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A very odd book.
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The Crimson Portrait
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Set in England during World War I, this haunting love story by the author of the bestselling "The Fig Eater" makes unforgettably real the ravages of love and war.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1,2006
This edition
- Format
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304 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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December 1, 2006 by Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN
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9780316785280
- ASIN
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0316785288
- Language
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English
About the author
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Jody Shields is the former design editor of the New York Times Magazine and a former editor at Vogue, House and Garden, and Details. She has written several screenplays and has a master's degree in art. Her prints are in various collections, including the Museum of Modern Art. She lives in New York.
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Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 97 votes)
5 stars
32(33%)
4 stars
31(32%)
3 stars
34(35%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
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97 reviews All reviews
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Jody Shields constructed her first novel, The Fig Eater (2000), around the imagined murder of Freud's famous patient Dora. Similarly, two historical figures (Anna Coleman Ladd and Dr. Varaztad Kazanjian) provide the kernel of her absorbing new novel. Most critics loved this literary exploration of grief despite its unhurried plot; they praised the novel's fascinating subject, its engaging characters, and its beautiful use of language. In sharp contrast, The New York Times criticized "pat similes," "stilted sexual subplots," and "mixed metaphors ? so random as to bring to mind those kits for creating refrigerator poetry." Still, even this negative review grudgingly acknowledged that "this is potentially fascinating stuff" and commended Shields's effort. For most of her fans, The Crimson Portrait will provide an engrossing read.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
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I was so intrigued by this premise... a woman who loses her husband during WWI has the chance to remake a wounded soldier's face into her husband's image. An English manor house is turned into a hospital for soldiers specifically with facial injuries. The widow who owns the house is resentful of the soldiers and medical personnel invading her grief. Such an interesting examination of the grieving process, and of early attempts to disguise/repair facial injuries from war. The flow of the story was stiff though... I had a hard time connecting personally to the characters. But there was enough tension in the story that I wanted to finish the book.
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Another book by Jody Shields I absolutely loved. I will definitely re-read and highlight her turn of phrases. Really loved it.
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Jody Shields now has two books--The Crimson Portrait, and The Fig Eater. If you have read The Crimson Portrait, and were not convinced, I'd strongly recommend trying her first novel, The Fig Eater. The novel takes place in Austria, with a killer on the loose... and all the terrific psycho-spins readers of Caleb Carr would enjoy (The Alienist), but with more snow, more sugar-powdered linzer torts, and more chills.
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3.5/5 stars
I understand why people call this book boring and say nothing happens in it, but the writing is so beautifully lyrical that I can’t be mad at it. The characters didn’t particularly get me to care about them, but the book is poetry, and I had trouble finding it in myself to be mad at the characters when the writing was just so lovely.
As for why I didn’t give it a higher rating...the story is slow. It’s not boring, but it’s slow burn at its purest. Reading it feels like getting caught in a foggy summer haze that’s filtered to where you can only see it in a certain color scheme. Whether or not that simile makes sense, I felt that way throughout the entire book. Also, I had trouble excusing Catherine’s strange actions beyond a certain point. To some degree, I sympathized with her and wanted her plan to succeed, but when she actually went through with it, I was disgusted by her selfishness and her inability to see Julian as anything but a replacement for her husband.
Overall, it’s a good read, and I’m sad that the reviews here are so harsh on it. It’s poetry in slow motion, and it covers a fascinating subtopic of WWI.
I understand why people call this book boring and say nothing happens in it, but the writing is so beautifully lyrical that I can’t be mad at it. The characters didn’t particularly get me to care about them, but the book is poetry, and I had trouble finding it in myself to be mad at the characters when the writing was just so lovely.
As for why I didn’t give it a higher rating...the story is slow. It’s not boring, but it’s slow burn at its purest. Reading it feels like getting caught in a foggy summer haze that’s filtered to where you can only see it in a certain color scheme. Whether or not that simile makes sense, I felt that way throughout the entire book. Also, I had trouble excusing Catherine’s strange actions beyond a certain point. To some degree, I sympathized with her and wanted her plan to succeed, but when she actually went through with it, I was disgusted by her selfishness and her inability to see Julian as anything but a replacement for her husband.
Overall, it’s a good read, and I’m sad that the reviews here are so harsh on it. It’s poetry in slow motion, and it covers a fascinating subtopic of WWI.
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I found this so hard to read. No actually I didn't. The stop, start process of the story I found hard to read, concentrate and keep me entertained or interested in what was going on. The story didn't flow and although it had exquisite and harrowing details to do with mood, scenery and medical terms, I have to admit half way through I had enough. It nearly ended up in my CNC pile. Which I hate doing to any book. I struggled with it to the end only to find out it didn't even tell you what happened to the main characters that dominated the story all the way through the book.
I was deeply unimpressed, unhappy and felt like I had wasted my time.
This gets three stars purely for the beautiful language it was written with.
Apart from that.. If I could go back in a time machine I would choose not to read this book. Ever.
I was deeply unimpressed, unhappy and felt like I had wasted my time.
This gets three stars purely for the beautiful language it was written with.
Apart from that.. If I could go back in a time machine I would choose not to read this book. Ever.
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Just starting out on this book, looks promising
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