Review: The Great Man

I read the first half of The Great Man by Kate Christensen on the train heading to New York; as the novel is set in the city, it ended up being more than appropriate for the occasion.  This meticulously crafted story centres around the survivors of renowned figurative painter Oscar Feldman, specifically his wife, mistress, and sister.  Each woman is interviewed by two men, who are coincidentally writing separate biographies about Oscar.  Throughout the course of the novel it is revealed that Oscar is perhaps not as great as everyone thought he was, on both personal and professional levels.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  It manages to be entertaining and addictive without seeming like brain candy.  One of the central themes of The Great Man is that of lack of originality and/or authenticity, almost to the point of plagiarism, in art.  I've noticed it popping up in a lot of things lately (check out The Squid and the Whale, for instance, - a highly understated movie) and have to wonder if it says something about the climate of our time.  I mean, of course there have always been allusions in every kind of art, but this theme seems to imply that borrowing from others or using their work and ideas to build on and improve your own is somehow an essential part of the creative process.

If I had one complaint about this book, it would have to be that the plot seems almost too calculated and planned out.  I'd wager Christensen knew exactly how the story would end when she began writing it;  while this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does take a lot of the inspirational emotion out of the writing, and a certain amount of humanity out of the characters.  Or it may just seem that way to me be because I've been reading a lot of Alice Munro stories lately.  Alice  Munro is the queen of humanity and inspirational emotion.