Customer Reviews

The Artist's Wife: A Novel

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"The Artist's Wife" is based on the life of Viennese beauty, Alma Schindler, an incredible woman with hair of (seemingly) spun gold, who married, believe it or not, the composer Gustav Mahler, Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and the writer Franz Werfel. All of them, including Gustav Klimt, the most important painter of fin-de-siecle Europe, loved her to distraction and swore that a part, at least, of his most profound and greatest work was inspired, both by her and by his passion for her.

Alma, while being quite successful as a muse, was less successful as a mistress and a wife, and she was certainly no "good girl." She sometimes had more than one lover at a time and felt no shame in the situation. Instead, she called herself "a collector of geniuses." She was, by turns, a seductress, a flirt, a romantic and a real delight. She was also dreadfully anti-Semitic despite the fact that she had, not one, but two, Jewish husbands, Mahler and Werfel.

This book is called "fiction" but it is really based on Alma's own memoirs. Phillips writes the story from Alma's point of view, however, from beyond the grave, and he tosses in carefully chosen bits of imagined conversation, etc., causing the book to be classified as "fiction" rather than "fact."

Alma is not a character we can admire, but she is certainly interesting. She is a restless spirit in death and in life she was often selfish and downright mean. More than anything, she is vain, but she is not vain about everything. She does realize that she, too, has her faults. As she says about her voice, "I screeched all the Wagner roles until I ruined a good mezzo-soprano voice." And, as she once wrote in her diary, "I'm utterly vulgar, superficial, sybaritic, domineering and egoistic!"

If Alma was hard on herself, she was even harder on her husbands and lovers and even her potential lovers. She was a notorious flirt who often brought men to their knees only to spurn them in the most ungracious manner. One sometimes wonders why she bothered marrying at all; her opinion of the men in her life seems so very low. Gropius, who seems like an Adonis to Alma at first, sours as well, leaving Alma bored and lonely at only thirty-two and ready for an encounter with the wild, possessive and jealous painter, Oskar Kokoschka, who is six years her junior. Kokoschka, in the end, loses out to Gropius who, despite his boring qualities is more of a genius than is Kokoschka. Kokoschka doesn't take his humiliation at all well and what he does is pitiful, a little shocking and even a little funny. And, to be sure, the humor of the situation isn't lost on Alma.

Sadly, in some ways, Alma Schlinder, whose life so depended on her good looks and her vibrant wit, oulived almost everyone around her and lost both her looks and her wit at about the same time.

Although some readers have complained about the rather staccato prose in this book, it is prose that fits exactly the way Alma wrote in her own memoirs, so I think it is very fitting that Phillips adopted this style. And while some readers will no doubt see Alma as simply vain and mean-spirited, she was fascinating...there can be no doubt about that. I think Phillips has done a marvelous job in capturing the qualities and the vibrancy of Alma that made her so irresistible to so many men, despite the fact that she never really respected them, and perhaps, never really loved them.

I loved this book. I thought it was interesting, well-written and vivacious...just as vivacious as was Alma Schindler in her youth. And that is really saying a lot.

I approached this book with some trepidation, not quite "fear and loathing" perhaps, but close enough. My reason? Simple enough. My fondness for Gustav Mahler's music - irrespective of what warts the man may or may not have had - made me think twice before reading a fictionalized version of "the wild brat's story" and how it might have distorted my own version of reality concerning my favorite composer. I shouldn't have worried.

Some thirty-odd years ago, I had the opportunity to read an English translation of Alma Mahler Werfel's "Ein Leben mit Gustav Mahler" ("My Life with Gustav Mahler"). The book was not mine, and I regret not having my own copy to this day, if for no other reason than that Alma edited these reminiscences with a rather heavy hand, lest the reader get the idea that she was less than devoted to Mahler. Of course, even then, her legend preceded her. Those of a certain age (and I am one of them) well remember Tom Lehrer's send-up of her, sung to the melody of "Alma Mater." A tune as trenchant commentary, deservedly so.

