The Muse

Product Information

At first, I wasn’t planning to read this book. The Miniaturist didn’t impress me, and I wondered if I should give Jessie Burton another try when there are so many new authors to discover. Then, I realized the reason why The Miniaturist didn’t work for me is that a certain plot turned out random and pointless at the end, but I loved the characters and the writing itself. So I thought, if The Muse avoids this problem, it has the potential to be very good. And it is! In fact, it’s beautiful! I really liked Olive's story too, but I didn't like Olive as much as I wanted. Which is also the main reason why I preferred The Miniaturist to The Muse, even though I really liked the latter. I appreciated that Olive was a strong woman herself and that she wanted to prove something, but she came across as a bit naive and sometimes as someone who was too self-centered. I completely understood her need to be seen, but she didn't think about the consequences of her actions most of the time, and that definitely irked me. The Muse" tells the story of two women: Odelle living in 1960s London and Olive living in 1930s Malaga in Spain. It's a story about art, but it's also a story about history and destinies. From very early on in the book, I felt captivated with and invested in the story. It was simple, beautiful and I was eager to find out more about these intriguing characters. Was the difference between being a workaday painter and being an artist simply other people believing in you, or spending twice as much money on your work? As far as Olive saw it, this connection of masculinity with creativity had been conjured from the air and been enforced, legitimised and monetised by enough people for whom such a state of affairs was convenient – men like her father.” The prose was flowery beyond belief. This was compounded by the fact that the reader seemed to continually adopt an overwrought style more befitting a Shakespearian play. The accents also seemed exaggerated to the point of distraction.

There are two timelines here. One is London in 1967 and the other is in Spain in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. This is an exploration of the relationship between art and artists and indeed the role of the muse. It also considers the afterlife of a painting. Burton explores the way men and women are treated differently as artists and there is a sort of artistic detective story. okay, i suppose i should write a more in-depth review of the actual book and not just rely on super-sexxy hospital gown photos to do all the work for me… The Confession also follows The Muse in establishing a dual time-frame. Episodes set in the present day illustrate Constance’s increasing dependency on Laura as she struggles to break her silence with a new book. These passages are interleaved with scenes from the early 1980s when Constance was at the height of her fame, the author of two influential novels and a much-cited essay on female empowerment. Throughout this halcyon period of large advances and Hollywood film offers, Constance’s closest companion was her lover Elise Morceau; a young, waif-like woman she met while walking on Hampstead Heath in north London.Like most artists, everything I produced was connected to who I was - and so I suffered according to how my work was received. The idea that anyone might be able to detach their personal value from their public output was revolutionary.” No sophomore jinx in her second effort, and no understudy role either. With The Muse Jessie Burton shows quite decisively that she has arrived as a literary force, a star, and almost certainly, an inspiration for others.

Is there ever such a thing as a whole story, or an artist's triumph, a right way to look through the glass? It all depends on where the light falls.” The author expertly and quite beautifully weaves the two stories together, seemingly only connected by a work of art, as the novel progresses, the two stories are knitted tighter and tighter together until each and every character has their own place in both parts. The plot follows two different but interwined timelines. We have Odelle, a Caribbean immigrant in London in 1967, and Olive Schloss, daughter of an art dealer in Spain in 1937. Olive Schloss, the teenage daughter of a wealthy art dealer, is a skilled painter who has turned down the offer of a place at the Slade. In Spain, she meets another artist, Isaac Robles – passionate, attractive and politically active – and soon becomes close to him and his half-sister, Teresa.There’s little else I can say about the plot of this book without giving something important away. While many of the twists were foreshadowed, there were a couple that came as a surprise to me. I confess that this is a story that would have benefited from a bit more characterization and a little less plodding prose. While the writing was lovely, it tended toward boggy. I liked what the novel had to say about art and the process of creation, and I appreciated that the book highlighted women as artists. But none of the relationships felt true, and the characters didn’t seem to like or accept themselves, which made them hard to enjoy. All of that boils down to this: I enjoyed the philosophical aspects of the story far more than the story itself. That being said, the book has merit, especially for people who appreciate the theory of art or are artists themselves.

I remember…a feller saying to me in the shoe shop, 'your English is very good.' My English! I told him, "English is a West Indian language, sir."' ... Yes, historical fiction fans – I think you will really enjoy it! Now I’m off to add The Miniaturist to my to-read pile!There is much to recommend. The Muse. Not only is the tale of love, danger, betrayal and revolution in 1936 Spain riveting for the impact on the characters, it offers us a time-and-place look at a nation on the verge of darkness, a harbinger of horrors to come. Human drama meets historical madness. Burton’s portrait of 1967 London was certainly interesting, particularly for the challenges faced by non-whites, and for how people born in less central parts of the British Empire relate to the Queen-motherland. But Spain is where the real action is here. The test of making language sound true to period is one even the best writers flunk at some point; anachronism is the sleeping monster of the historical novel. The Muse is strong on the emotional and sensual, less so on the figurative depiction of interior states (“I had to hold in the tsunami of sound I wanted to unleash”). It is a severely competent novel. The craftsmanship is solid, the sincerity of feeling is sustained to the end; none of it is exceptional. Yet who would bet against it selling a million copies like its predecessor? A thrilling painting with a mysterious provenance connects two bold young women, one in Civil War Spain, the other in mid-1960s England. So, so true, and that’s something many artists struggle with. If someone doesn’t like your work, it doesn’t mean they think you’re a terrible person, but at times this is difficult to believe.

As it turned out it just took way too long to flesh out details and as the story progresses and connections are made between the two characters and times, it felt a bit like a soap opera. 3 stars which for me means that I liked it but didn't find it to be one that will be memorable.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Burton constructs the dual plotline with painstaking craft, and has a good ear for the ambient interruptions of nature: “the cicadas began to build their rasping wall of sound”; “Bees drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from the trees”. A very wealthy English-Austrian family moves to a poor region of Spain. The reaction of the local people is very realistic – they try to benefit from the visitors, while at the same way not getting too close, knowing these people are only passing through and will one day leave. The daughter, Olive, struggles with this reaction. She wants to be taken seriously, to show that this is her home and that their fights are her fight. It’s no surprise that no one believes her, and everyone thinks it’s all a game to her. At any point, she can get on her ship and leave war and danger behind. But Olive is determined, and she proves her loyalty in the most heartbreaking way possible. odelle has a similar observation, listening to the BBC'c Caribbean Voices on the radio as a little girl