A hybrid of novel and biography, Life of David Hockney offers an overview of the British painter from Yorkshire, who came to define and embody California dreaming in both art and life.
In general, Cusset writes well and clearly, plays it fairly straight, and tells the story of Hockney’s life with economy and style. The book’s a good read and at times a compelling one, although there were one or two places where it all got a bit overwrought for my tastes ... [The] reluctance to name names is evident throughout the book ... I find this all very strange, and I honestly don’t know what the author’s up to, but she seems to be up to something ... There are times when the book seems at odds with the milieu in which it’s set ... Things don’t get much more surefooted when the action moves to Los Angeles ... Of course, some of these errors may well be the fault of the translator, Teresa Lavender Fagan, or indeed the book’s editors, and if so they should fess up, but either way it’s Cusset’s name on the front of the book. And one episode seemed so casually sloppy I was left wondering if it was a postmodern strategy ...
For readers who know anything about David Hockney...this book is a gem. For those who don’t, there is much to delight here, too ... The book moves along at a brisk pace, yet never resorts to mere chronicling ... Catherine Cusset’s imaginative novel captures the journey through time of Hockney’s life, never a straight line but a repetition of cycles, 'everything occurring in alternation.'
... a formal experiment: a biography as novel ... The book’s inside flap calls it a 'meticulously researched novel.' But is it? There are factual errors, and she provides a bibliography that could hardly be called exhaustive ... contains good attention to detail and to the painter’s technique ... Hockney’s aspirations, as a gay man and as an artist, come through in the descriptive prose, though readers may wonder whether those are his emotions or Cusset’s story-truth — her imagination of his feelings, a version that fits her narrative. And therein lies the problem ... Cusset’s challenge in such an undertaking is to find the nuance in the details: What are the keys to Hockney’s life and work? To his talent, even his genius? What she has written feels like an overview or, worse, a summary, which is a shortcoming of her formal experiment: Cusset doesn’t get to the interior narrative of Hockney ... Ultimately, the reader can’t really discern what, if anything, is Hockney ... pleasant enough, at turns moving, amusing and engaging. The novel is a breezy read, easily enjoyed on a chaise beside a Hockney swimming pool. One gets little more from this book than one could glean from, say, watching one of the four documentaries Cusset cites in her 'Selected Bibliography' and reading his Wikipedia entry ... I don’t want to be the reviewer who asks an author to write a book that she didn’t want to write, though maybe her editor should have pushed her to do more. There could be a very fine book in this material.
