About this title: Christensen pens a scintillating comedy of life among the avant-garde--of theuntidy truths, needy egos, and jostling for position behind the glossy facadeof artistic greatness--in this PEN Faulkner Award-winning story of a New YorkCity painter living in the heroic generation of the 1940s and 1950s.
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Description: Fine. 0307277348 Very light shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages like new condition//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. 0385518455 Condition: VERY GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, cover wear, name written inside cover, light underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, etc. Overall, the book is in solid shape. This is a blanket description. Please email us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week of your request). read more
Description: Good. 0385518455 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Description: Good. 0385518455 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Date Published: 2007-08-14
ISBN-13:9780385518451ISBN:0385518455
Description: Good. Save some $$$. Perfectly Good Reading Copy. Shelfwear from storage in box with other books. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Description: Good. 0385518455 Ex library book with stickers and stampings. Overall good condition book with clean text and good binding unless otherwise noted. Most items ship within 24 hours. read more
Edition: First edition. Bound Manuscript Not For Sale. Advance copy.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780385518451ISBN:0385518455
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. The cover has a crease on the front. No marks or tears. Binding is tight. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday, New York
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780385518451ISBN:0385518455
Description: Very Good in Very Good dust jacket; Faint old pencil price on upper fly page corner. Dust jacket has very minor wrinkling at upper edge. 0385518455. Cover and text are unmarked and very clean, except as noted.; 1.2 x 8.2 x 5.7 Inches; 320 pages. read more
"Recommended to me by a very good friend, The Great Man by Kate Christensen was an enjoyable and quick read. A famous NYC painter who specializes in nudes, dies and leaves behind two families, that of his wife, and that of his mistress, and his famous but under-appreciated sister who is an abstract painter. When two different biographers come around to research the dead artist's life, old grudges and resentments rise to the surface and get aired. In the process, the reader has the opportunity to see through the eyes of four elderly women as they reminisce about past choices, critique the art world, and through the process of remembering the dead painter, becoming sexually reintegrated into the present moment in the winter of their lives. It is this last aspect of the narrative that I found the most believable and compelling; I don't think I will ever look at elderly women the same again. Like a fly on the gossip wall, I also enjoyed the portrayal of the NYC art scene and the author's imaginings into the mind of an artist as he/she attempts to realize a vision through their medium. The characters' discussions about art and poetry and how it related to a biographical life were engaging even if, at times, it felt like Christensen was showing off the spoils of her many cocktail party conversations in NYC.
By the end, however, the novel failed to convince me that the truth of the artist's life mattered more than the art that he left behind -- although I'm not sure if that was Christensen's argument. No matter what kind of sod/genius the artist may have been in his domestic life, his art--realized through the medium of women's bodies--still spoke to people in some kind of visceral way (or so they reported). I appreciated Christensen's attempt to juxtapose the enshrined "truth" about the women as depicted in the artist's painting, with the liv(ed/ing) truth of the women characters who were still alive to their bodies. I'm just not sure that she succeeded in arguing that this latter kind of truth is more important somehow than art's truth, the "Void" to which art points."
"Excellent vacation reading. Intelligent, funny, insightful, and a quick read. The "great man" of the title is a recently deceased painter who doesn't appear in the novel at all; instead, it revolves around four women, all above the age of 70, who figured prominently in his life and are now trying to move on after his death. His wife (now widow), his mistress of 40 years, the mistress's best friend, and his sister -- all of the women in the novel are compelling characters. The author does a great job of making you feel like you're on the side of the particular woman on which each chapter focuses, and the dialogue and spats between them are fairly hilarious. There are some interesting ideas presented about traditional and modern concepts of masculinity and femininity. Despite the "ick factor" of all the old-person sex, I found it very enjoyable, comparing favorably to other winners of the PEN/Faulkner award."
"A famous (fictional) New York artist, Oscar Feldman, dies leaving behind his wealthy wife and autistic adult son, plus his mistress of 40 years and their twin daughters. Two different biographers decide to write a book about him-not knowing the other is doing the same. Each biographer spends time with each of the women in the artist's life, his twin daughters and his sister who is also an artist in her own right, and with whom he has had a life-long difficult relationship. What makes this book interesting is the unfolding of how each person saw their relationship with Oscar and how each biographer's style brings out different memories...or different perceptions of events. As the story unfolds there is an event that brings all of the women together, which adds another interesting dimension to the story."
"This book was used for a book discussion group comprised mostly of senior citizen women who all thought it was good and exchanged lively insights and views about the characters and the themes. The minor thread on GoodReads about whether Christensen's depiction of the African American characters was racist is valid. At one point, she has one of the female characters suggest that Ralph, one of Oscar's biographers, received a scholarship to go to college because he was a minority. We do not know that this is true, only that the woman thinks it's true. So putting aside any question of stereotyping, it was a good book so I gave it three stars.
Oscar Feldman, a well-known artist who chases women, dies and leaves behind his wife, sister, and Teddy St. Cloud, a mistress who he fathered two children with along with his son by his wife. As far as MFA fiction goes, this is pretty good. Each biographer comes up with a different assessment about the painter and his life and the newspaper reviews of their books are included at the end.
Definitely check this out of the library if you want light literary fiction."
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