spacestationtrustfund 's review for:

Le fabuleux destin de Xuan le Rouquin by Vũ Trọng Phụng

3.0

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[Y]ou are a journalist. Your duty is to help enhance the knowledge of the common people so that one day they too may understand art. I, on the other hand, am an artist. I am much too busy devoting myself to art to explain my work to them [...]. The more difficult a work of art is to understand, the more valuable it is. For example, in Italy and in Germany, I hear, those painters whose works are completely incomprehensible are worshiped as saints. When the dictators Hitler and Mussolini took power, they were so jealous of these artists that they threw them in jail. I only pray that someday our artists will be good enough to be thrown in jail as well!

This book is hilarious and incredibly sharp, like all the best satire.