Edgardo Franzosini

When I read the jacket blurb, I thought: Oooh! This one checks all my boxes: art, animals, and the First World War. But what a strange little book this is. Perhaps the translation is partly to blame; perhaps not (I do not read Italian, but the translator's credentials seem good). This is such a dreadfully tragic story: morose and eccentric, the artist Rembrandt Bugatti, younger brother in a prominent family of creators, with a powerful fascination with animals. Spending days at the zoos in Paris and Antwerp, he studies them, communes with them, observes them, watches them, and then creates stunning, evocative sculptures of them. And then the Germans invade Belgium. And one morning, Belgian soldiers are marched into the Antwerp zoo and kill every animal in it (they are carefully instructed that there are to be absolutely no cheers, cries of triumph, or cursing). Seemingly at a loss, Bugatti winds up at one end of one of hundreds of stretchers, carrying an endless stream of horrendously wounded soldiers and civilians through the streets of Antwerp. Until he can't do it any more. He returns to Paris, seals up the cracks in windows and doors in his apartment, and turns on the gas. At the age of 31.

But... this story is told in an entirely dispassionate voice. It sometimes reads like a biography, with stilted chunks of explanatory prose filling in background incidents. There are a handful of photographs of his sculptures (the hippo is brilliant!) scattered throughout - they now sell for millions. This story should have had me weeping. But it is so sparse, so dry, so terse... perhaps intended to reflect Bugatti's own depression? I wanted to love this, but it was just too prickly. Poor Rembrandt. May he rest in peace, and his beautiful animals prowl forever.… (more)