Rated of 5
by Celia A. (Takoma Park, MD) Great fun
Christopher Moore has tackled Shakespeare and the Gospels, among other cultural icons. This time he turns his sights on art and the Impressionists, with a specific focus on the color blue. His story mixes the supernatural with real people. It's great fun seeing how he incorporates some of the best-loved artists. You do have to be willing to suspend disbelief, but once you do that, you can't help but have a good time. Even though I loved this book, I'm holding back a point the way I hold back my standing ovations. If given too freely, they mean nothing. Moore's books are clever, but I doubt anybody would mistake them for great literature.
Rated of 5
by Margaret B. (pompano beach, florida) Sacre'Bleu
If you ever tried to mix a certain shade of blue paint you can understand the problems artists in the 1900 had trying to succeed. Blue was impossible without the help of certain minerals that the "colorman" would sell to the artists. The paint would be mixed with turpentine and the fumes would cause hallucinations.
I loved the conversations and ways of life of the artists. Just imagine listening to van Gogh and Gauguin discuss their paintings over a glass of wine. I always imagined the poor artists huddled in dark corners and starving. They were poor but all were willing to help others. Stores would ask for paintings on the walls so they would be sold "for a fee"
This is a great story of artists life in Paris .
Rated of 5
by Betsey V. (Austin, TX) A case of the "blues."
Moore’s mystical, mordant comedy starts off with a bang—literally. Van Gogh shoots himself in a wheat field, and then walks a mile to seek medical attention. Why try to commit suicide and then ask for help? That is a mystery, one of several in this bawdy revisionist history of the French Masters. It’s an artful madcap romp and roll of fin de siècle France. Sacré bleu refers to an ultramarine color adorned by the Blessed virgin, but it’s also French profanity for blasphemous cursing. In other words, sacré bleu covers territory from the sacred…to the profane, just like Moore’s comedy d’Art of the late nineteenth century Impressionists.
A mystifying woman, Juliette, is the muse for Lucien Lessard, a baker turned painter. Lessard’s closest friend is painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, the bon vivant frequenter of bars, baguettes, and brothels. Henri and Lucien find themselves chasing love and the “blues” in this absurdist, and, to some degree, shaggy dog story where a dwarf and a donkey seem mysteriously connected to the great passions and masterpieces of Seurat, Manet, Pissaro, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir, and others of this era.
Colorful anecdotes of the great painters add fine brushstrokes to the story’s ribald and ruddy complexion, and are just as entertaining as the story’s central premise. The principal twister is dragged out to a long-winded finale, so that the reader is ready for it to end at about 80 of the way through. However, it is a thought provoking and satisfying conclusion. Also, Moore gives us more with a tantalizing afterword.
Rated of 5
by Kelly H. (Martinsville, IN) A Pretty Fun Read...
When I received this book, and did my initial flip-through, I thought I would not like it, but I told myself to keep an open mind. I have never read anything like this before, but I enjoyed this book! There isn't a lot to the plot, but it is clever and fun. I also told myself not to expect to learn a lot about art history, but I ended up knowing more than when I started. Not one of my Bookbrowse faves, but enjoyable.
Rated of 5
by William E. (Honolulu, HI) 19th Century French Art Through a Black Hole
What a ride. If you like Moore and you are fascinated by late 19th Century French do I have a book for you! What happens when a French painter trained by Pissaro teams up with Henri Toulouse Lautrec on trying to figure out the power of the color blue used in paintings and stained glass portraying the Virgin Mary....having said that what really happened to Vincent Van Gogh in that field? And oh by the way, the Pissaro student is a baker on Montmatre....and the mysterious Colorman...this review is making me write in all of these dependent and independent clauses which kind of is the way you should read the book....Recommended? Absolutely....
Rated of 5
by Margaret D. (VT) Huge amount of fun!
This is a colorful, twisting art(ist) mystery. An earthy combination of art history and fantasy that kept me seated quite happily through several wintery days. I shall seek out Christopher Moore's earlier works.
A very large book - in number of pages and in content - and every page worth reading. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and her first book on the...
read more
Two Lives is a memoir written by international best-selling author, Vikram Seth. In this interesting and engaging book, Seth writes about his great...
read more
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Judge rules unused Borders gift cards to be worthless(May 23 2013) Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal...
Full Story
of 5
by Celia A. (Takoma Park, MD) 
of 5
by William E. (Honolulu, HI) 
