Further thoughts on Bringley

I began my review of All The Beauty In The World by Bringley on Motley Kamuka, my grab-all blog. I contract and expand based on whim.

The hard thing about finishing this book is that I look at a painting, and a few more, and then spin off into other things. To appreciate a painting, you have to follow free associations. 

He writes a lot about the loss of his brother, he's processing the world through his little brother lense, even as his brother is gone. I don't feel like it's off topic because the appreciator is part of the appreciation. Everyone has loss. Is he proposing that great painting are a consolation? 

His mother was fascinated by paintings, she studied art history, and they went to a museum when they were taking a break from grieving with the family. They end up staring at pictures for a while, to take them in. The mother ends up with this one:

Bringley ends up quitting his job at the New Yorker to be a museum guard. 

There are other Met books:

One Woman Show: A Novel by Christine Coulson is a novel in wall labels for art (that we don't see).

It's a fun novel you can read quickly, that uses a lot of art terms, and has funny and impossible wall labels. 

I think I was meant to read Metropolitain Stories, not this one, but it was quick and not bad.

Information Desk by Robyn Schiff is a long poem.