Mr. Gwyn

By Alessandro Baricco

After celebrated author Jasper Gwyn suddenly and publicly announces that he will never write another book, he embarks on a strange new career path as a copyist,” holding thirty-day sittings in a meticulously appointed room and producing, at the end, brief but profoundly rich portraits in prose. The surprising, beautiful, and even frightening results are received with rapture by their subjectsamong them Gwyn’s devoted assistant, Rebecca; a beautiful fabric importer; a landscape painter; Gwyn’s own literary agent; two wealthy newlyweds; a tailor to the Queen; and a very dangerous nineteen-year-old.

Then Gwyn disappears, leaving behind only a short note to his assistantand the portraits. As Rebecca studies his words, she realizes that the mystery is larger than the simple fact of Gwyn’s whereabouts, and she begins to unravel a lifetime’s worth of clues left by a man who saw so much but said so little, a man whose solitude masked a heart as hungry as hers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McSweeney's
• Release date: Jul 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940450551

Alessandro Baricco

Alessandro Baricco (Turín, 1958), además de numerosos ensayos y artículos, es autor de las novelas Tierras de cristal (Premio Selezione Campiello y Prix Médicis Étranger), Océano mar (Premio Viareggio), Seda, City, Sin sangre, Esta historia, Emaús, Mr Gwyn, Tres veces al amanecer y La Esposa joven, publicadas en Anagrama, al igual que la majestuosa reescritura de Homero, Ilíada, el monólogo teatral Novecento y los ensayos Next. Sobre la globalización y el mundo que viene, Los bárbaros. Ensayo sobre la mutación,The Game, Una cierta idea de mundo, Lo que estábamos buscando, El nuevo Barnum y La vía de la narración. Dirige, además, la Scuola Holden de Turín.

Reviews for Mr. Gwyn

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Engagingly charming book about a writer who meets an old woman who says something that changes the course of his life. The first part of this book tells a story that is nostalgic and moving. The second section is a bit more difficult and left many questions in my mind. Maybe that’s the point. At any rate, even without the second part, it’s well worth a read.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Bartlebyesque tale about a moderately famous British novelist who decides that he would rather not publish any more books or articles, and says so publicly in an article in the Guardian. To everyone's astonishment, he means it. However, after a while he finds that hanging around in launderettes is not enough for him: the craving to express ideas by putting words on paper is too strong. He is forced to look for a new release for his literary energy. Baricco shows us, with infinite patience and elaborate attention to detail, how Gwyn comes up with his great idea and puts it into practice, and what happens. Along the way there's a good deal of good-humoured teasing of writers, publishers and readers in general and British ones in particular, and Baricco gets to to set out a few theories of what literary narrative is supposed to do and how far it succeeds in that. Nothing very profound, perhaps, but it's all very nicely done and quite agreeable, and there are some memorable images: not least Caterina de' Medici e il maestro di Camden Town.

[lunarreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A true jewel, like all Baricco's books this is like dreaming with your eyes wide open. A fantastic story about solitude, friendship, going your own way and taking turns in life. In my humble opinion it's about finding yourself and about creating possibilities different then the classical ones, to achieve the necessary target of finding yourself. As often, one will first see and apply these methods as if they were fit for the people around him, but this is off course a distraction, you end up with yourself. I read this book twice, it's the book you wish you wrote it yourself. For a very personal reason it overwhelmed me with emotions and inspired me to change something in my own life. Dear Mr. Baricco, thank you for this book.

[peppuzzo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Genial is the idea of a literary portrait. A real portrait is not a description of the individual, but something very different in which the individual will recognize himself. A new genre of literature, and especially a new business model for writers, as today ebooks and internet are endangering traditional publishing. Extremely interesting is the process of literary portraying, the subject asked to pose naked, 4 hours a day, for months; no words allowed, at least not in the beginning, no physical contact, no sex. The ending is a bit disappointing, for a Baricco. It's an original one, but it does not match the rest of the book.