The Blazing World - by Siri Hustvedt (Paperback)

About the Book

Includes study guide and interview with the author.

Book Synopsis

Named one of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of the Year ** Publishers Weekly's Best Fiction Books of 2014 ** NPR Best Books of 2014 ** Kirkus Reviews Best Literary Fiction Books of 2014 ** Washington Post Top 50 Fiction Books of 2014 ** Boston Globe's Best Fiction of 2014 ** The Telegraph's Best Fiction to Read 2014 ** St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2014 ** The Independent Fiction Books of the Year 2014 ** One of Buzzfeed's Best Books Written by Women in 2014 ** San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2014 ** A Nancy Pearl Pick ** PopMatters.com's Best of 2014 Fiction

Winner of the 2014 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction

Finalist for the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Hailed by The Washington Post as "Siri Hustvedt's best novel yet, an electrifying work," The Blazing World is a masterful novel about perception, prejudice, desire, and one woman's struggle to be seen.

In a new novel called "searingly fresh... A Nabokovian cat's cradle" on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, the internationally bestselling author tells the provocative story of artist Harriet Burden, who, after years of having her work ignored, ignites an explosive scandal in New York's art world when she recruits three young men to present her creations as their own. Yet when the shows succeed and Burden steps forward for her triumphant reveal, she is betrayed by the third man, Rune. Many critics side with him, and Burden and Rune find themselves in a charged and dangerous game, one that ends in his bizarre death.

An intricately conceived, diabolical puzzle presented as a collection of texts, including Harriet's journals, assembled after her death, this "glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship" (San Francisco Chronicle) unfolds from multiple perspectives as Harriet's critics, fans, family, and others offer their own conflicting opinions of where the truth lies. Writing in Slate, Katie Roiphe declared it "a spectacularly good read...feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex or Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced."

"Astonishing, harrowing, and utterly, completely engrossing" (NPR), Hustvedt's new novel is "Blazing indeed: ...with agonizing compassion for all of wounded humanity"(Kirkus Reviews, starred review). It is a masterpiece that will be remembered for years to come.

Review Quotes

"The Blazing World is poundingly alive with ideas, personalities, conviction, fear, fakery, ambition, and sorrow. The reading mind is set on high, happy alert."-- "The New York Journal of Books"

"The Blazing World is unique and recognizably so, a bracing examination of the act of creation, of fame and identity, gender bias and feminism, love and desire, psychology and philosophy. . . . Full of life and ideas and intellectual prowess, it's also a compelling story with richly drawn characters. . . .[An] extraordinary puzzle."-- "The Miami Herald"

"The Blazing World is Siri Hustvedt's best novel yet, an electrifying work with a titanic, poignantly flawed protagonist. Harriet Burden's rage, turbulence and neediness leap off these pages in a skillfully orchestrated chorus of voices both dark and brilliant."-- "The Washington Post"

"A glorious mashup of storytelling and scholarship. . . .[The Blazing World's] touching conclusion 'blazes hot and bright' from the perspective of an aura reader, Harriet's caretaker, whose vision of the artist's work is at once spiritually charged and whimsical."-- "The San Francisco Chronicle"

"A heady, suspenseful, funny, and wrenching novel of creativity, identity, and longing."-- "Booklist (Starred Review)"

"An exuberantly clever piece of work.... [A] novel that gloriously lives up to its title, one blazing with energy and thought."-- "The Times"

"Both intellectually and emotionally gripping... the generosity of the storytelling leads to full and often affecting backstories for all the main characters... [it] feels like one of those novels in which a well-established author triumphantly sums up, and possibly even surpasses, everything they've done before."-- "The Spectator"

"Complex, astonishing, harrowing, and utterly, completely engrossing."-- "NPR"

"Dazzling. . . ingeniously constructed. . . . The Blazing World is a serious, sometimes profound book, tackling head-on the knotty issues of identity and sense of self, and our unconscious ideas about gender and celebrity. It offers an exhilarating reading experience for anyone willing to meet its challenge."-- "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"

