The Muse

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all these quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof of the book, so they might be subject to change. The plot follows two different but interwined timelines. We have Odelle, a Caribbean immigrant in London in 1967, and Olive Schloss, daughter of an art dealer in Spain in 1937. this is just everything - the rhythm of the sentences, the vividness of the description, her depiction of workplace integration as startled british politeness without rancor that still manages to reference the bitter aftertaste of colonialism's legacy. it kills me. This book is about inspiration and the process of creation. About working in anonymity for the sole purpose of working vs. creating for acclaim or compensation, and about the freedom the former brings.

The Muse is split in chronology and perspective, varying between Odelle, a typist for an art gallery in 196o's London, and Olive, the artistic daughter of bourgeois parents holidaying in a 1930's Spain on the brink of Civil War. The pair never meet but their stories are linked through the decades in a way that will only be revealed as this story comes to a close, in an extraordinary and emotional conclusion. Burton engages in a fair bit of parallelism. Odelle is an immigrant to London. Olive is a foreigner in Spain. Both are creatives, Odelle with writing, Olive with painting. Both Olive and Odelle hide their work from most people. Both find inspiration in a love interest, and feel unable to create in the absence of that other. Both have their work exposed to the world without their consent. Both Odelle and Olive imagine paradise in a place that is anything but. Olive sees Spain as Eden-ic and uses that in one very lush painting. But she does not see the turmoil that underlies the country until it is almost upon her. Odelle sees London as a sort of literary nirvana, but has had to endure years of racism and limited opportunity. She does, however, experience a Shangri-La moment in the lush growth of a London garden. Other items to keep an eye out for are characters projecting their expectations, good and bad, onto others. There are several parent/child, mentor/acolyte connections at play. Seeing people or things in terms of fairy tales, religious and secular, pops up a few times as well.In a nutshell, this ardent yet poignant book will arrest the minds of the readers that it won't let them look away from its elegance, beauty and pain. If not for the story, read the book for its strong female characters of those long forgotten era. Set in Calvinist Amsterdam, it follows a new bride in a strange country and the miniaturist who foreshadowed her life with his creations.

Burton constructs the dual plotline with painstaking craft, and has a good ear for the ambient interruptions of nature: “the cicadas began to build their rasping wall of sound”; “Bees drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from the trees”. The author expertly and quite beautifully weaves the two stories together, seemingly only connected by a work of art, as the novel progresses, the two stories are knitted tighter and tighter together until each and every character has their own place in both parts. A thrilling painting with a mysterious provenance connects two bold young women, one in Civil War Spain, the other in mid-1960s England. That’s one thing this book has in common with The Miniaturist. And it’s a reason enough to read both! Despite being the winning cards and points of strength in this book, the able use of vocabulary was distracting being aligned with a flat story. It seemed as if the author was trying too hard which doesn't look good.That said, Jessie Burton is a great writer. I thought so when I read The Miniaturist and I can't do anything but confirm it now. Her characters are well developed, her writing style is elegant and she's capable of describing human emotions in a realistic way. The plot might be a bit predictable in this case, but the final result wasn't any less beautiful because of it. Like most artists, everything I produced was connected to who I was - and so I suffered according to how my work was received. The idea that anyone might be able to detach their personal value from their public output was revolutionary.” Whether it takes the form of music or a painting or a sculpture or the written word, nothing speaks to our souls like art. This gives artists a power over their fellow men and women. But no one doubts art so much as its creator, and so an artist’s audience holds within themselves the approval and praise that said artist craves, and thus artists rely on their audiences for the affirmation and reassurance needed to create their next work of art. However, if an artist isn’t careful they begin producing cheap imitations of the art that first garnered them attention, and so artists must be careful regarding how heavily they rely upon and value the opinions of others. They need something else to feed that need and fuel their creativity.

The Muse" tells the story of two women: Odelle living in 1960s London and Olive living in 1930s Malaga in Spain. It's a story about art, but it's also a story about history and destinies. From very early on in the book, I felt captivated with and invested in the story. It was simple, beautiful and I was eager to find out more about these intriguing characters. It's funny how Jessie Burton is able to write stories that are quite similar, but that are still able to evoke very opposing emotions in me. Some years ago, I read "The Miniaturist" and I wasn't impressed. I still appreciated the story, though, and so I decided to get "The Muse" as well and read it. I'm so happy I did! It turned out that I liked this novel a lot better, and in many ways I read it at just the perfect time of my life.

The Muse

was a time in Spain when challenges to the elected government were becoming more brazen. The conflict between the opposing camps in many communities was shifting from loud disagreement to something more kinetic. The pressures in the political world ramp up in concert with the emotional upheavals in the Schloss household, not just as literary window-dressing, but as a crucial element in the story. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.