The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman review – great art and monstrous selfishness

This exhilarating Costa-shortlisted novel about a son in thrall to his painter father skewers the hyperbole and hypocrisies of the art world

In 2001, Marina Picasso published a memoir, Picasso: My Grandfather. “His brilliant oeuvre demanded human sacrifices,” she asserted bitterly, adding that “no one in my family ever managed to escape from the stranglehold of this genius. He needed blood to sign each of his paintings … the blood of those who loved him – people who thought they loved a human being, whereas they really loved Picasso.” The damage is well documented: Picasso’s second wife Jacqueline, his longtime muse and lover Marie-Thérèse Walter and his grandson Pablito all took their own lives. His son Paulo, Marina’s father, struggled with depression and died in 1975 from alcohol-related illness.

Does great art justify monstrous selfishness? Must the lovers and children crushed by the careless cruelties of genius accept their suffering as inevitable, even irrelevant? Can they ever claim their lives as their own? These are the questions at the heart of The Italian Teacher, Tom Rachman’s Costa-shortlisted third novel.

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from Books | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Agw77L

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