What do You think about Stone Virgin (1995)?
Loved this book about art in Florence. There´s something I love about books with librarians as subjects!
—Jcamille Wyatt
STONE VIRGIN. (1986). Barry Unser. ***.Unser later went on to win a Booker prize, but this one didn’t make the grade. It’s a retelling of the Pygmalion myth, set in a variety of historical periods. A sculptor from the Piedmont region was engaged by the ecclesiastical authorities to carve a Madonna which would be mounted as one of the principal statues on a new church. This was in 1432. It was his first engagement in Venice and he was excited and primed to do it. He had no money to hire a woman to pose for him, so he engaged a local prostitute at minimal wages – and assorted perks. When he was done, he had created a beautiful likeness in an unusual pose, and the church officials seemed to like his work. It was not until 1793 that the statue was mounted on the church by a patron of the arts. He fell in love with the statue because it resembled a local woman with whom he was in love. He was successful in his chase of his love – who was married to another man – because of the strange impulses they both received around the carving. Then we move forward to the 1970s, and another couple. You can tell that this cycle could go on forever, but Unser finally finished his cast of characters with the last man – a restorer. There is a lot of predictability with this novel, but it is well written. It didn’t score well because it was easy to predict what would happen next. If you can neglect that, you will like the book.
—Tony
Italy in 1432, a Madonna statue has been commissioned and is being carved in Venice by a relatively unknown but talented sculptor.The book is written in three different times: 1432 when the Madonna statue was being carved, 1793 when the statue is in a private garden, and 1972 when the statue, which has since been installed on a church property, is being restored.In 1432 the sculptor chooses a whore as his model and they get along very well. Unfortunately she gets murdered and the sculptor is accused of the crime. In 1793 we hear the memories of an old man as he writes his exploits of adulterous sex with the lady of the house where the statue is in the garden.In 1972 the man who is cleaning the statue is inexplicably aroused all the time. He also seems to have epileptic incidents, or are they? And he is attracted to the wife of a metal sculptor. The name Fornarini keeps coming up. And there is some element of paranormal here although the idea is not developed or explained.The main idea here is the possibility that an inanimate object can absorb the feelings, actions and memories of the creator and those involved with the creator of said object, which then can effect the people who come into contact with the object later.The book was not uninteresting, the writing was not bad. It is one of those books that seemed to have the potential to work but somehow didn't.
—Chana
