More January Book Reviews

DIEGO RIVERA: The Shaping of an Artist (1889-1921) - Florence Arquin (143 pages)

c. 1971  This book covers the Mexican artist’s early, formative years, long before he met Frida Kahlo. As a child, Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Neomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriquez was more artistically precocious than most children his age. At the age of three, when most other children are drawing happy faces with stick legs and arms sprouting from large round heads, little Diego could draw a very detailed locomotive and train. At the age of 13 he was enrolled in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, where he began his formal study of art. At age 21, he received a grant to study art abroad and spent two years in Spain. Two years later (1909), bored with formal Spanish realism, he moved on to Paris where he experimented with the different styles of the day, such as cubism, pointillism, and modern primitivism. He was always trying something new. After ten years in France, he concluded that his art study was complete. But before he returned to Mexico, he spent a year in Italy, studying the Renaissance masters and learning the arts of mosaic and fresco.

            He finally returned to Mexico a mature artist, ready to begin the career that made him famous, mural painting. I was surprised to learn of the broad scope of his early experimentation in art.  The color plates in this book were too few and of poor quality. Most of the artwork was reproduced in black and white.

BUFFALO GIRLS - Larry McMurtry (350 pages)

c. 1990  Rough-and-tumble Calamity Jane and her best friend, the Miles City (Montana) madam, Dora DuFran, are the “buffalo girls” of the title. They share this story with their dear friends: Bartle and Jim, a couple of old mountain men; No Ears, an elderly Indian; and Dora’s lover, Blue. 

          I got off to a slow start with this book, as all the characters seemed to be doing was sitting around moping. But as the story progresses, I came to understand why they were all so melancholy. Just like me, they’ve come to that age called “over the hill” and they mourn the good old days. By the time depicted in the novel, the buffalo and the beaver are gone, killed off by the white man’s greed, and those that remain live in zoos. The Indians are gone too, with the last remnants of the great tribes of the prairies sent to live on reservations. Life has lost its “wild west” flavor and romance, and the characters are  just sitting around, getting drunk and getting old.

          Throughout the story Martha Jane (Calamity) writes frequent letters to a daughter, who she claimed was Wild Bill Hickok’s and she’d put up for adoption. Little Janey’s story is explained at the end of the book. WARNING: If you’re prone to reading the last chapter of a book first, don’t! You’ll ruin a surprising and tender story.

          But then Buffalo Bill Cody arrives and invites them on what could be the last great adventure of their lives, a trip to England to meet the Queen and perform in his Wild West Show.  I can’t even describe how hilarious it is for these country folks to cross a huge ocean on a slow boat and be dazzled by the great city of London.

          Just as he did in Lonesome Dove, McMurtry has peopled this novel with memorable characters that are colorful and lovable, despite their faults. A great read!

MY INVENTED COUNTRY - Isabel Allende (198)

c. 1990  Reading Allende has made me fall in love with Chile. Here she’s at her best, telling about the people, places and memories of her homeland. She was born in Peru, has lived in many different countries, and now calls the U.S. her home, but her heart belongs to Chile, where she grew up. She calls it her “invented” country because she realizes that nostalgia for a place and time is usually part fact and part imagination.