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A Woman With No Clothes On (2008) is V R Main's debut novel. Set in 19th century Paris, Main tells the story of 18-year-old Victorine Meurent, the painter Edouard Manet and their shared longing for the ultimate painting. Winner of the Trafalgar Squared Prize, it is published by Delancey Press [1].
Plot summary
[edit]The aristocratic Manet and the working-class Victorine Meurent narrate A Woman With No Clothes On. A chance meeting between the two leads to an intense relationship of painting and sexual tension. Manet creates a scandal when he exhibits Le déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia in which the naked model is a young Victorine. While critics and the general public dismiss the works, and label Victorine a common prostitute, she is determined to make her own mark in the art world, as a painter herself. Her bitter struggle to succeed is punctuated by the exchanges between Manet and his friend Baudelaire on the matter of modernism.
Critical reponse
[edit]A Woman With No Clothes On is the winner of the Trafalgar Squared Prize for Work in Progress. It is described by the chair of judges, Wendy Robertson as 'outstanding. A powerful novel. The writing is original, literary, intense and well-observed [2].'
The author of Manet, Lesley Stevenson has praised Main for 'rescu[ing] Victorine from her invisibility in the Parisian art world of the nineteenth century' [3].
The novel has received press attention in The Guardian [4] and The Times [5]. The Socialist Worker recently carried an article on the novel's attention to issues of gender and social class [6].
The novel has received a mixed response on websites with user-generated reviews, such as online retailer Amazon.com [7] and high-profile feminist blog The F-Word (magazine) [8]. Some readers have remarked on its flowing prose and exuberant characters. Others believe it is too intelligent for its own good and have remarked on the various traits often associated with debut novels.
Notes
[edit]- ^ http://www.delanceypress.co.uk/
- ^ http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6256462
- ^ http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6256462
- ^ Main, V R: The Guardian, G2, pages 16-17. 03/10/2008
- ^ http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25361-2652921,00.html
- ^ Cookson, Matthew: Socialist Worker, page 11. 22/11/2008
- ^ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-No-Clothes-V-R-Main/dp/0953911977
- ^ http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2008/10/victorine_meure
External links
[edit]- A Woman With No Clothes On official website
- The Naked Truth Guardian article by V R Main
- A Woman With No Clothes Times Literary Supplement article by Michael Eaude
- Rewriting the history of Manet's favourite model Socialist Worker article by Matthew Cookson
- Feminist views of Meurent The F-Word
EDITING
| Name = A Woman | Img = Morrissey-Alexander-Film-.jpg | Img_capt = Morrissey at the 2004 premiere of the film Alexander in Dublin, Ireland. | Img_size = | Landscape = | Background = solo_singer