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Albert & the Whale
- Narrated by: Paul Hilliar
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
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Albert & the Whale
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Summary
A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN OBSERVER BEST ART BOOK OF 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022
‘This is a wonderful book. A lyrical journey into the natural and unnatural world’ Patti Smith
An illuminating exploration of the intersection between life, art and the sea from the award-winning author of Leviathan.
Albrecht Dürer changed the way we saw nature through art. From his prints in 1498 of the plague ridden Apocalypse – the first works mass produced by any artist – to his hyper-real images of animals and plants, his art was a revelation: it showed us who we are but it also foresaw our future. It is a vision that remains startlingly powerful and seductive, even now.
In Albert & the Whale, Philip Hoare sets out to discover why Dürer's art endures. He encounters medieval alchemists and modernist poets, eccentric emperors and queer soul rebels, ambassadorial whales and enigmatic pop artists. He witnesses the miraculous birth of Dürer's fantastical rhinoceros and his hermaphroditic hare, and he traces the fate of the star-crossed leviathan that the artist pursued. And as the author swims from Europe to America and beyond, these prophetic artists and downed angels provoke awkward questions. What is natural or unnatural? Is art a fatal contract? Or does it in fact have the power to save us?
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Critic reviews
‘In Albert & the Whale he leads his readers off on a marvellously varied, vividly imaginative, seductively digressive adventure that traces the path of another colossus…
this is a book to immerse you’ The Times, Book of the Week, Rachel Campell-Johnston
‘Magnificent new book … Hoare’s feeling for Dürer exceeds anything I have ever read … his greatest work yet’ Observer, Book of the Week, Laura Cumming
‘Marvellous, unaccountable book. This is a book like the stomach of a whale: capaciously ready to accommodate whatever disparate stuff comes its way' Literary Review
‘Philip Hoare, best know for Leviathan, his discursive and personal book about whales, has written a very Sebaldian new book. In it, he traverses his own patch and sniffs out an assortment of seemingly unrelated themes – Albrecht Durer, cetaceans, Thomas Mann and David Bowie, a deformation of the hand, the death of his mother – and proceeds to reveal the single degree of separation between them… Enlightening’ Michael Prodger, Sunday Times
‘Visionary: a tone poem put together from the lives of others, with detailed use of archives’ Financial Times
‘Mr Hoare’s portrait glitters with arresting details … His readings of Dürer’s work grow woozy with enthusiasm, dissolving into a kind of modernist poetry. Readers who prefer their art history to have both feet on the ground might be unmoored; others will be intoxicated’ Economist
‘It’s a summary-defying blend of art history, biography, nature writing and memoir … you can feel the delight he takes in being unbound by anything but his enthusiasms. He is alternately precise and concealing. His biographical sections are both elliptical and redolent of entire lives. His art criticism is often stirring’ New York Times
What listeners say about Albert & the Whale
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- HB51
- 16-12-21
Meandering
This book meanders from topic to topic via tenuous links and doesn’t hold together enough for me. At times Durer is lost, for example, during a long section on a Thomas Mann. I’m sure many people will love this book because of it’s unusual style but I found the diversions too disconnected.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Vaclav Ceska
- 13-07-21
Interesting book which can’t completely satisfy without the google engine
The author is taking us on a journey around Europe and North America visiting places that are linked to Albrecht Dürer, his art and whales. The book reads almost like a journey diary without clear distinction of days or places. The author glides between topics always returning to the two major ones. Along the way we also learn about his hometown, his childhood and the way he lives in Southampton. I had to read this book twice as I was often getting lost because of unclear transitions between topics, and by listening to it on audible you can be suddenly transported from the 1940s in Santa Monica to the 1520s in Antwerp and you just missed how this happened. I liked the book partly because of my connection to Nuremberg and the fact that I have visited many of the places mentioned here. I have also read some of the books Hoare is referring to but I have to admit that if he spoke about things and people I have never heard of I had difficulty to keep focused and often had to re-read passages and go on my phone to find additional information about it. I still have learned lots of interesting facts about Dürer, the whales, Marianne Moore, St Sebald, Albertus Magnus and other things. Certainly not an easy read and I can see why some people get frustrated and put it aside. The reader on audible has a pleasant voice but I found that the normal speed is too fast to process the information. He makes an effort when reading the passages in French German or Dutch however the pronunciation is often wrong and becomes a gibberish so you have to look in the book to understand. All in all 3* from me.
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