The Blazing World
Siri Hustvedt
2013/359 pages
rating  – 9/ contemp US

Artists are sometimes quite eccentric but Hustvedt has invented a real corker in the large, red-haired, brilliant and probably mad Harriet Burden, rich widow of Felix Burden the successful NY art dealer. This book is a collection of fictitious letters, diary entries, interviews, reports and so on collected by one I.V. Hess, the fictional editor.

The result is a kick – for me, it’s one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” deals. Hustvedt skewers the art world via a plot dealing with a scheme Burden cooked up to pull off a very pointed hoax. Burden creates installation art including metamorphs, dolls of various size and shape which are sometimes warmed. She installs them in “rooms” which are viewed by observers. She does other art projects, too.  >>>>MORE>>>>