The Village Idiot
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2022
"A frothy picaresque that ... vibrates to the “sweet celestial confusion” of Soutine’s painting: delirious and earthy, reverent and irreligious." -- The New York Times Book Review
A wild, effervescent, absinthe-soaked novel that tells of the life of the extraordinary artist Chaim Soutine
Steve Stern’s astonishing new novel The Village Idiot begins on a glorious spring day in Paris 1917. Amid the carnage of World War I, some of the foremost artists of the age have chosen to stage a boat race. At the head of the regatta is Amedeo Modigliani, seated regally in a bathtub pulled by a flock of canvasback ducks. But unbeknownst to the competition, he has a secret advantage: his young friend, the immigrant painter Chaim Soutine, is hauling the tub from underwater. Soutine, an unwashed, misfit artist (who incidentally can’t swim) has been persuaded by the Italian to don a ponderous diving suit and trudge along the floor of the river Seine. Disoriented and confused by the artificial air in his helmet Chaim stumbles through the events of his past and future life.
It’s quite an extraordinary life. From his impoverished beginnings in an East European shtetl to his equally destitute days in Paris during the Années Folles, the Crazy Years, from the Cinderella patronage of the American collector Albert Barnes, who raises him from poverty to international attention, to his perilous flight from the Nazi occupation of France, Chaim Soutine remains driven by his unrelenting passion to paint.
To be sure, there are notable distractions, such as his unlikely friendship with Modigliani, who drags him from brothels to midnight felonies to a duel at dawn; there are the romances with remarkable women who compete with and sometimes salvage his obsession. But there is also, always on the horizon, the coming storm that threatens to sweep away Chaim and a generation of gifted Jewish refugees from a tradition that would outlaw their longing to make art.
Wildly inventive, as funny as it is heart-breaking, The Village Idiot is a luminous fever-dream of a novel, steeped in the heady atmosphere of a Paris that was the cultural capital of the universe, a place where anything seemed possible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stern (The Pinch) sketches an exuberant portrait of expressionist painter Chaim Soutine, anchored in the artist's bohemian life in 1917 Paris. Chaim arrives destitute from a Russian shtetl and begins a friendship with painter Amedeo Modigliani. Reclusive and artistically driven, Chaim adores Amedeo and gets caught up in his bold adventures—brothel visits, a duel, and an elaborate boat race hoax where Amedeo is in a bathtub, ostensibly being pulled by three ducks (in reality, Chaim is at the bottom of the Seine pulling Amedeo while wearing a heavyweight diving suit). While underwater, Chaim ponders his past and, in a fantastical twist, anticipates the years to come: the poverty and beatings of his youth; the mystical "demidemons" that haunt his imagination; his discovery by art patron Dr. Albert Barnes, whose patronage brings recognition and financial security; his friendship with art historian Élie Faure; the stability brought by Mademoiselle Garde, whom he loved; the WWII years in German-occupied France as Chaim tries to outrun the Nazis; and his chronic stomach problems that will ultimately lead to his death from a perforated ulcer. Stern brings the slovenly, uncouth, and smelly Chaim to life as a modern art visionary, adding humor and heartache to the inspired artist's painful and tragic life, and he shines in his use of Jewish folklore and characters. This luscious blend of fantasy and reality captivates.
