The Matisse Stories - A. S. Byatt Audiobook

Written by A. S. Byatt
Read by Wanda McCaddon
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: May 8, 2009
Duration: 02:36:28

In this elegant set of stories, three modern women are touched in different ways by the paintings of Henri Matisse.

In “Medusa’s Ankles,” a distinguished translator visits a hair salon hoping to regain a hint of her youthful looks. Hung on the wall before her is one of Matisse’s iconic portraits.

In “Art Works,” the three inhabitants of one household—a generous wife, her petulant husband, and their regal housekeeper—make very different artists.

And in “The Chinese Lobster,” a self-tortured, anorexic art student confronts the smug opulence of Matisse’s nudes while pondering suicide.

In three masterfully written stories loosely inspired by Matisse paintings, Byatt (Possession) dazzles with her evocation of sensuous detail while adroitly emphasizing the interconnectedness of life and art. In each one, a woman teetering on the edge of losing her emotional equilibrium finds a small nugget of comfort after some unsettling surprises.

Byatt’s lapidary prose shimmers with the colors she describes so intensely. Her understanding of human relationships is no less brilliant.