The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

by Dominic Smith

Book Overview

The debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos reimagines the life of Louis Daguerre, the inventor of photography, who becomes convinced that the world is going to end when his mind unravels due to mercury poisoning. He is determined to reconnect with the only woman he has ever loved before the End comes.Louis Daguerre's story is set against the backdrop of a Paris prone to bohemian excess and social...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743271246
• ISBN13: 9780743271240
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A MASTERFUL NOVEL SUPERBLY READ

While French artist and scientist Louis Daguerre is recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype photographic process, his life was the stuff of great drama. He was, indeed, a founding father of photography yet his battle for that honor was hard won, as he had to fight to protect his patent. However, that struggle was a small price compared to the physical effects of the pursuit of his passion. Daguerre exposed himself to mercury vapors, a necessity to engrave the images on a plate. The danger was that he could not avoid some exposure to mercury poisoning, which was eventually his downfall. The great man became delusional, convinced that the end of the world was near - as soon as a year. We hear: ""When the vision came, he was in the bathtub. After a decade of using mercury vapors to cure his photographic images, Louis Daguerre's mind had faltered--a pewter plate left too long on this cold evening of 1846, he felt a strange calm. Outside, a light snow was falling and a vaporous blue dusk seemed to be rising out of the Seine. " Then, he made a list of what needed to be photographed before it was too late. His choices were a beautiful nude woman, the sun, the moon, the perfect Paris boulevard, a pastoral scene, galloping horses, a perfect apple, a flower, the king of France, and Isobel Le Fournier. (A woman Daguerre loved) Smith is masterful as he traces Daguerre's descent into madness. This is a bravura debut novel, outstanding not only for the history of photography but for its psychological aspects and picture of mid nineteenth century Paris. Although born in New England actor Stephen Hoye spent much of his professional life in London. Many will remember him for his Audie winning narration of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He really comes to the fore with this story, imbuing it with a stage trained actor's resonant voice and skillfully persuasive phrasing. Highly recommended. - Gail Cooke

Bravo

I just finished reading this truly luminous novel - and finished wiping my eyes. It is quite simply one of the most auspicious debuts I have read in years. So often a writer who can craft a sentence with such beauty and create characters as well as you have skimps on plot. But this novel has all three and deserves all the praise it has received. The sense of place, the emotion, the ability to enter into the artists soul all have me amazed at Smith's talent.

A sumptuous, compelling story of an artist and lost love

I read this novel in two days, utterly fascinated and drawn into the mind of the young provincial genius Louis Daguerre who came to Paris first as an apprentice to a theatrical scenic painter, and rose to invent the Daguerreotype, and by the young housemaid he loved when he was fourteen and for whom he searched all his life, unable to love anyone else. The prose is gorgeous, and utterly in the mind of this lonely, brilliant man who is possessed by light and color and increasing ill and hallucinogenic from inhaling the mercury with which he permanently fixes his image to the copper plate. The portrait of an unstable France reeling from revolution and riots and of Paris in its poverty and everyday life is utterly visceral. If you like a story with exquisite writing, a different sort of love tale and richness of character, you will love this. It is a poem to vision and love and the beauty and brevity of life.

A Luminous Madness

I read this book on the long road from Michigan to Austin, Texas, where the author resides. I was on a journey to meet Dominic Smith, to interview him for the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine, LuxEsto. Smith had made a short stop in Kalamazoo years ago, but he had left an impression. Now, as I read his debut novel, I soon understood -- this young author will be leaving an indelible impression on every reader to come across his work. Brilliance rises like a mercury vapor from the very first lines, making giddy with the magic of characters rising up, taking form, and coming alive on the page: "When the vision came, he was in the bathtub. After a decade of using mercury vapors to cure his photographic images, Louis Daguerre's mind had faltered - a pewter plate left too long in the sun. But during his final lucid minutes on this cold evening of 1846, he felt a strange calm..." Smith has lifted moments of history and wrapped them in vapors of imagination. How might this visionary, the founding father of photography, Louis Daguerre, have seen the world? What is the lens of his eye on life and might we, for a moment in time, look through it and see as he might have seen? He created his art at a time when he thought the world was coming to an end. Perhaps for that reason alone, his photographic images had a mystical aura about them, and his subject matter approached with such evident passion. Daguerre makes a list of subjects he must capture in his photographs before it is too late: 1. a beautiful woman (naked) 2. the sun 3. the moon 4. the perfect Paris boulevard 5. a pastoral scene 6. galloping horses 7. a perfect apple 8. a flower 9. the king of France 10. Isobel Le Fournier And it is Isobel who becomes the embodiment, perhaps even the lens, through which Daguerre sees all. She is his first love. She is his last. And the thread that weaves through all between. "He could imagine kissing her and was appalled by that - it seemed like a desire to lie facedown in an icy stream, to burrow inside the very marrow of her youth and beauty and somehow indemnify himself against Armageddon. He looked down at his shaking hands, at the cordage of vein and tendon, at the sun's chemical blackening. He felt impossibly old..." 'The light is changing,' he said. 'Is it?' 'Dusk is a kiss between night and day.' 'You have an eye for romance, but perhaps no heart for it.'" I as reader might argue - Daguerre would not have been willing to play with the madness of mercury vapors if he had not the heart for love. And it is clear, this new author, Dominic Smith, has the heart necessary for his own medium of art. By the time I drove into Austin, I was enthralled with this find of a new star rising. "The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre" is a book not to be missed. Not to be forgotten. I await Smith's own list of 10 to be captured in his own medium. With highest recommendations.

Delightful and Transporting

Dominic Smith's debut novel is ideal for folks who love the craft of well-executed historical fiction... who like to dig in and relish rich language, imagery, characters, and plot, and just trust that they're in good hands, that the author is being true to the historical essentials of the story. I found myself wondering how historically accurate the book was and immediately scratching the thought, preferring not to care and just enjoying the ride that Smith took me on. I'm much more motivated to read a more biographical work about the life of Daguerre now, but I doubt I'll find one that's a fraction as rich, or does half the job of bringing 19th Century Paris to life. In a literary critique world that lauds frugal use of language and is embarrassed by indulgence, I found Smith's prose style, and story itself, to be courageous, giving readers a vibrant experience at the expense of what will likely give critics (purveyors of the most indulgent literary form) plentiful ammunition with which to ply their trade.