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The Blazing World

by Siri Hustvedt
The Blazing World

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781476747248
ISBN10: 1476747245
Condition: Standard


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From Powells.com

25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century

These books create a stunning portrait of contemporary American life.


Staff Pick

Siri Hustvedt spans two worlds in her writing, with her gorgeous, lyrical, often dreamlike fiction, and her nonfiction writing on science, art, and culture. The Blazing World is a novel, but an unusual one — a tour de force about a larger-than-life female artist ("Harry") whose three great works used "masks" — male artists who claimed the works as their own. Through journal excerpts, interviews, and critical essays from the art world, and remembrances from Harry's children, friends, and lovers, it warmly and thoroughly depicts an intelligent, fierce life well lived, and tackles feminism, creativity, and definitions of identity. It is Hustvedt's most masterful and timely work yet. Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Named one of the New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of the Year ** Publishers Weekly’s Best Fiction Books of 2014 ** NPR Best Books of 2014 ** Kirkus Reviews Best Literary Fiction Books of 2014 ** Washington Post Top 50 Fiction Books of 2014 ** Boston Globe’s Best Fiction of 2014 ** The Telegraph’s Best Fiction to Read 2014 ** St. Louis Post Dispatch’s Best Books of 2014 ** The Independent Fiction Books of the Year 2014 ** One of Buzzfeed’s Best Books Written by Women in 2014 ** San Francisco Chronicle’s Best of 2014 ** A Nancy Pearl Pick ** PopMatters.com’s Best of 2014 Fiction

Winner of the 2014 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction

Finalist for the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Hailed by The Washington Post as “Siri Hustvedt’s best novel yet, an electrifying work,” The Blazing World is a masterful novel about perception, prejudice, desire, and one woman’s struggle to be seen.

In a new novel called “searingly fresh... A Nabokovian cat’s cradle” on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, the internationally bestselling author tells the provocative story of artist Harriet Burden, who, after years of having her work ignored, ignites an explosive scandal in New York’s art world when she recruits three young men to present her creations as their own. Yet when the shows succeed and Burden steps forward for her triumphant reveal, she is betrayed by the third man, Rune. Many critics side with him, and Burden and Rune find themselves in a charged and dangerous game, one that ends in his bizarre death.

An intricately conceived, diabolical puzzle presented as a collection of texts, including Harriet’s journals, assembled after her death, this “glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship” (San Francisco Chronicle) unfolds from multiple perspectives as Harriet’s critics, fans, family, and others offer their own conflicting opinions of where the truth lies. Writing in Slate, Katie Roiphe declared it “a spectacularly good read...feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced.”

“Astonishing, harrowing, and utterly, completely engrossing” (NPR), Hustvedt’s new novel is “Blazing indeed:...with agonizing compassion for all of wounded humanity”(Kirkus Reviews, starred review). It is a masterpiece that will be remembered for years to come.

Review

“This is feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, or Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced. And at the same time, the book is a spectacularly good read. Its storytelling is magnificent, its characters vivid, its plot gripping; it’s rare that a novel of ideas can be so much fun.” Slate

Review

“The Blazing World is unique and recognizably so, a bracing examination of the act of creation, of fame and identity, gender bias and feminism, love and desire, psychology and philosophy....Full of life and ideas and intellectual prowess, it’s also a compelling story with richly drawn characters....[An] extraordinary puzzle.” The Miami Herald

Review

"In certain respects, The Blazing World is a didactic novel, presenting arguments about the place of gender in American cultural life, yet it avoids preaching or settled judgments by putting at its center a figure whose strongly held beliefs are undermined by the hazards of real life. The effect is more fluid and nuanced than any scholarly study or political diatribe could be." The Wall Street Journal

Review

“A glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship....[The Blazing World’s] touching conclusion ‘blazes hot and bright’ from the perspective of an aura reader, Harriet's caretaker, whose vision of the artist's work is at once spiritually charged and whimsical.” The San Francisco Chronicle

Review

“Incandescent....Hustvedt’s greatest triumph here is not the feminist argument she makes. It’s that we ache for her characters. This is a muscular book, and just enough of that muscle is heart.” The Boston Globe

Review

“Ingeniously and energetically put together....The Blazing World never runs out of steam in dispensing ideas and peeling back layers of truth.” Chicago Tribune

Review

“The Blazing World is Siri Hustvedt’s best novel yet, an electrifying work with a titanic, poignantly flawed protagonist. Harriet Burden’s rage, turbulence and neediness leap off these pages in a skillfully orchestrated chorus of voices both dark and brilliant.” The Washington Post

Review

"The Blazing World offers a spirited romp...constructed as a Nabokovian cat's cradle....Hustvedt's portrait of the artist as a middle-aged widow is searingly fresh. It's rare to encounter a female protagonist who throws her weight around quite so grandiloquently as Harriet Burden, a heroine who is — well, more like the hero of a Philip Roth or a Saul Bellow novel." New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Siri Hustvedt is the internationally acclaimed author of a book of poems, six novels, four collections of essays, and a work of nonfiction. In 2012 she was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities. Her novel The Blazing World was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Lost Angeles Book Prize for Fiction. She has also published numerous papers in scholarly and scientific journals. She has a PhD in English literature from Columbia University and is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Powell's Staff on PowellsBooks.Blog

These 25 vastly different books create a stunning portrait of the dislocation, perseverance, and hope at the heart of life in 21st-century America...

Read More»


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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 4 (2 comments)

`
Tisa , November 03, 2015 (view all comments by Tisa)
I won't give any spoilers here, but I will say that there is a brilliantly clever and skillfully crafted ending to this novel that is indicative of Siri Hustevedt's equally brilliant, clever, and skilled craftsmanship as a writer. The careful development of plot and characters speaks to her masterful ability to thoroughly draw in the reader with her precise revelation of thought and action. I can see her diagramming the events of the story and drawing character lines that intersect with plot development. Her knowledge of the commercial art world, literature, psychology, and human nature lend a high degree of believability to the novel. This book is not for those who want a quick, light read. Be prepared to think, remember, and learn from this writer. Highly recommended.

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`
Teresa C. Mueller , November 06, 2014 (view all comments by Teresa C. Mueller)
Here's a book, a big fat one, that took me back to Dorris Lessings' The Golden Notebook. Both are feminist tragedies, with strong minded protagonists reacting to a world in which women and other social outliers are to walk the narrow channels, do just the allowed work, speak only the appropriate words. The artist Harriet Burden instead wants to burst through the restrictions and blaze. But her great intelligence does her a disservice. She decides to create work under the names of three living male artists. These men are to temporarily take credit, receive lauds, and then turn over the spotlight to the true creator. It is a revenge act of a political and sad personal nature. But it is not to be. nb: compare to Alenna, The Art Forger, and Hild…all artist stories of a sort.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781476747248
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
11/04/2014
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Pages:
357
Height:
.91IN
Width:
5.55IN
Thickness:
.75
Author:
Siri Hustvedt
Subject:
Siri Hustvedt, The Blazing World, What I Loved, The Year Without Men, New York, art world, artist, feminist, feminism, gender bias, identity, novel, literary fiction
Subject:
Siri Hustvedt, The Blazing World, What I Loved, The Year Without Men, New York, art world, artist, feminist, feminism, gender bias, identity, novel, literary fiction, Man Booker Prize
Subject:
Literature-A to Z

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List Price:$17.99
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