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Changes made to the monetization of users’ creations and the ability to opt out from your account settings. Don is detestable at first: I was worried I wouldn't relate or feel close to him at all, but the character development!!
Don Lamb, distinguished professor of art history at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and the protagonist of Tiepolo Blue, is only forty-three, but while reading the novel I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. The professor is fusty beyond his years: he sees himself as a noble defender of the classical tradition, a crusader against those academics who concern themselves with the ‘fashionable irrelevances’ of ‘society, politics or psychology’ rather than ‘the fundamental things: proportion, light, balance’. There is no shortage of public figures expressing similar views nowadays, but James Cahill has chosen to set his arresting debut novel not in the midst of today’s so-called culture wars but in the 1990s, with the influence of ‘that dreadful man Jacques Derrida’ fresh in the memory and the term ‘political correctness’ newly in vogue. Indeed, his life is almost entirely about seeing and not seeing, missing out on the obvious whilst having a deep understanding of the abstract. Basically, it's a whole book of meandering plots and plot holes. No answers are ever given to the questions raised and to be honest no thought to the context of them. A novel that combines formal elegance with gripping storytelling . . . wildly enjoyable' Financial Times
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As someone just graduating from a degree in art history and beginning my forays into the world of art and academia in London, I found it particularly entertaining as I could recognise so much within the people, places and quarrelling relationships that Cahill captures. Truly fantastic. A few things bothered me… firstly a few of the London locations where a bit all over the place, including a bar in the book called The Sphinx, which is clearly meant to be The Vauxhall Tavern. Carhill locates The Sphinx in Hern Hill, but then inside the bar he included customers talking about Vauxhall. Perhaps Carhill included this to give a clue as to the bar’s real inspiration… but it’s just a bit too messy for me. (Incidentally according to local queer legend, the comment about Princess Di and Freddie Mercury is true!) also besides the book not being very fun (which is sad for me but fully understandable if that's not the book's aim) it is also not very sexy. bathhouse scene B+ but it comes too suddenly. it's not a 'simmering closet case sexual awakening' book, but if you're gonna do sad man sexual failure being dumped in it by his unrequited loves, it's weird to combine that with a few elements of simmering closet case sexual awakening that don’t fully come together. His departure from academia was not entirely by choice but at the times when it seems that someone is pulling the strings that guide him through his new life, there is doubt caused by some event or other. Maybe things aren't orchestrated, it could just be other peoples' ignorance or folly that sets up some of the situations Don finds himself in. The sympathetic descriptions of the people he meets in his new role as a gallery director in London seem always to redeem them. They are as unworldly, in their ways, as Don was himself when he was cocooned by the traditions he has left behind. When an explosive piece of contemporary art is installed on the lawn of his college, it sets in motion Don’s abrupt departure from Cambridge to take up a role at a south London museum. There he befriends Ben, a young artist who draws him into the anarchic 1990s British art scene and the nightlife of Soho.
Apollo and the Continents (1752-53), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s ceiling fresco at the Würzburg Residence in Bavaria, Germany. In James Cahill’s debut novel, Tiepolo Blue, art historian Don is captivated by the Venetian master’s skies, which have similarly fascinated the author—in particular, the artist’s use of a distinctive shade of blue At it’s heart I think there’s a good story here, and I thought it got off to a strong start as I enjoyed the early chapters set in Cambridge more than the later ones charting the protagonist’s demise, trying to adjust to life in 90’s London. This is a character-driven novel but so much happens as Don stumbles through one self-imposed crisis to another that no further plot is needed. The descriptions are excellent and the atmosphere is as dark as one expects. I was surprised that Aids wasn't mentioned, except obliquely, as it was certainly rife among gay men at that time. Also, the abruptness of the ending was a disappointment for me. Meticulous and atmospheric . . . delicious unease and pervasive threat give this assured first novel great singularity and a kind of gothic edge’ Michael Donkor, GuardianEdit: I'm a few months wiser now and I think I understand this book better as well because of it. It's about how life is too short and unpredictable to be so anal about what and how art should be. Art, something so human and sincere, shouldn't just hold grounds on what's beautiful and not. It's about what makes us feel, think and what inspires us. How to rate an unfinished novel? I recognized good penmanship and the narration was great. But the stor Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’
As it is though, the story was told by a third person omniscient narrator and, even for 1990s standards, I struggled to swallow such naivety. Even less so, when the guy was described as a handsome and intelligent lad. He might not have known who he was or what he really liked but that doesn’t mean people around him also didn’t, if you know what I mean.The sex scenes were good and quite unforgettable, but all the twists and turns and the ending really didn’t work for me, I’m afraid. Tiepolo favored unhurried, fluid, brushstrokes through which he applied his trademark pastel palette. In the words of famous art historian E. H. Gombrich, the artist's style lent itself perfectly to "the whole aristocratic dream-world" which he did so much to help create. To this end, Tiepolo's dramatic narratives were often tallied with a noticeable degree of sparseness. This was not a blemish on Tiepolo's talent so much as an attempt to let the spectator add details to the picture by using their own imagination. My deep thanks go to Hodder & Stoughton for an advanced digital copy through Netgalley in exchange for review. Much respected in the rarefied atmosphere of Porterhouse College, Cambridge, art historian, Prof Don Lamb in his forties, leads a charmed life. Free to indulge his specialisation, he is writing the definitive study of the skies of the Venetian artist Tiepolo. Never short of academic stimulation and company, and a confirmed bachelor, he pleases himself. Quirky, a snob and judgementally sailing through his privileged life, there is nothing much to endear him to the reader. Until the appearance of a contemporary art installation on the lawns of Peterhouse offend him deeply and he becomes utterly lost.
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