![]() ![]() The book tells Harriet’s story through a series of testimonies and documents collected by an outside academic researching the claims and rumors around Harriet’s artwork. Little in THE BLAZING WORLD is straightforward, and the novel’s composition is no exception. ![]() ![]() Yet the experiment garners more doubt than philosophical revenge, and the charade and secrecy begin to burn Harriet from the inside out. Provocative and fiercely intelligent, she is ignored by critics who only see her as the colorful wife of a powerful art dealer.ĭissatisfied by the sexist constraints of art critics, Harriet secretly produces three “living masks”: separate exhibits using male artists as fronts in order to expose the field’s gendered critiques. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Siri Hustvedt’s sixth novel follows Harriet Burden, an artist who channels her frustrations with the male-dominated art world into an elaborate hoax. But the title may be the most illustrative “zing”-this novel is on fire. THE BLAZING WORLD calls to mind the best of the “zings”: its stage amazing, its structure mesmerizing, its arguments tantalizing, and its heroine magnetizing. ![]()
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