The Horse's Mouth (New York Review Books Classics)
by Joyce Cary

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Book Reviews of The Horse's Mouth (New York Review Books Classics)

Book Review: Totally Rad
Summary: 5 Stars

One of the many masterful touches Joyce Cary uses is to always have Gulley working on a significant painting. It gets you to root for Gulley to do something even bigger than his one famous painting, and it makes you sympathize with the real people who put up with artists. But Gulley can't win. He is painting The Fall and it gets used to patch the roof of his hovel. He's painting Lazarus at the Grave and he has to flee from a crash-pad turned sour. He's going to sell a sketch of The Bath and instead manages to murder his only love. He's painting The Creation and the city comes and knocks the wall down. It is beautiful. Cary frames the whole novel with various potential masterworks that Gulley is painting, and in each one you see how life gets in the way of art, and how random are the winds of fortune.

We read this book in my book club and we agreed that it was one of the best of the 20 or so we've so far read together. I'm curious about the other two in Cary's trilogy. This is very much a complete work in itself, but I understand from the introduction that as a series it's even more illuminating.

This NYRB edition is printed on quality paper that stays white for a long time (I got my copy used and it's still very nice). Which is great, because you'll probably want to keep this book.

Summary of The Horse's Mouth (New York Review Books Classics)

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