{"product_id":"9780998622606","title":"Catherine Lescault","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"As fantastic as Balzac's meditation on the risk of madness in artistic creation. Once you begin to read it, you will not be able to stop. . . . Fascinating and breathtaking!\"\u003cbr\u003e -- Dr Anne-Marie Baron, président of the Société des Amis de Balzac et de la Maison de Balzac, Paris, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhich form of art is the finest?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the delirious and vitalizing novel \u003cem\u003eCatherine Lescault,\u003c\/em\u003e alternative incarnations of Honoré de Balzac's classic characters from \u003cem\u003eThe Unknown Masterpiece\u003c\/em\u003e enact romances of lunacy and obsession to dramatize their search for the reality of artistic creation. The novelists Frenhofer and Porbus, the painter and muse Gillette, the troubadour Nicolas, and the sculptor Houdon all strive to discover the secret of imbuing art with life, despite the voices of academic critics and students, peers and rivals, relatives and loved ones, and their own withering internal frailties. Some disciples may achieve the dream of allowing the ideal courtesan subject, Catherine Lescault herself, to breathe and live and love, while other artists' fixations lead into monomaniacal madness with unspeakably tragic consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhich interpretation will ultimately triumph: sculpture, paint, music, dance, acts on the stage, or words on the page?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Will keep even the most knowledgeable reader guessing and profoundly engaged, until the last startling pages.\"\u003cbr\u003e -- Dr John Wallen, Faculty of Arts, Sharjah University, UAE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIllustrations by Rocío De Juan Bayarri\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fårö","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49977432604912,"sku":"9780998622606","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780998622606","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}