Hustvedt is a true intellectual polymath. Each book is a kaleidoscopic journey through her vast range of references, from obscure French cinema to abstruse German philosophers. Hustvedt’s obsession with theories of perception forms the bedrock of all her novels.
Each of Hustvedt’s flawed and complex voices highlights one of the author’s favourite themes: that human perception is deeply subjective, and that we can never fully understand each other. We hear personal testimony from the artist’s children, lover, childhood friend, male foils, and several loosely parodied high-brow art publications. The story of a woman disguising herself as a man is a tale as old as time but Hustvedt has concocted a chorus of voices to give alternative perspectives on Burden’s story, the result of which is a thrilling confusion of opinion. Burden records her life-long struggle with her gender in detailed personal notebooks, excerpts from which make up large portions of the novel. She enlists three male artists under whose names she plans to exhibit three different pieces of work, only to reveal her identity after the final show. The narrative chronicles a project undertaken by middle-aged artist Harriet ‘Harry’ Burden to seek revenge on the prejudiced New York art scene that has ignored her work. The novel is a dazzling call to arms against the persistent barriers placed around female artists and intellectuals. ” What follows is the story of a female artist trying to find a place for herself in the biased art world, interwoven with multiple stories of forgotten female artists and scientific theories of perception. A fictional editor’s note reads, “all intellectual and artistic endeavours, even jokes, ironies, and parodies, fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof it can locate a cock and pair of balls.
The Blazing World, Siri Hustvedt’s 6th novel, goes for the jugular from its opening paragraph.
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