“Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.”
Vincent van Gogh
Avenue with Flowering Chestnut Trees
Vincent van Gogh – 1889
Lies, the Artist’s Daughter, Painting
Floris Arntzenius – Date unknown
Landscape with Cattle
Willem Maris – Date unknown
“Choose only one master – Nature.”
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
The Abduction of Europa (detail) 1632. Rembrandt van Rijn
For many more works by Dutch Painters please visit our online gallery Passion for Paintings
“When it’s in a book I don’t think it’ll hurt any more …exist any more. One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.”
Marguerite Duras, The Lover
This intense novel is about a young mother and wife called Zoe Kruller, who is brutally murdered. It uses mixed storylines and takes place in rural twentieth-century America (1983-2001).
There are two suspects; her own husband, Delray Kruller, from whom she is estranged from and her lover Eddy Diehl.
The story is told by two persons: Krista Diehl (daughter of Eddy Diehl) and Aaron Kruller (son of the murdered woman and Delray Kruller).
It is a story about passionate love, sex, abondance, cruelty, violence, and loss seen through the two young teenagers’ eyes.
I was intrigued, not knowing who the killer was. Why was Zoe murdered? Reading the same story but through entirely different eyes by the two narrators Aaron and Krista. I was struck by their desperations and loneliness, fanatically defending their own fathers and blaming the other.
The final chapter, which I absolutely loved, showing us the incredible strength of a woman and the power she found in herself to take control of her own life.
It is not until the very end of the novel that we find out the truth about what has happened to Zoe.
I couldn’t stop reading and finished this book in just two days. Can’t wait to start another great novel by Joyce Carol Oates.
“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing.”
Anonymous
Girl Reading
Edmund Tarbell – circa 1909