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Chargement... Alena (2014)par Rachel Pastan
  
Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.   ) kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 |  An unnamed young art historian is unexpectedly hired as the curator of a small museum, after meeting the charismatic owner in Venice. As she tries to settle into her new position, she feels the haunting presence of the former curator, Alena. She must contend with Agnes, Alena’s close friend and colleague, who constantly reminds her she is not quite up to Alena’s cutting-edge standards. The storyline follows the mystery of what happened to Alena. She is presumed to have died while night-swimming off the coast of Cape Cod. This book is a retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. It has a similar gothic tone, but not quite as sinister. I particularly liked the way this story follows some of the main themes of Rebecca but does not adhere too rigorously, allowing it to stand on its own even if the reader is not familiar with its predecessor. Alena’s character is well done. Told in flashback, we get a feel for her artistic temperament and reckless lifestyle. The writing is full of metaphors, perhaps a few too many. Our protagonist finds it is hard to live up to the ghost of near perfection. It is also difficult for a book to be compared to a classic. This novel does not quite get there, but I found it intriguing and entertaining. It will appeal to those that enjoy books that feature art, artists, and the sea. (  ) Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 | ) bythecoverreview | Sep 26, 2017 | I read the first chapter and wound up borrowing it from a friend. It seemed that it might be interesting and have a mystery slant to it. It did have some of those elements. The protagonist is a young lady from the mid-west. She has graduated magna cum laude with a degree in the Arts. She goes to New York with the intent of enrolling in one of the Arts schools to get her PhD, but winds up getting a Masters in Curatorial Studies. Her first job lands her at Midwestern Museum of Art, working for an overbearing, self-centered lady named Louise Hayes. Instead of doing much curating work she finds she is a personal assistant to keep Louise happy. In Spring it is time for the Biennale in Venice and Louise will be going. As a 'treat' she takes the protagonist along. Since the protagonist has never traveled to Europe, this is a terrific thing and the protagonist expects to see and experience a lot of the Art to be found. As it turns out, she finds herself being the personal assistant and not being able to see much of anything. To remedy this lack of Art, the protagonist takes to sneaking out when she can. She meets Bernard Augustin, a rich man who has established his own personal museum on Cape Cod called the Nauquassett. A small facility that specializes in showing up and coming contemporary artists. He takes her around and shows her to the various sights, while they strike up a friendship. Keeping this short, he winds up offering her the Curatorship of the museum. It is a spur of the moment offer. She quits Louise and takes the job. When she arrives she finds that she is taking the place of the illustrious and seemingly omnipotent Alena, who had mysteriously disappeared two years prior. Not only is the staff still dedicated to Alena, but Bernard also still has a strong connection to Alena. No one knows exactly what has happened to Alena or why. The museum has been closed since Alena's disappearance. The plan is to launch a re-opening exhibit that will bring the museum alive. It is the protagonist's job to make it happen, but she is constantly running up against the missing Alena. Comments by the staff of how Alena would handle it along with a patronizing manner; Bernard taking off for periods of time; questions left unanswered, the strong impression of Alena found in all the corners of the museum. Constant impediments for the protagonist to deal with. I found the writing was good but a bit too much on atmospheric descriptive (my term). The descriptions of the people, settings, weather and so on were a little too plentiful. It may be a style of telling a story, but I prefer a little more character action to scene description. I did enjoy some of the dialogue using Art terms in describing the art. It did make me smile. (  ) ChazziFrazz | Sep 10, 2017 | Pastan writes beautifully about art, contemporary art in particular. It's a pleasure to read a novel where modern art isn't the butt of a joke. ( ) laurenbufferd | Nov 14, 2016 |
It’s a tricky business, reimagining a much-loved work of literature. All of us readers carry around a list of fictional worlds we’d like to revisit, but when another author offers us the chance by taking on our favorite stories — reshaping the narrative, shifting the viewpoint — we tend to be skeptical. We don’t want it to be too close to the original, but it can’t go too far afield, either. The triumph of Pastan’s story is that it manages to be more than a companion piece to du Maurier’s. “Alena” proves itself an intriguing and substantial novel on its own merits, while still offering the kind of gothic plunge we remember and crave from our younger years. The writing at times is so fine you wish this weren’t a retold story, that Pastan would soar off on her own. At other times, she indulges in heavy-handed art-world jabber, allowing her narrator to casually sprinkle her conversation with, for example, praise for “the tension between the fidelity to realistic form and the idiosyncratic use of color.” “Alena” is often a brilliant takedown of the self-serious art world, rendering it helplessly camp by sprinkling some of its august and/or provocative names — Larry Gagosian, Damien Hirst, Andy Goldsworthy, Marina Abramovic, Cindy Sherman, Kira O’Reilly — over this reimagining of du Maurier’s pop-culture totem, a deformed soap opera with twisty roller-coaster plotlines and theatrical loop-de-loops Although offering a wry, perceptive commentary on the contemporary art world, the novel lacks the creeping sense of dread pervading du Maurier’s classic. Nor does the narrator’s relationship with Bernard raise the dramatic stakes, not merely due to the fact that a curatorship is inherently less fraught than a marriage, but since Bernard, after launching the action, disappears from it almost as completely as Alena herself. However, unlike Alena, Bernard, when gone, is easily forgotten. A technically able but rather tepid reimagining of the gothic staple Rebecca.
"A contemporary retelling of Daphne du Maurier's gripping and iconic novel Rebecca, ALENA tells the story of a bright young curator who finds herself haunted by the legacy of her predecessor at a small, cutting-edge art museum on Cape Cod"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Critiques des anciens de LibraryThing en avant-premièreLe livre Alena de Rachel Pastan était disponible sur LibraryThing Early Reviewers.  Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (3.26)
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