GoodReads
description:
‘A picture hides a
thousand words . . .
On a hot July day in
1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London,
knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her
place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been
offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic
Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks
a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery - no more so than
when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery.
The truth about the
painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss,
the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into
this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his
half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss
family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . .’
I appreciated Jessie Burton’s award-winning, bestselling The Miniaturist. I spent a Christmas
hand-selling it at Waterstones and it was a well-written, well-crafted novel. But
I loved The Muse. I engaged with it
and its characters, heart and mind. They’re both great books, but The Muse is the one I’d go back to and
the one that personally hit the spot. It had me from the selected quote before
the story even began:
‘Never again will a single story be sold as though it were the only
one.’ – John Berger
This is an epigraph which has been used in many well-known,
acclaimed novels – it seems to have a track record of success of its own. John
Berger is understandably part of most undergraduate studies in literature but
it’s a quote that has so much resonance in so many fields of study, and life.
At my university, we were shown Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk on the ‘Danger of a Single Story’ – and I’ve mentioned it before on this blog.
Jessie Burton’s The
Muse certainly draws upon this idea of the single story – about the different
ways things can be perceived, the way that different angles can convey
different meanings, and the way that narratives can be controlled to include
and exclude. It is, at its heart, about art in all its senses and incarnations
– about responsibility, representation, power, dignity and consent:
‘It doesn’t matter what’s the truth; what people believe becomes the
truth.’
Burton’s parallel narratives depict two women in different
eras, both talented and creative, and yet both – partly because of
circumstance, and partly by choice – hiding their gifts or holding back.
Originally from Trinidad, Odelle Bastien (1960s) still feels an outsider- she
explains:
‘I was – both by
circumstance and nature – a migrant in this world, and my lived experience had
long become a state of mind’
Burton navigates these angles of migration and ethnicity sensitively
and thoughtfully, exploring how it feels to be away from your country of birth
and trying to forge an identity in a place where – whether by virtue of gender
or race – you may not be taken so seriously, and may feel compelled to hide
away.
Marjorie Quick becomes a sort of mentor, as well as
employer, eager to unlock Odelle’s talents and encourage them. Back in the
1930s, a young woman named Teresa seeks to do the same for Olive Schloss, the
daughter of an art collector (also living away from home, in Spain) who paints
secretly and brilliantly (better than Teresa’s artist half-brother, Isaac). The
parallels and the way in which Burton toys with the seams of both stories and
characters is delightful and utterly compelling. Each tiny twist seems to raise
the stakes until the simple truth becomes the ultimate and most quietly devastating
prize.
The dynamic between all the characters held me captivated.
Like Odelle, I was fascinated by the enigmatic nature of Marjorie Quick and I loved
that the bonds between women – between Odelle and Marjorie, and Olive and
Teresa - are the most complex and intriguing. Both go beyond the connections
that Odelle and Olive feel to the men in their lives and endure in a much stronger
and more meaningful way.
The Muse is a book
that is so cleverly layered that I feel I want to reread it again and again and
to look at these characters from all angles. For now, these are just a few
introductory thoughts on a novel I admire more each time I think about it.
Adichie’s ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ TED
talk quotes:
- ‘I realised that I had become so immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans that they had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant. I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.’
- ‘So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become’.
- ‘There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.’
- ‘The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.’
The Muse
quotes:
- ‘Not all of us receive the ends that we deserve.’
- ‘This is what she taught me: you have to be ready in order to be lucky. You have to put your pieces into play.’
- ‘That if you really want to see your work to completion, you have to desire it more than you’d believe you have to fight it, fight yourself. It’s not easy.’
- ‘It doesn’t matter what’s the truth; what people believe becomes the truth.’
- ‘In the end, a piece of art only succeeds when its creator – to paraphrase Olive Schloss – possesses the belief that brings it into being’
*Thank you to Picador and NetGalley for the chance to read an ARC of The Muse.
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