"She looks with palpable intensity"
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 06:00AM 
In last Sunday's New York Times Book Review, Adam Begley reviews The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk. Cusk is the Whitbread Award–winning author of the novel, Arlington Park. Of this new memoir, her publisher says, "Oppressed by the claustrophobia of domestic life, a family decides to sell up and go to Italy; to search for art and its meanings, for freedom from routine, for a different path into the future."
In admiring review of Cusk's approach to and descriptions of art, Begley writes, "she looks with palpable intensity," and, "she observes carefully, teasing out specific meanings," and finally, "she’s at her best when she broods, when she allows her earnestness to condense."
In fact, in the end, it was Cusk's intense looking at art that captured Begley's interest (and ours) and saved the book: "there’s an awkward tension throughout 'The Last Supper' between Cusk’s intellectual ambitions and the humdrum 'what I did last summer' narrative.... I hope that next time she visits Italy she leaves her domestic baggage at home and concentrates on looking at the art."
Given this I'm tempted to buy the book and only read the art bits. And if they were to prove as rich as the review starts to suggest they are, wouldn't it be sort of interesting to offer an edition of the book that was only these descriptions of the art? Perhaps even as a simple ebook or iPhone app that included some travel guide material? Not the thing I'd expect Farrar, Strauss & Giroux or a Whitbread Award-winning author to jump on, but an intriguing opportunity.
Hol Art Books
In one of bookforum.com's new daily reviews, Claire Barliant also reviews the book and states, "Each sentence is crisply perfect, binding brilliantly detailed descriptions to sensitive, sharp observations."
Reader Comments