1: A Gigglefest of Freudian Fallacies
Pure, unintentional, Freudian-style hilarity! This book is what happens when modern psychology ignores modern neuropathy. I was laughing until tears streamed down my face when I read the passage that states that Vincent's early work, (i.e. the Potato Eaters) was his superego rebelling against his mother's "Dutch cleanliness" and her refusal to allow the infant Vincent to smear feces on the walls of his nursery which then affected his pallete choice as an adult. Brown, yep. OK, I'm about to start laughing again . . . (whew!)Vincent van Gogh was extraordinarily adept at introspection, and through reading his body of correspondence a student of psychology may glean an idea of van Gogh's state of agitation and alienation, and I recommend that a van Gogh scholar, or anyone with a genuine desire to better understand and empathize with van Gogh, read his correspondence instead of this book. This book fails to lend any original - or even modern - insights, it is entirely too subjective, mired in neo-Freudian and occasionally, Jungian, conjecture, it lacks Gestalt, and works to distort and narrow the reader's perception of Vincent's gift as it related to his sustained neuropsychiatric state. But, if you want to laugh (and laugh and laugh and laugh) at one scholar's attempt at deconstructing art and epileptiform neurological affect via Freud's ridiculous personality-based suppositions, read this book.
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5: Elegant, honorable, beautiful
The elegance with which he, Stone, makes manifest the life of this magnificent artist is breathtaking at times. This is not just the work to which all biographical material on Van Gogh is measured, but one of the biographical novels by which all other biographies and biographical novels should be. It is imposiible to not get sucked into the narrative and feel what it was like to be in the company of men who are poised, with their gifts, to change the way we look at the world and ourselves. Nor is it possible to not come away sympathisizing, or even feeling a kinship with the deeply troubled genius whose art bares witness to the human soul. I suggest you read this book if you are interested in anything regarding creativity. Period.
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