Title: Sacre’
Bleu
Author: ChristopherMoore
Review: I often pick up a Christopher Moore book
because I am looking to laugh, but that (for the most part) was not the case
with Sacré Bleu. It had its moments but
the shining star of this story was the history.
That is to say, I really enjoyed the historical context of the plot, a
lot more than I would have thought.
The hero of our story is the young baker Lessard who desires
to be a painter as did his father before him.
He does the best he can while sharing studio space with the great but
diminutive Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Then
one day his muse walks back into his life, the unnaturally attractive
Juilette. He becomes a man possessed,
ignoring the bakery, his family and friends, and even his own sustenance. On the verge of death his friends intervene
and the truth of his muse comes to light.
All of this centers on the color blue and the Colorman who
has supplied it to painters throughout time.
All is not as it seems, especially with the amount of talented painters
gathered in France at this time. And
that was the most fascinating aspect of the whole novel, just how many artists
were gathered together in one place.
From Renoir, Monet, Manet, Gauguin, and Seurat to the recently deceased
Van Gogh; Paris was packed with artistic greatness. I found myself visiting Wikipedia just to see
how all these guys interacting with each other.
It was amazing to think how they lived hand to mouth with
their art, hoping to sell a painting so they could afford paint and maybe
something to drink too. Sacré Bleu is a
funny book which also manages to be an engrossing alternate history on the
lives of the great Masters. An art book
to delight even the non-artist.
Publisher:William Morrow
ISBN:
978-0-06-177974-9
Copyright: 2012
Pages: 394
Quick Review: 4
stars out of 5
Why I Read It: Love
Christopher Moore, my absolute favorite fiction with humor writer.
Where I Obtained the
Book: At my local library
Synopsis:
Absolutely nothing is sacred to Christopher Moore. The phenomenally popular New
York Times-bestselling satirist, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls
“Stephen King with a whoopee cushion and a double-espresso imagination,” has
already lampooned Shakespeare, San Francisco vampires, marine biologists,
Death... even Jesus Christ and Santa Claus.
In his latest novel, the immortal Moore takes on the Great
French Masters. A magnificent “Comedy d’Art” from the author of Lamb, Fool and
Bite Me, Moore’s Sacre Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love
story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter who joins the
dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the
supposed suicide of Vincent van Gogh.
Author Biography: Christopher
Moore (born 1957 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American writer of absurdist fiction.
He grew up in Mansfield, OH, and attended Ohio State University and Brooks
Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA.
Moore's novels typically involve conflicted everyman
characters suddenly struggling through supernatural or extraordinary
circumstances. Inheriting a humanism from his love of John Steinbeck and a
sense of the absurd from Kurt Vonnegut, Moore is a best-selling author with
major cult status.
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