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Cover of Sacre Bleu featuring Toulouse-
Lautrec and Bleu |
Book: Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D'Art
Author: Christopher Moore
Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher
Year: April 2012
I have started and stopped this review at least a dozen
times. I have been struggling to find the right words to describe this book.
What began so well quickly went downhill at an alarmingly
fast pace. Should I’ve been surprised? Probably not since Playboy was quoted on
the back cover stating, “If there’s a funnier writer out there, step forward.”
Should have been my first clue.
Like I said, it started interestingly enough. As someone who
studied art history throughout high school and parts of university, I was
intrigued by the storyline. It begins with the death of Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh
famously shot himself in 1890 in a field. However no gun was ever
retrieved from the site and van Gogh stumbled back to a small French village
to die. This is where Moore’s story begins.
Using a fictional main character, Lucien Lessard is a baker
by profession and struggling artist by passion. Upon receiving the news of van
Gogh’s death, Lucien and his friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec quickly become
suspicious of the circumstances of van Gogh's death. Was it just made to look like a suicide?
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is just one of the many real-life artists
of this period that Moore uses throughout his novel. Some others include
Renoir, Pissarro, Manet, Seurat, Monet, Whistler, Cézanne and many more. Their
paintings are scattered throughout the story.
Sacre Bleu may also sound familiar to readers. I remember
hearing it in a movie as a kid and getting scolded at by mother for repeating it. I
later learned it was a French curse word, but it wasn’t until this book that I
learned its true meaning. Sacre Bleu refers to the blue cloak that was painted
on the Virgin Mary. During the 13
th century, it became popular for
artists to use expensive and rare ultramarine blue for the painting of Mary’s
robe.
These 19
th century artists used what was referred
to as a colorman to get the colors they needed for their paintings. In Moore’s
story, he creates a crooked, little colorman who has weaved his way through
all these famous artists’ lives and paintings. Lucien and Toulouse-Lautrec begin to track
down their artist friends and discover that each artist had a muse that they
were completely enamoured with though their memories are distorted and where
the paintings disappeared to is a mystery to them.
Where this story begins to unravel is with the element of
magical powers this colorman possesses. Though I have some imagination with
stories that use magical elements, Moore leaves out a lot of details and doesn’t explain
properly how the Colorman has been affecting famous artists for centuries. Bleu
is a spirit/sidekick who becomes these famous muses in all the paintings. As long as
the Colorman has some of his ultramarine, Bleu can keep entering new bodies to inspire
these artists.
There is a serious lack of flow with the character Bleu.
Sometimes she is good and sometimes she bad. As a reader, you are always
questioning her motives especially with Lucien. She inspires Lucien through
his former love, Juliette.
This novel is supposed to be comical, but it often comes off
as crude. Using the word “fuck” to describe every sex scene just seems like a
writer who lacks creativity and is just being lazy.
Overall, I would suggest this book with caution. What began
as interesting became a nightly punishment to finish.
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