A troubled life, an art and a provocative dark and decadent Vienna: these are the ingredients of the fictional biography of the expressionist painter Egon Schiele that marks the literary debut of Lewis Crofts, 31 year old English journalist and writer . "The pornographer diVienna ," published in Italy by Marco Tropea is a fascinating novel that reconstructs the life and work of Schiele, starting with the honeymoon worrying parents and going until his death. In the middle run demons art and passion, the artist declines in essential works and scandalous, which will cost over long periods of poverty and the prison before receiving academic consecration. But even that triumph will be sung at decadent period in which the Hapsburg empire live his last years.
"I wanted to capture the power of the paintings in the writing - Lewis Crofts has told us in an exciting encounter in Mantua -. probably can not make art about art , but at least we you can try. "'s novel Crofts happily combines history and invention (" On the one hand you are bound by the facts, but then you're also free to imagine the people behind the pictures ") and refers to the great Central European tradition of nineteenth century. In particular the relationship between Schiele and his father suggests aKafka, but Crofts widens the field: "I took inspiration from Kafka, but in general terms. If you want to understand Europe you have many models of that period: Kafka, but also Schnitzler, Freud, Wittgenstein , Mahler, Klimt, Kokoschka. The environment in which they were born their work was very important. "And in" The Pornographer of Vienna "the environment of the city, grim as ever, plays a essential part, so much so that star quasial be like the painter.
If the setting of the book is late-nineteenth century, the models that inspired Crofts are milestones of the twentieth century: first Vladimir Nabokov, which combines the research "in the language and style. When you think of 'Lolita' - Crofts told us - it's amazing how one can be fascinated, even after a hundred pages, from a character that is most likely a pedophile. Schiele is not a pedophile, he is a character issue and I'm fascinated by him. It 's a great ability to make interesting the bad characters. " A talent like Crofts also identified in the Milan Kundera, "good at finding the dark side and make them attractive. "When asked if she feels a bond with great novelists of the nineteenth century social , to Dickens or Balzac, Crofts said:" I wanted to capture the company diVienna before the First World War, but did not want Dostoyevsky or Dickens do as they write hundreds of pages and create hundreds of characters. They have done a great fresco, my book is inspired by the paintings of Schiele , which are very simple and limited. I used short paragraphs, in short strokes. "
Lewis Crofts The novel describes the last days of an era that went to the forfeiture without many realize it." Decadence - told us about Vienna of the time - came out in secret, for example, when people went into the night with prostitutes. Today decay is public. Schiele for the decline is manifestavas oprattutto the dishonesty and hypocrisy. "Yet, the crisis in society will come to celebrate it as a great artist:" The paradox of great artists - added Crofts - is that they attack the establishment of which are part . Egon Schiele and resolve the problem by becoming part of the system. "But his paintings are - disturbing, fascinating and enigmatic - to tell us that in the end not everything can be normalized. And the novel Crofts confirms it.
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