Book Review
Sep. 6th, 2008 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Love Artist
by Jane Alison
This brief historical novel is about Ovid, specifically, it is an imagining of his life while writing Medea, a work which was eventually lost. While traveling to the shores of the Black Sea, Ovid meets Xenia, a mysterious, clairvoyant woman who practices alchemy and herbalism. Not only does Ovid fall in love with her, he also sees her as the muse for his next great work. Xenia returns his love and is also able to see that Ovid will achieve immortality through his writings, and thus, she returns to Rome with him. Once there, Ovid determines that his next work will be a tragedy about Medea, and he ends up trying to mold Xenia into an apt model.
Through this story, Alison takes a look at the uneasy relationship between art and reality, and between artists and that which inspires them. I wish that she had gone deeper in exploring this theme, but the book was otherwise a good read. This was Jane Alison's first novel, and I'm interested to see what she does next.
by Jane Alison
This brief historical novel is about Ovid, specifically, it is an imagining of his life while writing Medea, a work which was eventually lost. While traveling to the shores of the Black Sea, Ovid meets Xenia, a mysterious, clairvoyant woman who practices alchemy and herbalism. Not only does Ovid fall in love with her, he also sees her as the muse for his next great work. Xenia returns his love and is also able to see that Ovid will achieve immortality through his writings, and thus, she returns to Rome with him. Once there, Ovid determines that his next work will be a tragedy about Medea, and he ends up trying to mold Xenia into an apt model.
Through this story, Alison takes a look at the uneasy relationship between art and reality, and between artists and that which inspires them. I wish that she had gone deeper in exploring this theme, but the book was otherwise a good read. This was Jane Alison's first novel, and I'm interested to see what she does next.
