Book Review: The Muse
'The Muse' by Jessie Burton follows the story of two creatively gifted women living in two different era's: the thirties and the sixties. It is a story about love, friendship, mystery and creating.
Odelle Bastien is a young woman living in the 1960's. She grew up in the Caribbean but with her best friend immigrated to London to start a new life. She is drawn to creativity and has always dreamed of being a writer. When she first moves to England, she works at a shoe shop with her best friend Cynthia, but finds the work dull. She soon instead gets a job at an art gallery where she is introduced to an array of interesting characters.
While at her friend Cynthia's wedding, she meets a young man named Lawrie who later brings a mysterious painting to the gallery that Odelle works at. The painting is thought to be the creation of a Spanish artist named Isaac Robles. He was an artist who perished young and did not produce much work. But his lack of prolificacy added to the value of the art he did create. But it seems there is much more to the painting and the story of the artist that anyone knows.
The reader gets to find out more about the origins of the painting as the novel goes back in time to tell the story of Olive Scholls. Olive is a young woman with a great gift. But she chooses to hide her gift because she knows that being a woman, her gift won't be respected. That a work of art thought to be done by a man can be thought of as extraordinary but when the same work of art is thought to be done by a woman it is thought of as trivial. It's this reality that sets her fate and the fate of those around her into motion.
Olive is living in Spain in the thirties with her Austrian father and English mother. Her parents live a lavish life of wealth, but both seem empty and unsatisfied in their life. Olive is inspired to finding meaning beyond their lavish lifestyle whether it be through art, friendship, love or fighting for her beliefs.
'The Muse' is an inspiring novel that not only crafted an intriguing mystery, but delved into deep questions such as who we create art for and the weight that viewers of art put on the creator. It also brought up the way art created by women is valued differently then art created by men. This was especially true throughout history, but women's art still is not respected the way men's art is. Men who write novels never have to go by their initials in order to calm readers into thinking the writer is a different gender than they are. Traditional expressions of male creativity aren't thought as trivial the way traditional women's form of creativity are such as knitting, embroidering or sewing. The worlds changing though. The best way to keep this change is motion is remembering why its so important. The Muse does this very thing by bringing us into the world of the past, so that it is impossible for the reader to not connect it with the world of today.
Odelle Bastien is a young woman living in the 1960's. She grew up in the Caribbean but with her best friend immigrated to London to start a new life. She is drawn to creativity and has always dreamed of being a writer. When she first moves to England, she works at a shoe shop with her best friend Cynthia, but finds the work dull. She soon instead gets a job at an art gallery where she is introduced to an array of interesting characters.
While at her friend Cynthia's wedding, she meets a young man named Lawrie who later brings a mysterious painting to the gallery that Odelle works at. The painting is thought to be the creation of a Spanish artist named Isaac Robles. He was an artist who perished young and did not produce much work. But his lack of prolificacy added to the value of the art he did create. But it seems there is much more to the painting and the story of the artist that anyone knows.
The reader gets to find out more about the origins of the painting as the novel goes back in time to tell the story of Olive Scholls. Olive is a young woman with a great gift. But she chooses to hide her gift because she knows that being a woman, her gift won't be respected. That a work of art thought to be done by a man can be thought of as extraordinary but when the same work of art is thought to be done by a woman it is thought of as trivial. It's this reality that sets her fate and the fate of those around her into motion.
Olive is living in Spain in the thirties with her Austrian father and English mother. Her parents live a lavish life of wealth, but both seem empty and unsatisfied in their life. Olive is inspired to finding meaning beyond their lavish lifestyle whether it be through art, friendship, love or fighting for her beliefs.
'The Muse' is an inspiring novel that not only crafted an intriguing mystery, but delved into deep questions such as who we create art for and the weight that viewers of art put on the creator. It also brought up the way art created by women is valued differently then art created by men. This was especially true throughout history, but women's art still is not respected the way men's art is. Men who write novels never have to go by their initials in order to calm readers into thinking the writer is a different gender than they are. Traditional expressions of male creativity aren't thought as trivial the way traditional women's form of creativity are such as knitting, embroidering or sewing. The worlds changing though. The best way to keep this change is motion is remembering why its so important. The Muse does this very thing by bringing us into the world of the past, so that it is impossible for the reader to not connect it with the world of today.