SACRE' BLEU: A COMEDY D'ART

Do you recall how, after returning from our trip to Paris and that river cruise through Provence summer before last, I became a bit obsessed with all things French? Well, although I don't bring it up here on the blog near as often now, the obsession has not faded. Mostly I quench it with books and movies. I've seen Midnight in Paris several times, watched a great mini-series about the original group of Impressionists, read several books about expatriate writers, such as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, who settled in Paris after WWI, and a fabulous novel about the artist Renoir by Susan Vreeland, called Luncheon of the Boating Party. But I never, in all my life, have read anything as oddly intriguing as the one my hubby gave me for my birthday -- Sacre' Blue: A Comedy d'Art, by Christopher Moore.

While on that trip I realized that my very favorite artist was Vincent van Gogh. The man was absolutely color-mad! So how could I resist a novel whose cover blurb starts out "In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he?" Add into the mix a mystery-solving bon vivant count by the name of Toulouse Lautrec, a mad scientist who is determined to create some steam powered leg extensions for him, so that he can "blend into the crowds" more easily, and even a bit of time travel, and well, how could it not be tres amusant? There's history, murder, mayhem, and best of all, muses! Beware though, this book is not for anyone without a quirky sense of humor. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls it "another exceedingly bizarre, often raucous, and consistently delightful journey into the sweetly demented mind of novelist Christopher Moore." Also, Moore's previous titles include Bite Me, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, and Island of the Sequined Love Nun, sooooo, don't say I didn't warn you.