Influenced by the Marquis de Sade's work of the same name, an award-winning Scottish writer follows one Englishman's nearly hallucinatory obsession with an obscure woman depicted in a painting, who seems to come to life as identical twins. IP.
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Alice Thompson was born and brought up in Edinburgh. She was the former keyboard player with post-punk eighties band, The Woodentops and joint winner with Graham Swift of The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for her first novel, Justine. Her second novel, Pandora's Box, was shortlisted for The Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. Her other novels are Pharos, The Falconer and most recently Burnt Island. Alice is a past winner of a Creative Scotland Award. She is now lecturer in Creative Writing at Edinburgh University.
Scottish writer Thompsons second outing is her first hereand while some will groan at its jejune, vapid, imitative clunkiness, others will be smitten by its psycho-feminist puzzlings and probings. With debts to Henry James, Oscar Wilde, the Marquis de Sade, etc., etc., etc., Thompson takes a nameless and reclusive hyper-aesthete, makes him god-like of face and club of foot, surrounds him with glorious objets dart in his Kensington Gardens flat, and has him fall passionately in lovewith a portrait on the wall. Whether hes in love with the real Justine or the ideal Justine of the portrait, whether he loves the woman or wants to own her, remain (as theyve long, long had a way of doing) central to the mysteries, mazes, dreams, terrors, and tortures that follow, with an outcome that readers will have to find out for themselves. Our narrator, though, thinking himself divinely blessed by the fate of being spoken to by the real Justine in the stacks of a library ( Why me? Because of your face. It is like Michelangelos Adam reaching out to God ), ends up tricked, then tricked and tricked again not only by Justine but by Justines twin sister Juliette, even to the point of committing a murder (uh-huh, its very, very, very gory) in order to save Justine from a murderer of her ownthough from then on, things go badly indeed for Narrator, who will follow mazes and enter houses hes seen in dreams, find himself behind bars, lose his club foot, and... But one mustnt tell too much. Admittedly, there are brief moments, especially near the end, of psychological interest, mystery, even a certain penetration, though the road to them is well paved with banality (However, I could hardly take what she was telling me seriouslyit read like something out of a bad detective novel). For those, only, who like their mind- and gender-teasers in novel form. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Hardcover. Dust Jacket Included. First Edition. Hardback, Fine in a Near Fine DJ, 1st edition; slight trace of wear to mylar protected DJ and DJ edges, no names or markings. Book presents a story of obsession, by an art collector, for the beautiful twins Juliette and Justine, whose portrait hangs above his mantel, small 8vo., 227 pages., 0.0 0.0 0.0. Seller Inventory # 14873
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hardcover. Condition: Very Good in Dustjacket. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Washington DC. 1998. Counterpoint. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 1887178651. 227 pages. hardcover. Cover design by David Bullen. keywords: Europe Scotland Literature Women World Literature. DESCRIPTION - Set in contemporary London, 'Justine' chronicles one man's obsession with beauty and his journey through the darkest recesses of the mind in its pursuit. A sensitive art collector, nameless throughout, becomes enchanted by Justine, the portrait that hangs above his mantel. Enthralled, he spends hours in his flat, smoking opium and watching the beautiful woman in the painting. Searching London for the object of his ravening desire, he finds on separate occasions two women: Justine, a refined and chiseled beauty, and her identical twin Juliette, a complex and reckless woman who seems driven by rage. As the story unfolds, he finds it increasingly difficult to know the true identity of the evasive and evanescent woman he desires, and his vivid opium-seasoned hallucinations become indistinguishable from reality. inventory #25403. Seller Inventory # z25403
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