Portrait of the Artist with Twenty Six Horses

by William Eastlake

Book Overview

"But," Rabbit Stockings said, "don't blame the white women. This is kind of an unusual happening. Just one of those weird things that happen through a misunderstanding." "Maybe civilization is based... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0962738743
• ISBN13: 9780962738746
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Bamberger Books
• Length: 221 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece IMHO

Portrait of an Artist With Twenty Six Horses is an excellent read if you enjoy, or think you might enjoy, non-traditional, non-linear fiction. While something is happening linearly in the book - a young man is dying and coming to grips with his death - within that loose framework Eastlake ranges far and wide, among various episodes and incidents in the man's short life. Eastlake is concerned with a poetic, subjective meaning of the episodes, what they were to the man as they unfolded but which he couldn't have known fully at the time. Readers see the process of a person understanding for the first time that he did not understand, making his accounts at turns sad, beautiful and funny. The book is humorous throughout, even as death approaches. Eastlake manages to sustain both the humor and the unfolding death without one undercutting the other; his feat is in intertwining them without cliché or any such "heart-warming" dilution of death. Beautiful book. Excellent dialogue. Set on the New Mexican portion of the Navajo Reservation.

Hard-to-find Gem

Portrait of an Artist With Twenty Six Horses is an excellent read if you enjoy non-traditional, non-linear fiction. There is something happening linearly in the book - a young man is dying and coming to grips with his death - but within that loose framework Eastlake ranges far and wide, among various episodes and incidents in the man's short life. Eastlake is digging for the poetic, subjective meaning of the episodes, what they were to the man as they unfolded but which he couldn't have known at the time. It is a young man understanding for the first time that he did not understand, which makes his accounts sad, beautiful and funny. The book is funny throughout, even as the man gets closer to death, and Eastlake manages to sustain both the humour and the unfolding death without one undercutting the other. He manages to intertwine them without cliche or any such "heart-warming" blunting of death. Beautiful book. Excellent dialogue. Set on the New Mexican portion of the Navajo Reservation.