Why should a woman be more like a man?

The Greeks knew that the mask in the theater was not a disguise but a means of revelation. 

This is a mind blowing novel about a woman who decides to have three men exhibit her art as their own creations as part of a larger art project she calls “Maskings.” Our protagonist Harriet “Harry” Burden wants to expose how perceptions influence the way the public views art. She believes that, had she shown her works as herself, as artist Harriet Burden, she would have been criticized or ignored; but by putting on the mask of a man, her work is celebrated. Through her characters, Hustvedt challenges the reader to consider the role that factors such as sex and race play in our perceptions of art, of other people, of the world at large. I found this to be a fascinating “psychological” novel much like Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook; it’s a novel that gets its readers to think about identity, the way we define our identity, how we manipulate identity, and how identity influences the way we see and act.

Harriet “Harry” Burden is in her 60s, the widow of famous and respected art dealer Felix Lord. She was a budding young artist when she first met her older husband. Harry’s work attracted little interest in those days (late ’60s), and she turned toward raising their daughter Maisie and son Ethan. The main action of the novel occurs in the early 2000s, after Felix has died and Harry has resolved to move ahead with her art. What we learn is that Harry is and always has been a formidable intellect. The only child of a college philosophy professor, Harry is well read in many topics and can hold her own in an argument, but that formidability and fearlessness coupled with her impressive stature (she’s a very tall, curvy woman with wild hair) seem to make her intimidating and an object of derision among her peers in the New York art world, particularly among men, particularly among those who knew her husband Felix.

The novel has shifting narration, featuring excerpts from Harry’s many personal notebooks as well as interviews with those who knew her and literature related to the artwork. The conceit is that writer/investigator I.V. Hess has put together a book on Harry and her artistic experiment. We find that Harry’s public revelation about her creative ownership of the three acclaimed art exhibits yielded mixed results. While critics accept that Harry was the creator behind the first two, controversy has erupted over the true authorship of the installation known as “Beneath.” The artist Rune, a darling of the art world and respected by critics, denied that Harriet was more than a financial supporter of his work, an allegation that infuriated Harry. Both Harry and Rune have died, and Hess’ investigation is meant to get to the bottom of this matter.

Harry’s relationships with her children, her best friend, her lover Bruno and especially with her father and her husband Felix are complicated and fascinating as they unfold. Harry perceives herself as marginalized, under-appreciated, and undervalued by the patriarchs of her life, and she has good reason to think this. But for me, it’s Harry’s relationships with the male artists that are the most telling and unsettling. The one who truly understands Harry and what she is trying to do is Phineas Q. Eldridge, a black gay man who understands what it’s like to be defined by the label that is attached to you, whether it’s sex, color or sexuality. The other two artists are white men, one– Anton Tish– who is just starting out in the art world and the other–  Rune– who is already an established and respected name. Too much detail about this will spoil the novel, but Harry’s friend Rachel describes the relationship between Harry and Anton as being like Pygmalion with the sexes reversed. Anton has dropped out from the art world since his involvement with Harry and is untraceable for I.V. Hess. Rune, on the other hand, “…reinvented himself again and again ceaselessly until the end.” He was, in other words, a master of identity shifting, the very game that Harry was trying to play. Using these two men as “masks” seems to bring out the worst in Harry and have mixed results for the two artists. Harry does not experience the great catharsis she anticipated from her experiment. As she struggles with her anger and illness,  Harry turns to her hero Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century writer and philosopher scorned by the men of her age but ultimately remembered for her work. Cavendish sometimes dressed like a man and knew that in order to be heard, “She must become a man or she must leave this world or she must leave her body … and blaze.”

Hustvedt, like her character Harry, has a formidable intellect. She weaves philosophy, art theory and neuroscience into her plot (and provides footnotes to back up her references), giving the reader enough food for thought to sustain one for a lifetime. Hustvedt, like Doris Lessing, impresses me as someone possessed of vast knowledge and superior intelligence. I would be afraid to have a conversation with Hustvedt, Lessing or Harry for fear of having my intellectual inadequacies exposed. I am in awe of Hustvedt’s talents and her ability to put so many complex ideas into a novel that is gripping and immensely entertaining. I could hardly put it down.

The Blazing World is a perfect pick for the #ReadWomen2014 campaign. It’s also the kind of novel that should be nominated for major prizes at the end of the year.