Metheringham Library Book Group - Book Review

Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster

This book tells the story of a painting, how it came to be painted by a woman living alone in an attic room in Paris, its adventures and the various women who come to own it. The painting is by Gwen John, a British painter who was born in Haverfordwest, Wales in 1876 and died in 1939. From 1895-98 she studied at the Slade School of Art and shared living quarters with her younger brother Augustus John who had begun his studies there in 1894. In 1903 she travelled to France with a friend, where they set off on a walking tour with their art equipment. Sleeping in fields, they lived on money earned by selling portrait sketches and in 1904 they arrived in Paris where Gwen found work as an artist's model. She then began modelling for the sculptor Auguste Rodin and became his lover. It was after this affair ended that she painted the picture which is at the centre of the story.

The book is written in sections with each one being about a different woman who has had the painting in their lives. There wasn't really enough about each character, each section finished and then jumped years to the next person.

I quite liked the book as did half of the reading group members. The opinions of the other half were summed up by Jayne who said 'I disliked it although it was well written. I thought it was a good idea to use ownership of a painting as a device for telling stories but it had ill-natured characters and all of the half-decent men were bumped off. The only page I wanted to turn to was the last one'

Although it scored an average of 6½ for the quality of the writing it only got 5 for enjoyment

Pauline