Scan barcode
A review by moominpapareads
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
2.0
So it wasn't the heist novel it was advertised as, which I guess is not the author's fault. But the plot itself was super boring, and unrealistic. If it were an actual heist novel, I wouldn't mind it being unrealistic, but since it wasn't actually a heist novel, I do mind.
But for it to be a character study, I felt like the characters were way to similar, and didn't have any fundamental differences in opinion, which is surprising given the subject matter.
If the book is supposed to be about imperialism and Art, and why museums/countries should give back art that was stolen, then why was that subject not actually explored in depth? The only thing the author ever says in this novel is "Art is power", "Imperialism is bad", and "Stolen Art needs to be returned to the country of origin". All of which are true statements, but I wish all of these would have actually been explored and explained a bit more in depth. Why is art power? Why is it important that it be retured? What does it mean to members of a diaspora and to the country? Why are museums so important in shaping and telling history? etc etc.
The book also never addressed the question of why returning these Art pieces to a private cooperation is the right move. I mean, many many many art pieces are held in private collections by rich people, where no one from the public will ever see them. Including important pieces of chinese art. I just feel like the premise of randomly trusting this huge private chinese cooperation with precious art is the right move. How would you be ensuring that the art would remain accessible to the chinese public exactly?
On that note: how come none of the characters have any hesitancy about the chinese government or chinese cooperations? They are hardly saints, or innocent when it comes to questions of modern imperialism.
In terms of writing, I also found this novel to be increadibly repetetive:
- any scene with action or dialoge is constantly interrupted with musings on some sort of visual, or thinking about family, or relationships, or how unattainable someone is or somthing else increadibly trivial and not important in that moment. This got to a point where sometimes I totally lost track of what was actually happening.
- i swear the sentence "He thought of something, the something something" was repeated at least twice a chapter. It was sooooooo annoying.
- "he was all long fingers and sharp jawline" or something similar was also constantly used.
- there is only so many times you need to describe the way light washes over a city, or the sun sets over Beijing or California.
Last issue I had was the way journalist and side characters talked about the heist:
- first of all, I don't think most peopel actually care about art thefts happening on another continent.
- second: why is everybody assuming that the art is going back to China? All anybody knows is that chinese art got stolen, why would your first thought not be: of yeah, some private billionaire had it stolen. or, it's going to end up on the balck market and never be seen again. But no, Irene's classmates all talk about it in terms of imperialism and chinese art being returned to China. That doesn't make any sense at all.
I guess the book wasn't all bad, but it tried to be too many things all at once and failed at all of them. I would read future novels by this author though.
But for it to be a character study, I felt like the characters were way to similar, and didn't have any fundamental differences in opinion, which is surprising given the subject matter.
If the book is supposed to be about imperialism and Art, and why museums/countries should give back art that was stolen, then why was that subject not actually explored in depth? The only thing the author ever says in this novel is "Art is power", "Imperialism is bad", and "Stolen Art needs to be returned to the country of origin". All of which are true statements, but I wish all of these would have actually been explored and explained a bit more in depth. Why is art power? Why is it important that it be retured? What does it mean to members of a diaspora and to the country? Why are museums so important in shaping and telling history? etc etc.
The book also never addressed the question of why returning these Art pieces to a private cooperation is the right move. I mean, many many many art pieces are held in private collections by rich people, where no one from the public will ever see them. Including important pieces of chinese art. I just feel like the premise of randomly trusting this huge private chinese cooperation with precious art is the right move. How would you be ensuring that the art would remain accessible to the chinese public exactly?
On that note: how come none of the characters have any hesitancy about the chinese government or chinese cooperations? They are hardly saints, or innocent when it comes to questions of modern imperialism.
In terms of writing, I also found this novel to be increadibly repetetive:
- any scene with action or dialoge is constantly interrupted with musings on some sort of visual, or thinking about family, or relationships, or how unattainable someone is or somthing else increadibly trivial and not important in that moment. This got to a point where sometimes I totally lost track of what was actually happening.
- i swear the sentence "He thought of something, the something something" was repeated at least twice a chapter. It was sooooooo annoying.
- "he was all long fingers and sharp jawline" or something similar was also constantly used.
- there is only so many times you need to describe the way light washes over a city, or the sun sets over Beijing or California.
Last issue I had was the way journalist and side characters talked about the heist:
- first of all, I don't think most peopel actually care about art thefts happening on another continent.
- second: why is everybody assuming that the art is going back to China? All anybody knows is that chinese art got stolen, why would your first thought not be: of yeah, some private billionaire had it stolen. or, it's going to end up on the balck market and never be seen again. But no, Irene's classmates all talk about it in terms of imperialism and chinese art being returned to China. That doesn't make any sense at all.
I guess the book wasn't all bad, but it tried to be too many things all at once and failed at all of them. I would read future novels by this author though.