Really interesting, but the end dragged a bit, so only 3 stars. The chronology at the end was very helpful, as well as the bios of the Parisian artistic figures featured in the book. Really enjoyed the artwork.

As a biography of Alice Prin, a fixture of the Bohemian scene in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s better known as Kiki, this graphic novel clearly has done its homework. However, the narrative here feels less like Kiki's life story and more of a connect-the-dots series of vignettes that are illustrative, but still leaving us wondering if there was a greater center to Kiki's life. The artwork does the story few favors as well, unfortunately. And the very detailed appendix somehow feels more informative than the 350+ pages of narrative that preceded it. Alas.

I read a free copy of this graphic novel on WorldCat. Why was this so difficult to get ahold of? It's lovely and compelling. Kiki knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.

Kiki fra Mont­par­nasse er noget af en tour de force. Det er for det før­ste en orden­lig svend af en teg­ne­se­rie og sam­ti­dig er den histo­risk kor­rekt. Den for­tæl­ler histo­rien om Kiki, som blev muse for kunst­nere, især for Man Ray, mel­lem­krig­sti­dens fete­rede fotograf.

Histo­rien fæn­ger med det samme og man lever side om side med Kiki i hen­des utro­lige liv.

Mé zhodnocení: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsLDp_W4Ah8

I admire the artwork and the extensive research that I am sure went into the creation of this book. Kiki was a real woman who met many important figures in the art and literary world (example: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway). However, the end result was, for me, a portrait of a person who was not very endearing. I couldn't root for her as a lot of the things that happened to her or the hardships she endured were because of her own actions and choices. She was a woman who yearned for love, yet her desire to live a "free" life (i.e. with sex, drugs, and alcohol) sabotaged any chance she had for it. Interesting as an examination of the times (1920s-40s) and how gender roles were changing for women but, ultimately, I saw Kiki more as a tragic figure than the hero of her own story. Did not impact me like I hoped it would.

Just cannot get into this one.

Not being quite the arty type, I was introduced to and fell in love with Man Ray's work during an art appreciation class my freshman year of college. I melted when I got to see a lot of his work in the flesh at an amazing Surrealist exhibit at the Met in 2002. "Le Violon d'Ingres" has adorned the background of my MP3 player ever since I got it five years ago. His output with Kiki de Montparnasse as his muse remains some of my favorite work of his, but never have I come across anything about the personal life of this woman. So I was extra excited when I read about the existence of this graphic novel.

This hefty tome covers a near yearly account of Kiki's life, and we get a clear picture of just how rooted she was in the art world from the late 1910s onward. I wondered, though, by the time I was deep in the novel, about the aims of the author. I had a feeling he wanted to elicit a feeling of sympathy for the tragedy in Kiki's life, but I found her to be simply neurotic much of the time. Sure, her hard-knock upbringing didn't give her a terribly strong foundation, and there were a few instances where I truly felt sorry for her, but mostly I just saw a woman who didn't know what she wanted and demanded a lot without any real consideration for those around her. Her naivete seemed to have persisted through most of her life. This hardly seems emancipated, as the book's synopsis claims her to be...unless you consider emancipation the ability to live in Paris by hopping from one man's bed to another and doing lots of blow. Not quite the person I'd suggest a young woman to look up to. DESPITE THIS, I really did appreciate the chance to get a glimpse into the life of this legend, which I might not have otherwise come across, and it has prompted me to go back and search through all my books for images of Kiki now that I have a better understanding of her as a person.