Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels

by Toby Ferris Narrated by Jot Davies

Overview

Sure to be hailed alongside*H is for Hawk*and*The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist's work, and a moving and intimate memoir.

In 2012, facing the death of his father and impending fatherhood, Toby Ferris set off on a seemingly quixotic mission to track down and look at-in situ-every painting still in existence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most influential and important artist of*Northern Renaissance painting.

The result of that pursuit is a remarkable journey through major European cities and across continents. As Ferris takes a keen analytical eye to the paintings, each piece brings new revelations about Bruegel's art, and gives way to meditations on mortality, fatherhood, and life. Ferris conjures a whole world to which most of us have probably lost the key, and in the process teaches us how to look, patiently and curiously, at the world.

Short Life in a Strange World*is a dazzlingly original and assured debut-a strange and bewitching hybrid of art criticism, philosophical reflection, and poignant memoir that subtly alters the way we see the world and ourselves.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Jot Davies lends his beautifully resonant voice to this interesting personal memoir. Author Toby Ferris had a mission: to view in person every existing painting by the Northern Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. While on his journey across Europe and the U.S., he relates the subject matter in the Bruegel works to his own life and that of his father. Davies uses a serious tone befitting the somber and reflective quality of the writing. He provides a convincing Dutch accent on occasion and maintains a measured pace, allowing the listener time to view the images provided with the download. Viewing these images is necessary, for the author discusses in detail the characters in everyday village scenes and biblical parables. J.E.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

11/25/2019

Ferris, creator of the Anatomy of Norbiton online series of essays inspired by Renaissance art, blends memoir with philosophic meditation on art criticism in his thoughtful debut. In 2012, shortly after his father dies and leaves behind journals full of blank pages—a metaphor of a “life unfulfilled’—the largely unemployed Ferris embarks on a 19-city international tour to see all 42 paintings by Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, to create something meaningful in his own life. But this is not a straightforward travelogue; by examining life through Bruegel’s “ethnographic eye,” Ferris seeks relief from middle-aged uncertainties: while viewing The Census at Bethlehem in Brussels, he thinks, “We make spreadsheets, trace genealogies, embark on projects, write essays. All this must and will be made to mean something.” Throughout his three-year tour, Ferris finds elements within the paintings that fuel ruminations on his father’s death, which he saw as “a temporary loss of our own identity.” As time passes, he becomes only more uncertain: while studying Bruegel’s several detailed crowd scenes, Ferris concludes “one of us is lost in a crowd.” By book’s end, he realizes “I do not know if I became my father, simply because I do not know who my father was—what those blank pages might have contained.” Ferris shows a gifted eye for detail throughout, and fans of Renaissance art will appreciate his thought-provoking insight. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

Oddly charming, deeply intelligent. . . . Anyone asking questions about their own place in the world might be drawn to these portrayals of ordinary life from almost 500 years ago—scenes of human beings who work and return home, who carry their kids and tend to chores, who nap, play, eat, drink and do other, less decorous things. And, with the author’s help, we look at them more closely than before." — Washington Post

“Graceful, transcendent even.” — Los Angeles Times

“Captivating . . . a vibrant portrait of the artist’s work and world…. A profusely illustrated, deeply thoughtful meditation.” — Kirkus

“Thought-provoking. . . . [Ferris] blends memoir with philosophic meditation on art criticism in his thoughtful debut.” — Publishers Weekly

Washington Post

Oddly charming, deeply intelligent. . . . Anyone asking questions about their own place in the world might be drawn to these portrayals of ordinary life from almost 500 years ago—scenes of human beings who work and return home, who carry their kids and tend to chores, who nap, play, eat, drink and do other, less decorous things. And, with the author’s help, we look at them more closely than before."

|Los Angeles Times

Graceful, transcendent even.

Washington Post

Oddly charming, deeply intelligent. . . . Anyone asking questions about their own place in the world might be drawn to these portrayals of ordinary life from almost 500 years ago—scenes of human beings who work and return home, who carry their kids and tend to chores, who nap, play, eat, drink and do other, less decorous things. And, with the author’s help, we look at them more closely than before."

Los Angeles Times

Graceful, transcendent even.

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Jot Davies lends his beautifully resonant voice to this interesting personal memoir. Author Toby Ferris had a mission: to view in person every existing painting by the Northern Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. While on his journey across Europe and the U.S., he relates the subject matter in the Bruegel works to his own life and that of his father. Davies uses a serious tone befitting the somber and reflective quality of the writing. He provides a convincing Dutch accent on occasion and maintains a measured pace, allowing the listener time to view the images provided with the download. Viewing these images is necessary, for the author discusses in detail the characters in everyday village scenes and biblical parables. J.E.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-10-23
An obsession with Pieter Bruegel the Elder elicits a vibrant portrait of the artist's work and world.

Ferris, creator of the web-based Anatomy of Norbiton, which he describes as "essays on suburban life and universal failure as seen through the lens of Renaissance art," makes his book debut with a captivating chronicle of his journeys to collections around the world in search of paintings by Bruegel. In 2012, the 42-year-old author became overwhelmed by "a mania for Bruegel," incited by Landscape With the Fall of Icarus—not an authentic Bruegel, he discovered, but more likely a copy—which he saw at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels. "Why Bruegel?, why all of it? and why now?": Ferris never fully answers those questions as he embarks on his quest, revealing only that at the time he felt at loose ends, "on the payroll of a dying software company," and working mostly at home, tinkering with Anatomy of Norbiton. Tracking down works by Bruegel gave him "a defined and manageable project." Ferris does not explain why he juxtaposes his insights into Bruegel's work with a memoir about his father, an engineer who worked for the General Electric Company and who died in 2009. The author portrays his father with affection but strains to connect him to Bruegel. Documentary evidence for his father's life is scant, Ferris admits, consisting of a few methodically kept lists; similarly, for Bruegel, there is "only the vivid remnant flesh of the paintings and drawings and engravings." The author illuminates those works with an astute, knowing eye and penetrating insight, admiring Bruegel's precision in rendering scenes of peasant life: "the marginalized, the outcast, the strange," whom the artist depicted "not necessarily with sympathy"; or "the great theatre of suffering," such as bear-baiting, "which kept the sixteenth century amused." Along with reflections on artworks, Ferris shares sharp, often amusing details of ambience, hotels, trains, meals, and much beer in each city he visits.

A profusely illustrated, deeply thoughtful meditation on art.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173871190
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/25/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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