Well, if there's nothing new under the sun from Tom Lehrer (and others) from then till now, why in the world should one read this "autobiographical" novel? For the simple reason that Max Phillips has fashioned an excellent tale about a fascinating woman whose greatest adventures occurred during a time when her fin-de-siècle Vienna and Hapsburg world was simultaneously both filled with intriguing characters and at the brink of chaos and collapse.

Despite her own heavy hand at personal "damage control," there is plenty of historical corroborating information (including those parts of her diaries and memoirs that she did indeed approve for publication) to state that Alma was clearly all of these: Self-absorbed, wilful, modestly talented, unafraid of her own sexuality, a flame to the moths of creative genius of the times, a sometime muse to these geniuses, and self-appointed - or perhaps self-anointed - champion and guardian of the arts of her times, with her "Sundays" (salons at which all the rich and famous of the arts of the period grovelled for her invitations and attention). She was also beautiful by the day's standards, and suffered from both deafness and alcoholism. Nevertheless, she outlived all but one of her husbands and lovers, living to the ripe old age of 84, by that time a barely-subdued doyenne. (Of her paramours, only Oskar Kokoschka outlived her, finally expiring at the very ripe old age of 94 in 1980.)

In an endnote, Phillips begins by stating "To put it mildly, this is not a work of scholarship." While perhaps true - because Phillips does take minor liberties with the timings and juxtaposition of events and (probably) major liberties with words placed in the mouths of his panoply of characters - he is being entirely too modest (perhaps with tongue implanted firmly in cheek) regarding these liberties. For, at the end of it all, one does come away with a clear sense of "what Alma was all about," and of an epoch and its end. The latter is detailed better in "Wittgenstein's Vienna" by Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, a true work of scholarship available elsewhere at Amazon.com. But, where Janik and Toulmin are factual - almost, but not quite, to the point of pedanticism - Phillips is downright trenchant in his observations on the epoch and in the words he puts in his characters' mouths.

At the end, the tale turned out to be both a hoot and a valuable backward glance at an artistic period and place which we in America regrettably understand not well at all. As I said at the outset, "I shouldn't have worried."

Bob Zeidler

Alma Mahler is one of the most intriguing figures in an era filled with some of the most significant (and slightly crazy) figures in the 20th century. As someone who has read Alma's own diaries, as well as books by and about her numerous lovers (Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoshka, Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel, among the most famous), Max Philips does a fabulous job of getting at the essence of this astonishing woman. Philips does not claim to have written a book of historical accuracy, but the details aren't as important as that maddeningly willful yet passive tone of voice, and Philips captures that brilliantly. A wild ride through the Vienna of Freud, Klimt, and Mahler, if you aren't already familiar with Alma's excellent adventures, this is a great place to start.

A woman of celebrated beauty, talent, and social position, Alma Schindler, while still a teenager, catapulted herself into the dazzling high life of artists, writers, and musicians in fin-de-siecle Vienna. A consummate opportunist, totally dedicated to the pursuit of her own pleasure, Alma saw her future in the achievements of the men she slept with. Her life was one of voluptuous hedonism, unrestrained by religious scruples, marriage contracts, and even, in some cases, common decency, yet no man seemed able to resist her. Her marriages to composer Gustav Mahler, Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius, and writer Franz Werfel were all accompanied by numerous affairs; she dumped everyone with whom she became bored; and she was not always sure who the fathers of her children were.

With a narrative style as seductive as the woman he chronicles, Phillips recreates the social, intellectual, and political ferment of the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Through Alma's eyes, the reader meets, on a personal level, many of the artistic geniuses whose influences in music, painting, and writing are felt even to the present.

Unfortunately, one of the strongest and most memorable influences in early 20th century Vienna was a casual, socially accepted anti-Semitism, which permeated all levels of society for a generation or more before Adolph Hitler began his rise. Alma, too, reveals this bigotry in her attitudes and remarks, despite the fact that two of her husbands were Jewish, and this, along with the sheer weight of her self-absorption, seriously limits the reader's ability to empathize with her in the latter part of the book.

