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A review by marc129
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
3.0
Identity, gender, perception, self-deception…
Siri Hustvedt is known as a writer for intellectuals. Her novels usually drill very deep into the human soul, they are full of scientific, philosophical and literary references and her stories are embedded in ingenious plots with continuous changes in perspective and time. I liked most of her previous novels, and [b:What I Loved|125502|What I Loved|Siri Hustvedt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347721158s/125502.jpg|1309881] and especially [b:The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves|7055093|The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves|Siri Hustvedt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1312052466s/7055093.jpg|7306302] are among the best that have been published in the last decades. But with this book, "The Blazing World", I’m in doubt.
It's definitely a very interesting novel both by the theme(s) as by the format. To start with the latter: Hustvedt presents her novel as a puzzle, a collection of testimonies, interviews, essays, letters and extensive diary notes, by different characters, but it's all focussing around Harriet Burden, a 60-year-old New York artist who has been performing a particular experiment. Burden was very frustrated about the fact that women in the arts still aren’t taken seriously, and therefore she exhibited some of her work under the name of some younger, male colleagues. You can guess it: the arty farty-art world (that Hustvedt herself knows very well) is been put on display in a mockery way, but at the same time, also the gender issue is put into focus.
In my opinion Hustvedt’s most important focus is on the issue of the 'persona': what is the identity of a person (male/female/…), how is it perceived by others, how does it perceive itself? It’s no coincidence that the experiment of Harriet Burden is called “Maskings”, and the technique of hiding behind masks is continuously discussed in the different contributions to this novel. It’s an issue that already a century ago was brilliantly raised by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello and a bit later also by the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa (and his heteronyms), and which has lost nothing of its relevance. Identity, masks, perception… it are notions that always show up in the pages of this novel.
In other words, Hustvedt has combined these relevant themes with a puzzle structure (of course reference is made to Georges Perec) that puts her readers really to the test. To some extent she certainly succeeds in keeping the attention going. But I have one major point of doubt and that is the main character Harriet Burden herself. By Hustvedt she is presented as a very complicated being, in various roles (not only as an artist but also as a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, and so on), but even after 450 pages she keeps on being an elusive creature (with some pun Harriet herself calls this ‘the burden of Burden’). At some point as a reader you even wonder whether her critics were right when they state that Harriet was a frustrated, neurotic and disturbed person. That sounds very harsh, but it shows how Hustvedt plays with the concepts of perception, self-perception and even includes self-deception.
The final chapter describes the last days of Harriet through the eyes of a rather esoteric character. And this chapter seems to suggest that all that confusion about identity and perception doesn't really matter, and that every person – including Harriet – ultimately is constituted by what he/she leaves behind. And, perhaps, that is true: every person, how normal or eccentric it might be, has to be viewed as a unique person, with his/her strengths and weaknesses, and everyone leaves behind a certain "aura" that keeps on working in the world after death. I know, that sounds very New Age-like, but it is nicely described by Hustvedt. But then: why using 450 pages of puzzle work to end up with such a tentative message? Because of the elusive aspect, to me this is not really Hustvedt's best novel, but she remains one of the most intriguing writers of the moment
Siri Hustvedt is known as a writer for intellectuals. Her novels usually drill very deep into the human soul, they are full of scientific, philosophical and literary references and her stories are embedded in ingenious plots with continuous changes in perspective and time. I liked most of her previous novels, and [b:What I Loved|125502|What I Loved|Siri Hustvedt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347721158s/125502.jpg|1309881] and especially [b:The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves|7055093|The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves|Siri Hustvedt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1312052466s/7055093.jpg|7306302] are among the best that have been published in the last decades. But with this book, "The Blazing World", I’m in doubt.
It's definitely a very interesting novel both by the theme(s) as by the format. To start with the latter: Hustvedt presents her novel as a puzzle, a collection of testimonies, interviews, essays, letters and extensive diary notes, by different characters, but it's all focussing around Harriet Burden, a 60-year-old New York artist who has been performing a particular experiment. Burden was very frustrated about the fact that women in the arts still aren’t taken seriously, and therefore she exhibited some of her work under the name of some younger, male colleagues. You can guess it: the arty farty-art world (that Hustvedt herself knows very well) is been put on display in a mockery way, but at the same time, also the gender issue is put into focus.
In my opinion Hustvedt’s most important focus is on the issue of the 'persona': what is the identity of a person (male/female/…), how is it perceived by others, how does it perceive itself? It’s no coincidence that the experiment of Harriet Burden is called “Maskings”, and the technique of hiding behind masks is continuously discussed in the different contributions to this novel. It’s an issue that already a century ago was brilliantly raised by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello and a bit later also by the Portuguese Fernando Pessoa (and his heteronyms), and which has lost nothing of its relevance. Identity, masks, perception… it are notions that always show up in the pages of this novel.
In other words, Hustvedt has combined these relevant themes with a puzzle structure (of course reference is made to Georges Perec) that puts her readers really to the test. To some extent she certainly succeeds in keeping the attention going. But I have one major point of doubt and that is the main character Harriet Burden herself. By Hustvedt she is presented as a very complicated being, in various roles (not only as an artist but also as a wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, and so on), but even after 450 pages she keeps on being an elusive creature (with some pun Harriet herself calls this ‘the burden of Burden’). At some point as a reader you even wonder whether her critics were right when they state that Harriet was a frustrated, neurotic and disturbed person. That sounds very harsh, but it shows how Hustvedt plays with the concepts of perception, self-perception and even includes self-deception.
The final chapter describes the last days of Harriet through the eyes of a rather esoteric character. And this chapter seems to suggest that all that confusion about identity and perception doesn't really matter, and that every person – including Harriet – ultimately is constituted by what he/she leaves behind. And, perhaps, that is true: every person, how normal or eccentric it might be, has to be viewed as a unique person, with his/her strengths and weaknesses, and everyone leaves behind a certain "aura" that keeps on working in the world after death. I know, that sounds very New Age-like, but it is nicely described by Hustvedt. But then: why using 450 pages of puzzle work to end up with such a tentative message? Because of the elusive aspect, to me this is not really Hustvedt's best novel, but she remains one of the most intriguing writers of the moment