Amy Sackville
Autor de The Still Point
Sobre El Autor
Créditos de la imagen: www.amysackville.co.uk/
Obras de Amy Sackville
Obras relacionadas
Fish Anthology 2006 — Contribuidor — 2 copias
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Nombre canónico
- Sackville, Amy
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1981
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- UK
- Lugares de residencia
- London, England, UK
- Educación
- University of Leeds (BA - English and Theatre Studies)
University of Oxford (Exeter College)
Goldsmiths College, University of London - Ocupaciones
- Associate Lecturer, Open University
short story writer
reviewer - Agente
- Jenny Hewson (Rogers Coleridge and White)
- Biografía breve
- Amy Sackville studied English and Theatre Studies at Leeds, went on to an MPhil at Oxford (specialising in Modernism), and worked in publishing before attending the MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths in 2007-2008. She is an Associate Lecturer of the Open University and lives in West London. She has had short stories and reviews published in various anthologies and journals; The Still Point is her first novel.
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Estadísticas
- Obras
- 3
- También por
- 1
- Miembros
- 421
- Popularidad
- #57,942
- Valoración
- 3.6
- Reseñas
- 15
- ISBNs
- 22
- Idiomas
- 2
- Favorito
- 1
At intervals, the third person approach is interrupted by the narrator intruding with her own ruminations. One should always be wary of identifying the author with the novel’s subject, but it is difficult not to see Sackville herself in the thirty-something narrator embarking on a literary pilgrimage on the steps of Velázquez. It is an inspired touch gives the novel a personal meaning and reveals it as a labour of love. At the same time, however, it can be taken as a warning that, despite all endeavours at authenticity, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the past and particularly the thoughts and feelings of historical figures. This novel is, indeed, biographical and historical but is equally a very contemporary ‘imagining’ of the past.
And this brings us to the heart of what is, ultimately, a highly philosophical novel. I felt Painter to the King to be an exploration of the correlation between art and artifice, truth and reality, public personas and private feelings. The characters the novel are constantly preoccupied as to what will survive after their death – the King’s obsession with having his portraits painting is a way of ensuring his memory remains. But even though Diego is notorious for his devastating honesty and his inability to “lie” in his portraits, can we be sure that the King we know is not shaped by the painter’s imagination, just as Diego and his monarch speak to us through Sackville’s prose?
I found this to be a challenging novel, one which I read over a number of weeks alongside less demanding fare. But it is an impressive achievement and I would be surprised and disappointed if this is not – deservedly – recognised when the time for literary awards arrives.
Read more at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/08/portrait-of-artist-painter-to-king-by...… (más)