Burnt Umber

By Sheldon Greene

Fiction. BURNT UMBER is a novel about two unforgettable artists--the German painter Franz Marc and the American sculptor Harry Baer--who struggle to express their personal vision of the defining moments of the 20th Century: the trenches of World War I, the liberation of the concentration camps, the turbulence of post-WWII Paris, the Civil Rights Movement, and Viet Nam-era Berkeley. "Green is a born storyteller"--the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967952018
• ISBN13: 9780967952017
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Leaping Dog Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Burnt Umber

I love a work of fiction that teaches me something, and this book is a wonderful mini-course in art history. Although I certainly recognized the work of Franz Marc, Shel Greene's novel really piqued my interest and we spent an evening on the internet looking at pictures of his work. As for Greene's creative creation, Harry Baer, I found him to be three-dimensional and thought the latter part of his life was particularly compelling. Everyone is tracked by his own demons, and the harder the Baer character tries to make amends for his past, the more trapped he is. The structure of the novel works very well, although the connection between the two artists is entirely serendipitous and a bit fragile -- it would have been interesting if the plot had interconnected them in a more fateful way. I dropped everything to complete the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will recommend it to others.As an aside, this is a very pretty book and the typeface and cover are particularly attractice. This is one of those rare times when it is wise to judge a book by its cover.

A Remarkable Achievement

"Burnt Umber" is a very unconventional novel for several reasons. First, its protagonists are two unrelated real life twentieth century artists whose work was far overshadowed by that of their contemporaries. Second, in place of normal chapters, this book is composed of microchapters, few longer than three pages. Third, although the story unfolds primarily through narration, some microchapters are epistolary and others are in the form of a screenplay. Finally, neither artist is shown to be larger than life or even to be especially likable.In spite of (or, more likely, because of) these unusual aspects, "Burnt Umber" succeeds splendidly in evoking the lives and art of Franz Marc and Harold Baer(the real name of the latter artist was Harold Paris). For example, the use of microchapters and of alternative narrative voices creates an impression not unlike that of glass shards: the fragments do not fit neatly together but nonetheless they can be pieced together into a recognizable whole. At the center of this work are Marc, an early twentieth century co-founder (with Kandinsky) of Der Blaue Reiter school and Baer, a mid-century Berkeley sculptor. We are given a unique entree to the imaginations and to the creative processes of these two artists, who see the world quite differently than the rest of us. To be sure, both artists are self-centered, monomaniacal cads. However, Greene's unsentimental approach lends this work a flinty verisimillitude. As topping on the cake, this novel introduces the reader to several dusty corners of the twentieth century: Munich on the eve of World War I; the trenches as seen from the German side; and Paris in the late 1940s. Two criticisms: This book would have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of pictures of the art that these men created. In addition, I sometimes found Greene's imagery and descriptions to be overly redolent and, on the whole, to be less effective than his unadorned narration. Nonetheless, "Burnt Umber" is a remarkable achievement.