- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada; 1st Edition edition (Mar 30 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385259786
- ISBN-13: 978-0385259781
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.2 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 540 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #567,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
There is something about Russell Smith's writing that enrages people. He reliably produces shimmering fiction--and one of the Globe and Mail's few consistently intelligent columns--but he is still unfairly pressed into service as a whipping-boy for all sorts of social ills: Torontocentrism, conceptual art, leather trousers. Muriella Pent, a novel that returns to the Torontonian arts scene that established Smith as a serious fiction writer, may not win him many new friends, but it should delight his fans.
The book's plot doesn't so much develop as slump into compulsively readable entropy. Muriella Pent, an enviably wealthy socialite widow with a mysterious Montreal pedigree, busies herself in the wake of her unimpeachable husband's death with the usual arty occupations of Toronto's upper crust: sitting on committees, dabbling in writing, and raising funds for various worthy causes. In a moment of exuberance, she volunteers to house a writer-in-residence on behalf of the City Arts Board Action Council. The writer that they produce, a Caribbean poet named Marcus Royston (who hasn't published poetry in close to 20 years) meets the Council's politically correct yardsticks on paper, but proves to be a charming, libidinous, and big-mouthed aesthete. Royston has little time for the niceties of Toronto arts-politics, and promptly sets to offending--or seducing--everyone in sight, including his formerly straitlaced hostess. Soon, Muriella is not only hosting a writer, but allowing her mansion to be used for nude photography, scorched-plastic sculpture, and all-night parties complete with diplomats, DJs, and gossip columnists. Smith also graces the book with a subplot involving two University of Toronto classmates--Brian Sillwell, another member of the Action Council, and Julia Sternberg, a young friend of Muriella's--whose constricted and largely sexless lives are considerably changed by an acquaintance with Royston.
Muriella Pent is Smith's first full-blown novel since Noise, and it outshines its predecessors in almost every respect. His prose has grown richer, and his characters largely transcend their status as satirical grotesques. Traces of Evelyn Waugh's influence are still everywhere, and Smith does well by them, moving into a mode of outrageous but sombre satire that stands up to a book like Vile Bodies quite nicely. Readers who have dismissed Smith as a fashionista or a glib hipster-novelist should read Muriella Pent and reconsider their position; those who already know that he is one of Canada's smoothest and funniest urban storytellers can brace themselves for another bravura performance. --Jack Illingworth
Review
“Smith has an insider’s knowledge of what the targets are and the outsider’s sense of where the absurdities lie.” -- The Globe and Mail
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An unexpected pleasure,
By
This review is from: Muriella Pent (Paperback)
If you only know Russell Smith from his somewhat supercilious column in the Globe and Mail you may be reluctant to read his novels. Don't be. Smith is an enemy of sanctimony, political correctness and conventional thinking. He writes clear, fresh prose that's full of surprises. Muriella Pent is furious social satire, but it's also a good story with characters you can care about. It turns out (who would have thought?) that Smith is a generous and sympathetic observer of our human failings. In fact, my only real complaint about this novel is the surprisingly sentimental resolution of its romantic subplot. There are a few other minor irritants, of course. If you're not offended at some point by Muriella Pent then you probably aren't paying attention; but I think you'll forgive it everything because of its sheer entertainment value. Smith has lit a sparkler in the gloom of Can-Lit, and it deserves an audience.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Artistry of Art,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Muriella Pent (Hardcover)
This is great, complex book, well written with great characters. Without repeating what has already been said, this is a book for people who care about art, rather than the politics of art, though Smith accomplishes this by satirizing the politics of art.We have so-called artists who judge art not by the finished product but by who or what the artist is. And people who are not sure about art become intimidated by such pontificating, and stop thinking about art. But art is what is important, not the politics or the political correctness. Some of the secondary characters are also fascinating, especially the various arts graduate students. In short, a great read by any standards, but an especially good read for people concerned about art.
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