| ‘Sacre Bleu’ by Christopher Moore | ||
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A Excellent (86%) | Summary of the Reviews: | |
| An irreverent, debauched historical comedy about impressionists, most of the reviewers found it brilliant, and the few issues found in it were a slightly lagging main story and juvenile humor. | ||
| ISBN: 978-0061779749, Pages: 416 | ||
| Fiction | Historical Fiction | Supernatural | 1800s | ||
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THE BOOK JACKET:
A rollicking tale that features special printed map endpapers and more than two dozen masterpieces of art throughout the book, Sacre Bleu is better than a day at the museum! It is the color of the Virgin Mary’s cloak, a dazzling pigment desired by artists, an exquisite hue infused with danger, adventure, and perhaps even the supernatural. It is . . . Sacre Bleu In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor’s house for help? Who was the crooked little “color man” Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue? These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent’s friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh’s untimely death. Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late nineteenth-century Paris. Oh la la, quelle surprise, and zut alors! A delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history—with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure—Sacre Bleu is another masterpiece of wit and wonder from the one, the only, Christopher Moore. |
THE REVIEWS:
| Jeremy Lott – The Washington Times | |
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+ |
Without even reading a single sentence in this book, you still could see from the way it’s packaged that this time out, Mr. Moore and publisher William Morrow were going for different and way better. |
| Susan Storer Clark – Washington Independent Review of Books | |
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+ |
Sacre Bleu is a wide-ranging tale, one that is informative, surprising, gossipy, bawdy and vastly entertaining. |
| Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans – Philadelphia Inquirer | |
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+ |
So begins another exceedingly bizarre, often raucous, and consistently delightful journey into the sweetly demented mind of novelist Christopher Moore. |
| Kevin McFarland – A.V. Club | |
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~ |
Sacré Bleu is undeniably captivating, as Moore breaks down the history of Impressionism, only to build it back up into a comic mystery finely tuned for maximum fun. |
| Jim Higgins – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | |
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+ |
Christopher Moore’s new novel blends diligently researched art history smoothly with his fevered, fiendish imagination. So smoothly, in fact, that you must never, ever give this book to a docent who gives museum tours. |
| Mike Doherty – MacLeans | |
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+ |
Granted, Moore’s enterprise is somewhat silly, but he finds the right mix of homage and off-the-wall irreverence, bringing to earthy life a group of painters whose work is often derided as crowd-pleasing and pretty. |
| John Wilwol – The Washington Post | |
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+ |
Let’s call it a historical comedy, with an emphasis on the comedy. |
| Adam Woog – The Seattle Times | |
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+ |
It’s a sly examination of art, inspiration, everyday magic and some seriously over-caffeinated painters. |
| Dwight Silverman – Houston Chronicle | |
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~ |
“Sacré Bleu” is big fun, and it’s worth putting up with some occasional aimlessness. |
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