Realism painted in broad strokes

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Of course I'm gonna love this book. Not only is it one of Vonnegut's best, but it's about a cranky old artist who just wants to be alone! Actually, I had just finished teaching my Painting class about Abstract Expressionists of the New York School when I found this story about Rabo Karabekian, a fictitious friend of the likes of Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko. He grew up in a small town in central California, the son of poor Armenian immigrants, survivors of the Turkish genocide. He apprentices under a Norman Rockwell type character and serves in a special squad of camouflage artists in WWII, after which he becomes rich and famous but even more successful as an art collector than as an artist. The story of his life is inter weaved with the story of the summer that a woman novelist nags him into writing his autobiography. There's a lot of tension between the verbal and visual modes of thinking, between writing and painting and between the sexes too. Typical Vonnegut scathing satire of American society with occasional nods to the relationship of men to the memory of their fathers.

Funny, fast/easy reading, insightful and engaging.

This book isn't surreal or full of science fiction like many of his books. It's more like historical fiction, with some parts that are "screwball comedy" thrown in. As a middle-aged artist who never did achieve his dreams of making it big as a writer or professional cartoonist, I was really able to relate to it. 

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