Optic Nerve
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
‘A highly original, piercingly beautiful work, full of beautiful shocks… I felt like a door had been kicked open in my brain’ Johanna Thomas-Corr, Observer
A woman searches Buenos Aires for the paintings that are her inspiration and her refuge. Her life -- she is a young mother with a complicated family -- is sometimes overwhelming. But among the canvases, often little-known works in quiet rooms, she finds clarity and a sense of who she is . . .
'I was reminded of John Berger's Ways of Seeing, enfolded in tender and exuberant personal narratives'
Claire-Louise Bennett
'This woman-guide, who goes from Lampedusa to The Doors with crushing elegance, is unforgettable' Mariana Enriquez
'A dazzling combination of memoir, fiction and art book, like nothing you’ve ever read before’ Elle
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gainza's phenomenal first work to be translated into English is a nimble yet momentous novel about the connection between one woman's personal life and the art she observes. The book is composed of episodes in the life of Mar a, who lives in Buenos Aires, often beginning with an anecdote about someone she knows before brilliantly finding an associative link to a work of art, then delving into the backstory of the artwork and the artist before coming full circle to how it all makes sense in Maria's life. In one chapter, Mar a's observation of the sea prompts her to consider Gustave Courbet's seascapes ("his water was fossil-like: a slab of malachite rent hard across the middle"), before connecting the thread to her enigmatic cousin. In another chapter, Mar a's fear of flying keeps her from attending a prestigious art convention and leads her to mull over Henri Rousseau's ability to venture beyond his limitations to shape avant-garde art. Tsuguharu Foujita's artistic decline is juxtaposed against Mar a's longtime friend Alexia's unrealized artistic potential. There are many pleasures in Gainza's novel: its clever and dynamic structure, its many aper us ("happiness interests only those who experience it; nobody can be moved by the happiness of others"), and some of the very best writing about art around. With playfulness and startling psychological acuity, Gainza explores the spaces between others, art, and the self, and how what one sees and knows form the ineffable hodgepodge of the human soul. The result is a transcendent work.
