A review by harrietnbrown
Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers by Janet Malcolm

5.0

I'm not a fan of literary or art criticism--too much talking about art by people who can't make it, usually. But this book goes far beyond the usual artspeak to say real and important things about the artists and writers represented here and about their work. The title essay is a smart and evocative meditation not just on its subject, the painter David Salle, but on the absurdly difficult process of trying to capture the essence of a person in words. Together the 41 "false starts" make a complete story, one that conveys more between the lines than among them. Perhaps my favorite essay in the book, "Capitalist Pastorale," is a brilliant and down-to-earth explication of the work of Gene Stratton-Porter, author of "A Girl of the Limberlost" and many other works, most of which have thankfully been lost, or at least not widely read. This is a book to be savored, kept on your nighttable (I kept it on mine for a year), dipped into and re-read.