Customer Reviews

Picture Palace

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my favorite books. Whereas Theroux often has a hard time depicting love convincingly and sometimes doesn't even try, I found the unrequited love between brother and sister in this book to be fierce and intensely tragic. The historical backdrop of the development of photography is brilliantly conceived and realized, as is the ongoing dialogue of the old woman, retired, reliving her past on Cape Cod. In many ways uncharacteristic of Theroux's brash, egocentric style, this book uses a strong feminine voice that evokes a very unforgettable personality. Good fun to read

The premise for this novel resides in the main character's desire to bed her brother. Her desire for him motivates her life and thinking; her brilliant career in photography serves only as a means to gain his respect and um, affection. Sadly, the other sister wins the brother's favors. Our heroine avoids a complete breakdown but does contract hysterical blindness when she learns the awful truth. Theroux sets up a Conradesque narrative framework, and the female narrator often launches into some turgid prose detailing the passionate vagaries of her inner life. What struck me was the incestual motivation for her great work so admired by others. A commentary on the creation of art, its basis not necessarily as pure as we'd like to imagine?

A brilliant novel in many respects, I only subtract a star due to the (in my opinion, of course) overblown nature of some of Maude's rantings. Perhaps that was part of the point -- her visceral passion.

Though I doubt it will be for long. This is quite possibly Theroux's most ambitious project in straight *fiction*, and it's extremely well-written and well-crafted. The "voice" of the elderly female narrator is at times just a bit unconvincing, but as a novelist, Theroux isn't at all what one might think from his numerous "travel" books--this is riveting and almost shocking, and quite vivid.

Finally, Theroux is one of those few novelists (Iris Murdoch and Robertson Davies come to mind) who seamlessly weaves a large amount of knowledge, history and culture into his narratives. In its way, this is also one of the finest books on photography ever written. I encourage you to find a copy--there's something here for those who like literary fiction, vivid description and...an excellent story.

I didn't enjoy Picture Palace for a number of reasons. The first reason was that the main character is quite distasteful. She is arrogant, aggressive and lacking in any charm. I can understand that sometimes authors like to create distasteful characters, but usually they would do that for some point. The disagreeable nature of Maude Pratt does not seem to have any point.

Also the underlying plot is quite distasteful. Maude Pratt dreams of having a sexual relationship with Orlando. The only problem is Orlando is her brother. While Maude does not actually realise her fantasy, Phoebe does end up having a sexual relationship with Orlando. However, Phoebe is Maude and Orlando's sister. Also Orlando breaks up with his fiancee Blanche, after Maude tells Orlando that Blanche had an incestuous relationship with her brother, which was untrue. You probably get the picture.

I particularly didn't like the way Theroux discusses incest, through Maude, in the book. His narrative appears to be quite a sustained defence of the entire idea of incest as an acceptable way of life. Personally, I think it is pretty clear that incest is not a defensible life style.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the descriptions of the various people who Maude photographs - including Graham Green, Aldous Huxley, Picasso, Thomas Mann, Ezra Pound, Evelyn Waugh and William Faulkner. Theroux describes these various individuals in a way which suggests he had some insights into what these people were really like. Needless to say that some of the descriptions are not very complimentary - for example his description of Robert Frost is very negative.

My recommendation is give this one a miss.

The book arrived promptly and as described. As for the book itself, I enjoyed it very much.