Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An engrossing story - and some vivid imagery, 27 Feb 2007
I really enjoyed Theft. I have never read Peter Carey before and assumed I wouldn't like him - that makes Theft all the more pleasing.
I found the story engrossing, and as it twisted and turned, I got further and further engrossed. Butcher made a compelling narrator and, unlike Banville's protagonists, I actually believed the narration in terms of style and vocab. I thought Hugh grated a little, but I suppose we needed him to demonstrate the flawed narration of Butcher and also to provide a millstone that prevented Butcher and Marlene just running away together (running away forever, Angelo...).
Some of the imagery was stunning too. The Australian backwoods came alive with the flood and I swear I have seen the studio-garage. The dry humour really worked for me and I loved the cameo of Ambersand [?], the policeman who knows about art because he has to, but cares nothing for it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sparky prose and great characters, 6 Oct 2006
Extremely good book, very well and unconventionally written. The story is told through the eyes of two brothers, one an out-of-fashion artist, the other his 'idiot savant' brother.
Carey's use of the two perspectives was very clever. Rather than going over the same ground from two different perspectives,as some novelists do with this type of structure, the next chapter from the next brother slighly over-lapped and then pushed the story on.
I expected to find the 'idiot savant' brother's chapters tedious but the opposite was the case. I looked forward to hearing Hugh's wierd and very funny take on what was going on, particularly his sarcastic comments about the sanctity of the artist. His vulnerability and his method of coping with the world were cleverly conveyed without bogging you down with too much information. I worried about Hugh's chair constantly!
The other aspect of the book I really liked was the economy with which Carey told his story. He kept the descriptions spare but still managed to conjure up rich images of both the Australian outback and New York.
Very enjoyable, accessible and at the same time challenging. I imagine the Booker panel felt they had to leave him off this year's short list since he's already won the prize twice before.
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42 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Shame, doubt, self-loathing, all this we [artists] eat for breakfast every day.", 31 May 2006
Two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey writes his most dazzling novel yet, a send-up of the art world, filled with satire about dealers, auction houses, compulsive collectors, forgers, conservators and technicians, art researchers, catalogue writers, and even the artists themselves. At the same time, he also creates two splendid characters through whose limited vision this world is viewed--Michael "Butcher" Boone, a formerly successful Australian avant-garde artist, now experiencing hard times, and his "slow" brother Hugh, a 220-pound giant with little control over his emotions and a penchant for breaking the little fingers of annoying people.
Butcher, recently released from prison after trying to steal back his own paintings, which were declared "marital assets" during a nasty divorce, is now living in northern New South Wales, as caretaker for the property of his biggest collector. He is also the full-time caretaker of his brother, "Hugh the Poet and Hugh the Murderer, Hugh the Idiot Savant."
When Butcher rescues Marlene Leibovitz from her partially submerged car during a flood, the "chance" meeting has long-range consequences. Marlene is the wife of Olivier Leibovitz, son of Jacques Leibovitz, a world-class artist whose paintings are nearly priceless. She has the power to authenticate Leibovitz paintings (the "droit moral") and effectively controls the Liebovitz market as undocumented paintings surface. She has arrived to document the "Leibovitz" belonging to Butcher's next door neighbor, a painting which promptly disappears.
The involvement of Butcher in a complex scheme to defraud is told in alternating chapters by Butcher and Hugh, whose limited "take" on the characters and action leads to hilarious commentary, which is often more astute and realistic than that of his brother. Butcher, devoted to his artwork, and eventually to Marlene, is a brawling innocent, totally over his head in the international art circles in which he moves in Tokyo and New York, following a sellout show of his work arranged by Marlene. Butcher's narrative reveals his obvious ignorance of the details of the Leibovitz art fraud, increasing the irony and humor and developing suspense about Marlene's intentions.
When the increased financial stakes lead to murder, the complexity of the art fraud is revealed to the reader--and to Butcher. The final chapter, almost an Afterword, gives new meaning to the word "irony." Theft is brilliantly constructed, and in Butcher and Hugh, Carey creates two characters the reader cares about. The art world and its rarified atmosphere are subjected to Carey's rapier wit, and the humor and satire are non-stop. Well known for his word play and sense of the absurd, Carey has outdone himself with this novel, a continuation of the themes he began in My Life as a Fake--and a new comic masterpiece. Mary Whipple
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