Description
Book SynopsisOne of contemporary fiction''s most gifted sentence builders Beejay Silcox, Guardian
Behind the ornate doors of 30, rue du Métal in Brussels, twenty students begin their apprenticeship in the art of decorative painting - that art of tricksters and counterfeiters, where each knot in a plank of wood hides a secret and every vein in a slab of marble tells a story.
Among these students are Kate, Jonas and Paula Karst. Together, during a relentless year of study, they will learn the techniques of reproducing materials in paint, and the intensity of their experience - the long hours in the studio, the late nights, the conversations, arguments, parties, romances - will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal studies end.
For Paula, her initiation into the art of trompe l''œil will take her back through time, from her own childhood memories, to the ancient formations of the materials whose depiction she strives to master. And from the
Trade Review
As she has so often done, de Kerangal shows there is poetry to be found in our jargon, and stories embedded in our tools . . . This is writing that defies haste, that slows the eye. It is also a mighty feat of translation . . . Cements [de Kerangal's] reputation as one of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders -- Beejay Silcox * Guardian *
The book is a joyful testament to the rigours of research, and to the translator's art too . . . Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam -- Jonathan Gibbs * TLS *
Intensely alive, encompassing both the technical and the poetic, emotion and cerebrality -- Raphaëlle Leyris * Le Monde *
Always brilliant, executed in flowing, lyrical prose that had already reached the firmament in [Mend the Living] . . . De Kerangal finds fiction in reality; precise, technical vocabulary is imbued with rich imagination and meaning. And mastering trompe-l'œil - isn't that the ideal metaphor for the work of a novelist? -- Frédérique Roussel * Libération *
The art of painting in perfect harmony with de Kerangal's writing; visual, flamboyant, assured . . . in perfect alignment with her subject -- Marine Landrot * Télérama *
Kerangal's elegant, sexy, subtly Proustian, and fluidly dimensional drama of discipline and passion, imitation and
imagination is resplendently evocative and exhilarating.
-- Donna Seaman * Booklist *
Long looping sentences,
beautifully translated from the French by Jessica Moore, are balanced by taut scene changes . . . De Kerangal conjures the same
painterly realism that her characters hope to achieve in paint * London Magazine *
