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A review by mickeymole
Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
2.0
I honestly don’t know how to review this door-stop of a book. At 879 pages plus notes, there’s a ton of information here.
In every interview I saw of Naifah and Smith, they talked as much about all the material they were privy to, and the time and effort it took to sift through it, as they did of Van Gogh himself. Perhaps it was too much to handle. Their documentation of source notes came to 5,000 pages, which is only available online. I have to give them credit for undertaking and finishing such an almost impossible project. But with so much information that they tried to cram into this thing, it’s no wonder that I find the finished product akin to trying to swim across a lake with a heavy barbell on my back. The reader is presented with so much excruciating detail, the actual story is difficult to follow. I kept thinking that they’d even tell me where and when he took a dump, and how he felt about it. They wore me out with adjectives upon adjectives describing every negative action or suspected thought that Vincent ever had. There were hundreds of direct quotes from his letters to support what a manipulative, selfish, nasty human being he must have been. The repetitive negativity got old in a hurry, and this colossus was loaded with it. If you’re prone to bouts of depression, I’d recommend skipping large chunks, and try to focus on one or two sections of Vincent’s life you might be interested in. Trying to digest the whole thing may push you over the edge.
I also question the accuracy with which they used some of their source material. There seems to be quite a bit of speculation going on here. This may be inevitable when you’re over a century removed from your subject. Even so, I frequently could not make the leap the authors made from a quote to their conclusion, which sometimes took pages.
There are a lot of reviewers here praising how well-written this biography is. Well-written to me means that the prose is presented in a way as to be inviting, easy to follow, and concise. This book just doesn’t have those attributes. Perhaps if it were edited down by 400 pages, it would be more accessible. Imagine trying to read EVERY thought one human being might have had in a lifetime, and you’ll get a feeling of what reading this book is like.
It does have one redeeming feature, an Appendix, “A Note on Vincent’s Fatal Wounding”. Naifeh and Smith present a solid argument for Vincent having not committed suicide, as is the popular belief. The evidence is compelling, and I tend to believe it. This appendix is a must read for those seriously interested in Van Gogh. Except for that, this weighty tome left me tired and depressed.
In every interview I saw of Naifah and Smith, they talked as much about all the material they were privy to, and the time and effort it took to sift through it, as they did of Van Gogh himself. Perhaps it was too much to handle. Their documentation of source notes came to 5,000 pages, which is only available online. I have to give them credit for undertaking and finishing such an almost impossible project. But with so much information that they tried to cram into this thing, it’s no wonder that I find the finished product akin to trying to swim across a lake with a heavy barbell on my back. The reader is presented with so much excruciating detail, the actual story is difficult to follow. I kept thinking that they’d even tell me where and when he took a dump, and how he felt about it. They wore me out with adjectives upon adjectives describing every negative action or suspected thought that Vincent ever had. There were hundreds of direct quotes from his letters to support what a manipulative, selfish, nasty human being he must have been. The repetitive negativity got old in a hurry, and this colossus was loaded with it. If you’re prone to bouts of depression, I’d recommend skipping large chunks, and try to focus on one or two sections of Vincent’s life you might be interested in. Trying to digest the whole thing may push you over the edge.
I also question the accuracy with which they used some of their source material. There seems to be quite a bit of speculation going on here. This may be inevitable when you’re over a century removed from your subject. Even so, I frequently could not make the leap the authors made from a quote to their conclusion, which sometimes took pages.
There are a lot of reviewers here praising how well-written this biography is. Well-written to me means that the prose is presented in a way as to be inviting, easy to follow, and concise. This book just doesn’t have those attributes. Perhaps if it were edited down by 400 pages, it would be more accessible. Imagine trying to read EVERY thought one human being might have had in a lifetime, and you’ll get a feeling of what reading this book is like.
It does have one redeeming feature, an Appendix, “A Note on Vincent’s Fatal Wounding”. Naifeh and Smith present a solid argument for Vincent having not committed suicide, as is the popular belief. The evidence is compelling, and I tend to believe it. This appendix is a must read for those seriously interested in Van Gogh. Except for that, this weighty tome left me tired and depressed.