A review by sharonleavy
The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.0

 

• If you know nothing about artist Francis Bacon, this will make no sense.
• Even if you know a bit about Francis Bacon, this still might not make much sense.

You should know - Francis Bacon spent his last days in Madrid before his death in 1992, aged 82, while visiting his lover José Capelo. He was watched over by a Nun who spoke not a word of English, so it is said that he spent his last six days in silence.

This tiny little book is what the author imagines those six days to be like inside the artist's head, using words to create seven very scrambled "word paintings". It's more of a feeling, than a book, if that makes sense? 

If you approach this as a normal book & just read it like you'd read anything else, you may not be able to make sense of it. It's verbalising what may have been going on in Bacon's head before his death by using very specific references that only fans of the artist will understand. Hallucinations, memories, paintings, critics - parts do come off as very "massive Stan writing fanfic" but there's nothing wrong with that, really. Some of it is a little cringe but it's very evocative and for the most part I think I got what the author was trying to do? 

Except one part, where I'm not sure if Francis is speaking about HIS obsession or Max, the author, is justifying this entire book to Francis. Maybe we're supposed to decide for ourselves? Art IS subjective, isn't it? 

I liked it.