Sign in with Facebook
Gary Inbinder's Reviews > The Masterpiece
The Masterpiece
by
by
This is a story about how a creation destroys its creator, and the fine line between genius and madness. In that regard, it reminded me of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."
Zola's descriptions of late 19th century Paris are astounding; you see, breathe, taste, and feel it. His characters are flesh and blood men and women. They leap off the page and bore into your consciousness. His observations of the human condition are compelling, his philosophical musings on the creative life profound. But it's all hard, bleak, and raw, a portrait of misery and depression with only the tiniest glimmer of hope in its final line, spoken in a cemetery: "Let's go to work."
Zola's descriptions of late 19th century Paris are astounding; you see, breathe, taste, and feel it. His characters are flesh and blood men and women. They leap off the page and bore into your consciousness. His observations of the human condition are compelling, his philosophical musings on the creative life profound. But it's all hard, bleak, and raw, a portrait of misery and depression with only the tiniest glimmer of hope in its final line, spoken in a cemetery: "Let's go to work."
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Masterpiece.
Sign In »
Quotes Gary Liked
“From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. I begin to say the book’s no good, far inferior to my earlier ones, until I’ve wrung torture out of every page, every sentence, every word, and the very commas begin to look excruciatingly ugly. Then, when it’s finished, what a relief! Not the blissful delight of the gentleman who goes into ecstasies over his own production, but the resentful relief of a porter dropping a burden that’s nearly broken his back . . . Then it starts all over again, and it’ll go on starting all over again till it grinds the life out of me, and I shall end my days furious with myself for lacking talent, for not leaving behind a more finished work, a bigger pile of books, and lie on my death-bed filled with awful doubts about the task I’ve done, wondering whether it was as it ought to have been, whether I ought not to have done this or that, expressing my last dying breath the wish that I might do it all over again!”
― The Masterpiece
― The Masterpiece
Reading Progress
June 16, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
June 16, 2014
– Shelved
June 23, 2014
–
Started Reading
July 4, 2014
– Shelved as:
french-literature
July 4, 2014
– Shelved as:
art
July 4, 2014
–
Finished Reading
