Book Tamers| book reviews

This novel consists of hundreds of letters written by Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo. Short, touchy and sometimes painful, these notes are the only ones who can say anything about the painter’s life. Them and Irving Stone’s book, Lust for life, a biographical novel. Lust for life contains letters between van Gogh brothers and Stone added some fiction in order to explain his beliefs concerning what happened to Vincent.

Certainly, each and every one of us has heard about Vincent van Gogh, about his famous sunflowers and the cut of his own ear in order to give it to a prostitute. But that’s not all that can be said about the painter, about his tumultuous life, about the distress he went through in order to find some kind of balance and his place in this world.
The first time I took notice of Vincent was in Vincent and Theo, a movie about his life. And then I read this novel and tasted it page by page, in spite of the fact I don’t usually like biographies. And this is certainly because van Gogh’s life is so full of colour and so painful, in the same time, that you are just drawn into it.
Irving Stone took Vincent’s letters and built upon them the life of the impressionist painter. Thus, I found out that before becoming a painter, Vincent van Gogh was an art dealer and not anywhere, but at the Goupil Art Galleries, famous all around Europe, that his uncle owned. At 21, he falls in love for the first time with an English girl named Ursula, but the fact she doesn’t share his feelings makes him leave England for good.
He goes back to Holland to study theology. He will end up a preacher in Borinage, where miners work from dusk till dawn for a few pounds of charcoal. He is strongly touched by the harsh life and after sad events he will end up living the same miserable life as the mine workers. He will soon discover drawing and will start laying lines that will worth millions years after.
Theo puts an end to this extreme poverty and sends him back to Holland to get well. Vincent is misunderstood by his family but they can’t stop helping him. He falls in love with his cousin, Kay, but she will brutally reject him. For Vincent it is the beginning of a new depression, but he leaves Hague in order to learn from master Mauve (an alliance cousin) the art of painting. In Hague, he draws out of his imagination, and his paintings are always rejected.
He returns to the parochial house of his parents and will start to paint in colour for the first time, the models being peasants and weavers. In Nuenen he will paint his famous “Potato eaters”. He will be loved by a woman named Margot, an older woman but he will never have the same feelings for her. After fights with his family and with almost every peasant in Nuenen, he writes Theo to shelter him in Paris.
In France, Vincent van Gogh makes the acquaintance of impressionist painters like Seurat, Rousseau, Gaugain, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne and others. And the color explosion he will encounter in their painting will decide him to change his palette and get rid of the Dutch influence. In Paris he will have to deal with another kind of life and for the first time he feels that his purpose is to paint. Moreover, exhausted from searching the perfect colour palette, Vincent decides to leave for Arles.
In Arles, thanks to the dazzling sun, Vincent was able to complete his style, painting his famous sunflowers, the starry nights and the self-portraits. He gets sick and he will need to be admitted into an asylum. The epilepsy attacks are rare, but violent. Theo’s decision to get him out of the hospital is done by leaving to Auvers. Here, Vincent will put an end to his life, shooting himself in the heart.
There is so much to say, so much about Vincent van Gogh’s life, and I don’t want to ruin everything for you, because you should find out for yourselves what this painter meant for our world. More than that, I have to tell the truth: only knowing this painter’s life, I could truly understand his painting and the drama he went through.
Reading Irving Stone, I got that this world is too big for understanding one man, I got that an artist is always a misfit. Vincent van Gogh’s life taught me what perseverance truly means and how hard it is to always start from scratch. I understood what being an artist means and that one has to be indifferent when judging the outside world.
I saw loneliness and an extraordinary soul revealing in Vincent van Gogh’s paintings. And I am so happy for reading this biographical novel, in which life is truly lived. It’s not entitled Lust for life for nothing!
Written by Cristina