"Densely brilliant, but terrifyingly clever too... you don't need a PhD in Kierkegaard to enjoy Hustvedt's writing, and it's a pleasure to feel your brain whirring as it forges links and finds the cracks across differing accounts. Even if The Blazing World is about ambiguity and mutability in everything from authorship to gender to memory, Hustvedt's text is carefully, impressively constructed: she's as convincing in each fictional voice as Harriet is in her masks."-- "The Independent"

"Hustvedt's novels - What I Loved, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, The Summer Without Men, among others - have always been smart, accomplished, critically acclaimed but this one feels like a departure. There is more heat in it, more wildness; it seems to burst on to a whole other level of achievement and grace."-- "Financial Times"

"Immediately engrossing. . . . None of the narrators, even Harriet, are precisely reliable, and this ingeniously supports Harriet's own theory that we are all just monsters wearing masks."-- "San Antonio Current"

"In certain respects, The Blazing World is a didactic novel, presenting arguments about the place of gender in American cultural life, yet it avoids preaching or settled judgments by putting at its center a figure whose strongly held beliefs are undermined by the hazards of real life. The effect is more fluid and nuanced than any scholarly study or political diatribe could be."-- "The Wall Street Journal"

"Incandescent. . . . Hustvedt's greatest triumph here is not the feminist argument she makes. It's that we ache for her characters. This is a muscular book, and just enough of that muscle is heart."-- "The Boston Globe"

"Ingeniously and energetically put together. . . . The Blazing World never runs out of steam in dispensing ideas and peeling back layers of truth."-- "Chicago Tribune"

"Intelligent and . . . knowledgeable about the world of modern art, theory, and philosophy, Hustvedt describes in detail the insular world of the New York City art scene."-- "Library Review"

"Larger-than-life Harry reads vociferously, loves fervently, and overflows with intellectual and creative energy....Hustvedt dissects the art world with ironic insight....This is a funny, sad, through-provoking, and touching portrait of a woman who is blazing with postfeminist fury and propelled by artistic audacity."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Masterful. . . .[Hustvedt's] long-running explorations have rarely been merged together as fluidly as they are here, an achievement that has everything to do with rendering the novel's abundant intellect in a deeply felt and accessible manner. Six novels and more than two decades into her career, it is altogether fair to argue that Siri Hustvedt is quietly becoming one of North America's most subversive and fearlessly intelligent writers."-- "Toronto Star"

"Readers of Hustvedt's essay collections (Living, Thinking, Looking, 2012, etc.) will recognize the writer's long-standing interest in questions of perception, and her searching intellect is also evident here. But as the story of Harry's life coheres . . . it's the emotional content that seizes the reader . . . As in her previous masterpiece, What I Loved (2003), Hustvedt paints a scathing portrait of the art world, obsessed with money and the latest trend, but superb descriptions of Harry's work--installations expressing her turbulence and neediness--remind us that the beauty and power of art transcend such trivialities . . . Blazing indeed: not just with Harry's fury, but with agonizing compassion for all of wounded humanity."-- "Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)"

"Siri Hustvedt has a rare gift for finding the human heart in what might be cerebral musings and rarefied settings."-- "Columbus Dispatch"

"Siri Hustvedt has earned her reputation as a brilliant thinker and articulate writer. This is not her first work of fiction, and The Blazing World is strong proof that her talents are unmatched in the genre. . . a delightful, quirky story that shares many truths about women in the arts, and the struggles they encounter in rising to fame."-- "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"

"The absence of women artists in the history of painting is an old feminist topic, but it is one The Blazing World approaches head-on."-- "The Guardian"

"This is feminism in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, or Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: richly complex, densely psychological, dazzlingly nuanced. And at the same time, the book is a spectacularly good read. Its storytelling is magnificent, its characters vivid, its plot gripping; it's rare that a novel of ideas can be so much fun."-- "Slate"

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

"The Blazing World offers a spirited romp...constructed as a Nabokovian cat's cradle....Hustvedt's portrait of the artist as a middle-aged widow is searingly fresh. It's rare to encounter a female protagonist who throws her weight around quite so grandiloquently as Harriet Burden, a heroine who is--well, more like the hero of a Philip Roth or a Saul Bellow novel."-- "New York Times Book Review"

About the Author

Siri Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, three collections of essays, a work of nonfiction, and six novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her novel The Blazing World was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won The Los Angeles Book Prize for fiction. In 2012, she was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weil Cornell Medical College in New York. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.