I received a review copy of this title from Pushkin Press. The book was originally published in German in 1937 and this English version has been translated by Ignat Avsey
My Review:
This book is a very slim volume and can be read in an hour or so. It attempts to answer the question that has been nagging historians and artists for centuries: Who, exactly, was the woman Mona Lisa that Da Vinci made so famous in his painting? In this plot it is a French aristocrat that becomes obsessed with the mysterious woman in Da Vinci’s painting.
In 1502, King Louis XII of France has dispatched his Marshal Louis de La Trémouille and a small army of men to Florence in order to acquire fine art. They, of course, stop at Leonardo’s famous home and workshop on their artistic quest. Leonardo is a humorous figure in the brief plot as he is portrayed as a man with a very short attention span. He goes from one project to the next without ever completely finishing anything. As Trémouille and his men are wandering around Leonardo’s home, one of them discovers a painting of a woman behind a curtain. Leonardo assures the young nobleman, Bougainville, that the painting is unfinished and not worth so much attention. But Bougainville is instantly obsessed with the woman in the painting and has convinced himself that he is desperately in love with her.
The only facts about Mona Lisa that Bougainville can get out of Leonardo is that she was the wife of a man named Giocondo and died a couple of years ago when there was an outbreak of plague in the city. Bougainville cannot believe that this amazing woman is dead so he goes to visit her grave at Santa Croce. The small size of the space in which she is supposed to be buried convinces him that she could not possibly be buried in this tomb. He gathers together a few of his men and comes back to the church under the cover of darkness and digs up Mona Lisa’s grave.
When Bougainville finds that her tomb is in fact empty he is determined to figure out this mystery and is convinced that she is still alive. His efforts to find her cause mayhem and fighting between the Florentines and the French. Bougainville believes that Giocondo, Mona Lisa’s husband, is holding her hostage somewhere in the city and the French nobleman does some rash and brazen things to find her. He is certain beyond a doubt that she will be his lover either in this life or the next.
I thoroughly enjoyed this short book because of the characterization of Da Vinci and the little mystery surrounding the empty tomb of Mona Lisa. When written records and archaeological evidence are scarce it is amusing to project our own stories onto the lives of famous men from generations past.
About the Author:
Alexander Lernet-Holenia was an Austrian poet, novelist, dramaturgist and writer of screenplays and historical studies who produced a heterogeneous literary opus that included poesy, psychological novels describing the intrusion of otherworldly or unreal experiences into reality, and recreational films.
The Grand Hotel is the place to stay for anyone who wishes to be surrounded by luxury and high society in 1920’s Berlin. The guests that have all checked into the hotel in March of 1929 are an interesting mix of misfits whose stories all collide in a cleverly intertwined plot.
Petterson presents us with the story of Tommy and Jim who grew up together under difficult circumstances in the same small town in Norway. They lose touch with one another and a chance meeting on a cold morning on a bridge brings them back together and causes memories of their troubled childhood to flood their lives. The story alternates between 2006, when they are middle-aged men and the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when they are teenagers. Since their early years are full of tragedy, we get the feeling that for the rest of their lives they are fighting a constant emotional battle, pushing back against the darkness and continually having to say “I Refuse” to unpleasant circumstance.
Petterson knew from the age of 18 that he wanted to be a writer, but didn’t embark on this career for many years – his debut book, the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa, (Ashes in the Mouth, Sand in the Shoes) was published 17 years later, when Petterson was 35. Previously he had worked for years in a factory as an unskilled labourer, as his parents had done before him, and had also trained as a librarian, and worked as a bookseller.
This book was an unexpected surprise that pulled at my heart strings. Mattis and his sister Hege live in the Norwegian countryside in a simple cottage by a lake. Mattis is mentally challenged and he is constantly attempting to navigate a world that he doesn’t understand and that doesn’t understand him. He has the mind of a child; he becomes excited at the simplest things like the woodcock which flies over their cottage. He has a deep fear of abandonment and is afraid that his sister, who is his only caretaker, can be snatched from him at any moment. And when he cannot make others understand him he becomes bewildered and frustrated. I became completely absorbed in Mattis’ simple and constricted world.
My tour of post-Soviet literature continues with a book that describes the last few months of life in the German Democrat Republic (G.D.R.). The story is told from the point of view of Maria, a seventeen year old girl who is trying to find her way in the world while living through some very tough circumstances. This book has three important aspects to explore, the first and foremost of which is a coming-of-age storyline. Maria is on the cusp on adulthood and has never had much guidance or supervision in her life. She has never known her father very well because he keeps leaving on trips to Russia throughout her childhood. She finds out that this distant father is about to marry a Russian woman that is Maria’s own age.
The Book Binder's Daughter 