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There are currently 28 member reviews
for Sacre Bleu
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Norma R. (secaucus, NJ)
Sacre Bleu
I enjoyed this book. If you like Paris, bread and painters you will too. Most of the story takes place in the Montmartre neighborhood.The characters are Impressionist painters like Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissaro and Manet. The book centers on the need for "true blue", the special color coveted by all artists. It also focuses on the painters' "muse" or inspiration. The artists come across as real people, having fun and struggling to make a living.
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Eileen F. (Drexel Hill, PA)
Crazy Art World
Sacre Bleu is typical Christopher Moore and more. It is crazy, bizarre and full of facts about art, artists and Impressionism. If you enjoyed other Moore books you will like this. I appreciated the art work in the book, as well as all the history of the time period. This was a fun read.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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Michael P. (San Marcos, CA)
My first Christopher Moore book
I didn't know what to expect so I entered cautiously. It is unlike anything I'd read before, but in a good way. Fun story with a great dry sense of humor. I enjoyed the characters the most, particularly Henri. (I wanted to hang out with him!). Recommended.
