and one I was recently discussing with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stranger. It can certainly pass as sff, but I think it's safe to say none of his style feels genre, because the author's wikipedia already addresses this by saying it is "in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery". And as you can see, the blurb above (correctly) identifies the underlying plot type of this book as thriller. The style feels rather Literary, although not strongly nor annoyingly so (which is a strong statement coming from me, because I find Literary style as a rule quite annoying).
Aside from what Mrs Charbuque tells the narrator in relating her life story - which rather bring to mind the register of the tall tale in folklore, like Paul Bunyan or the Series of Unfortuante Events series - little that happens in these books is especially fantastic. Or rather, it's not actually all that plausible, but it's mostly within the realm of literary fiction and no less plausible than some of the stuff made up by the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie in service of their mystery plots - just more symbolically significant, which is what pushes it into magical realism. (A Series of Unfortunate Events and, say, The House of the Spirits contain some equally implausible events presented with a straight face, and the events are equally real but unquestioned in-verse; but in magical realism, and in The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque, the events seem symbolic or allegorical, or as if they could all be happening inside the character's head, like a prophetic dream.)
As a fantastical literary thriller, I give this book very good marks. It's well written, it's well executed, it's interesting, it's colorful and fun.
It's just that the end had me figuratively throwing the book across the room.
As sometimes happens with a male narrator, a recurring thought I had through the middle section of the book was "Is this book sexist, or is it about sexism?"
( You could argue in its defense, I admit, but I figuratively threw it across the room when I was like, Oh, it's sexist. )
A mysterious and richly evocative novel, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque tells the story of portraitist Piero Piambo, who is offered a commission unlike any other. The client is Mrs. Charbuque, a wealthy and elusive woman who asks Piambo to paint her portrait, though with one bizarre twist: he may question her at length on any topic, but he may not, under any circumstances, see her. So begins an astonishing journey into Mrs. Charbuque's world and the world of 1893 New York society in this hypnotically compelling literary thriller.
And when I started reading at the beginning, I knew almost at once that I wanted to finish it. The writing quality was excellent. It passes muster quite well for its time and place, feeling initially like a potential historical novel, and then when you read a bit further, like magical realism rather than sff genre. That is a ticklish distinction of course, and one I was recently discussing with
stranger. It can certainly pass as sff, but I think it's safe to say none of his style feels genre, because the author's wikipedia already addresses this by saying it is "in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery". And as you can see, the blurb above (correctly) identifies the underlying plot type of this book as thriller. The style feels rather Literary, although not strongly nor annoyingly so (which is a strong statement coming from me, because I find Literary style as a rule quite annoying).Aside from what Mrs Charbuque tells the narrator in relating her life story - which rather bring to mind the register of the tall tale in folklore, like Paul Bunyan or the Series of Unfortuante Events series - little that happens in these books is especially fantastic. Or rather, it's not actually all that plausible, but it's mostly within the realm of literary fiction and no less plausible than some of the stuff made up by the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie in service of their mystery plots - just more symbolically significant, which is what pushes it into magical realism. (A Series of Unfortunate Events and, say, The House of the Spirits contain some equally implausible events presented with a straight face, and the events are equally real but unquestioned in-verse; but in magical realism, and in The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque, the events seem symbolic or allegorical, or as if they could all be happening inside the character's head, like a prophetic dream.)
As a fantastical literary thriller, I give this book very good marks. It's well written, it's well executed, it's interesting, it's colorful and fun.
It's just that the end had me figuratively throwing the book across the room.
As sometimes happens with a male narrator, a recurring thought I had through the middle section of the book was "Is this book sexist, or is it about sexism?"
( You could argue in its defense, I admit, but I figuratively threw it across the room when I was like, Oh, it's sexist. )
