Leaving Van Gogh - Wallace

Leaving Van Gogh

Carol Wallace

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I saw that everyone has heard of Van Gogh, you know, that guy with the pretty sort of impressionist paintings who was missing part of his ear. You probably sited Starry Night as your favorite painting when you were little and didn't know other paintings existed (I did). Leaving Van Gogh is about the last year of Vincent's life. Told from the perspective of Van Gogh's physician - Dr. Gachet - Wallace captures the pain and the occasional joy that marks Vincent's in around the doctor and the work he's creating as well as providing an interesting look into the 19th century's mental health practices.

Leaving Van Gogh was your typical artsy historical fiction. It provided a good insight into his deteriorating mental state and created a very sympathetic character in Vincent. When he's on he's really on, creating art, having interesting conversations, flirting with young woman, the usual for an artistic mad man. It's this Vincent that makes the novel so haunting. He is so aware of the other part of him, the depressed part that has fits and scares people that when he's just a normal man he is so passive and apologetic. Wallace's portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh is definitely what make's this story.

While Vincent is an important character, it is Dr. Gachet who the story is actually about. We see everything through his eyes as he interacts with the Van Gogh family, works on his own art and tries to make a happy home for his children. With that said, Gachet's obsession with mental illness can detract from the story. As the novel progresses the reader finds themselves spending more and more time inside Gachet's memories of sanitariums and on his wife's fight with TB.  While these insights are interesting at the start, they become more self involved and less relevant as they take away from the present situation with Vincent. The main issue I found with these memories was that constantly changed the pace of the novel. Leaving Van Gogh started out as a quick, smooth read but around the half way mark I found myself shooting through the present day and struggling to get through the flash backs.

Overall Leaving Van Gogh is a good read, especially if you're interested in Van Gogh's art or the mental health system in the 1800's. At 288 pages it is a short and thought provoking summer read.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine

The Blind Contessa's New Machine
Received from Goodreads, Now on Sale

Carey Wallace

Carolina Fantoni is an interesting girl. Despite the time frame she spends a lot of time alone at her man made lake. She, like the others in town harbors a secret hope that she will win the heart of the handsome and charismatic Pietro. Turri has all the locals shaking their heads. He muses about unimportant things and conducts odd experiments. Carolina and Turri become fast friends, watching the rain together and coming up with various improbable experiments. That is until she is married and quickly goes blind.  While their relationship will blossom, Turri makes her a machine to write with making her the envy of the town.

My cookie cutter description is a lot like how The Blind Contessa's New Machine reads. It's interesting, but very predictable. For a true story it does alright by it's characters. Carolina is hard to understand, her blindness doesn't seem to bother her. Nothing really seems to bother her until she can't see Turri. Pietro is easier to understand, he's beautiful and privileged and because of that he has a kind of arrogance that only comes out when all other charming have failed.  Lastly there's Turri. I loved Turri, he was excentric and didn't mind being the talk of the town. Even so he acknowledged his reputation as a crazy man making crazy machines.  He's a treat to read because he is so full of wonder.

The story itself is nothing special. Girl is friends with Boy, Girl likes other Boy, Girl and Boy 2 get married and Girl starts and affair with original Boy. Place everyone in the early 1800's and make the Girl blind and that is The Blind Contessa's New Machine. Even though it's fairly simple it was an enjoyable read. Carolina's blindness left me pondering my own vision. She had so much to overcome once she lost her sight, especially since she was in a new house, and I wondered how I'd hold up in the same situations. Her dreams were less of a pleasure to read. There were far to many and they were all about her running around her house and her lake and looking for Turri. They got really repetitive and at some points were happening ever three or four pages.

In short, if you like historical fiction, novels set in Italy or novels the deal prominently with blindness, The Blind Contessa's New Machine is worth picking up, just don't expect to much from it.

My Rateing:
3/5