Still, this is a fascinating study of the way one woman managed to liberate herself from some of the social restrictions of her day. The intellectual and artistic worlds Phillips recreates pulse with life; the political changes from empire to post-war socialism and the rise of Hitler are smoothly integrated into the story; and the book, overall, is a remarkable portrait of a place and time rarely chronicled in American fiction. Mary Whipple

(This review is dedicated to the memory of Bob Zeidler, one of the world's great lovers of Mahler's music and a noted Amazon reviewer, who passed away on April 1, 2005.)

There are many reasons to love this book, but at the very top of the list has to be this immensely talented writer's gorgeous prose. Nobody else writes sentences as stunning as Max Phillips. He could write a biography of Frank Perdue and make chicken farming irresistable.

Here, he has a great subject, too -- one of history's most enigmatic and intriguing personalities, immortalized in Tom Lehrer's amusing song "Alma," but amply deserving of the richer, more insightful treatment she gets here. She's more than just wife and mistress to all the great men of turn-of-the-century Vienna; she's a troubled, difficult woman trying to find her identity in a social circle where anyone with less than genius-level talent would have trouble holding her own. What's a girl to do? Marry a succession of geniuses and wield a wife's power to establish a role in their lives of significance -- but is that enough?

There is more to this novel than it appears to deliver the first time you read it, and it's so well written that it is well worth re-reading. Few recent novels are so satisfying or so good.

Go buy it. You'll be sorry if you let this one leave the stores before you've read it.

This book was intriguing from the moment I picked it up and examined the cover...Max Phillips has the female perspective down to a tee--his genius spanning our abilities to endure, to dream, to quip {silently of course} one liners at poignant moments,and to eternally adapt to what falls into our path each day/each season of our life. His narration of Alma's telling of her life is mesmorizing and I rationed myself a sparingly small nibble a day to make the delight last...I found this book fascinating and fulfilling. That it was historically true made it 3 dimensional.

This is one of the best novels I have read. It not only gives you a complete view of Alma Mahler's life but it is very well written. I enjoyed every word. It gets you into Viena's artistic world, of the 20's. You can feel you know through it's pages, the world of Mahler, Klimt, Kokoshka & others.

This should have been an engaging book about a fascinating woman who attracted the greatest artists of her time, and whose own background and talents were worth exploring. But, she never emerges as a character in her own right, existing here only as a reflection of (and thorn in the sides of) her husbands. Does the author not think enough of women to take their own stories seriously, or did he not do his homework to research her adequately? Alas, Tom Lehrer told this story better, with humor, in far fewer words.

Having read Alma Mahler's Diaries, and many other books on composer Gustav Mahler, I was at first wary that this novel might wander too far off into the author's fantasies about Alma.

From one wild incident to the next, Phillips' incidents from her life seem to be a fair and justified portrayal of this unique woman's life. I began to play a game with myself, seeking to "trip-up" the author in a deviation from documented history. I thought I had him, when he had Alma describing how painter Oskar Kokoschka, after Alma had left him, had taken a life-sized doll, dressed as Alma, out to restaurants as his dining companion. Darned if when I checked up on this, it seems to be exactly what Kokoschka had done--so strong was his obsession for this beautiful woman.

Yes, go ahead and read this novel--bizarre as it may seem at times. It really does not stray much from the historical record. This woman was so exceptional that truth appears stranger than fiction.

This book was a disappointment. While the subject matter was very intriguing--the life and loves of a famous woman in Europe at the beginning of the century, I found Phillip Max writing unbearable. He does not manage to give any depth to his characters. We learn about Alma and her inconsistences and caprices, but we do not understand what drives her. The reader is left to his/her own trying to figure out why Alma and the people around her act the way they do. At points tedious, the story rushes through Alma's life and does not leave the reader with a real idea of time.

The only plus to this novel that I found is that it sparked my interest to look for Alma's autobiography--I would never think to rely on Max for even a fictional perspective on her.