The Love-Artist

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"I gave you your life. Now you're wondering, will I take it, too?" These intriguing lines -- the only surviving fragment of the ancient Roman poet Ovid's play Medea -- form the spindle around which the darkly erotic plot of Jane Alison's first novel is spun. Her vivid fictional narrative imagines a missing chapter in the life of the poet, in which he travels to the Black Sea and meets Xenia, a young woman with marvelous, otherworldly charms, in whom Ovid sees the perfect muse for his first attempt at tragedy. Obsessed with the possibility of his own artistic immortality, Ovid becomes ever more dependent on Xenia to enact the drama he can no longer invent. But he betrays his love, bringing about a reversal of fate, and allowing the tragedy he had hoped to write to consume the writer himself. Alison weaves a richly detailed portrait of Rome: its denizens, customs, laws, and architecture. From the squalor of the docks to the exotic dishes and deftly treacherous banter of a patrician dinner party, Xenia learns to navigate the intrigues and gossip of her celebrated lover's world. Against this rich backdrop, Alison has spun an intricate psychological drama, exploring the larger themes of fate, betrayal, and the nature of fiction itself. (Spring 2001 Selection)

Michiko Kakutani

From [the] gaps in the story of Ovid's life, Jane Alison has constructed a wonderfully seductive first novel, a novel that shimmers with the musical artifice of Ovid's poetry while evoking the darker tragedies of his life.
— New York Times

The New Yorker

Ovid's Metamorphoses, says Madeleine Foray, "changes in the hands of each new translator and adapter." Her introduction to a new edition of Arthur Golding's 1567 English translation of the Metamorphoses shows how he Christianizes Ovid, transforming his temples into churches with spires. The translation was influential with Shakespeare and Spenser, but its bombastic style later fell out of fashion. One recent editor complains that Golding turned "the sophisticated Roman into a ruddy country gentleman with tremendous gusto and a gift for energetic doggerel."

A few years ago, the sensual savagery of Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid won wide acclaim. Meanwhile, novels like David Malouf's An Imaginary Life and Jane Alison's The Love Artist have built their narratives on what little we know of Ovid's actual biography. In Malouf's book, Ovid finds and civilizes a feral child, in a clever reversal of the people-to-animal transformations of the Metamorphoses. Most recently, Mary Zimmerman's award-winning play Metamorphoses presents the work as a parable about the healing power of love.

By contrast, Alessandro Boffa's comic novel, You're An Animal, Viskovitz!, sees metamorphosis as a cosmic bad joke; the hero is figured as a different animal in each chapter. During his time as a snail, he acts out an undignified parody of the Narcissus myth; Viskovitz is attracted by his own reflection in water, but the consummation makes for one of the oddest sex scenes of recent years: "I felt the warm pressure of the rhinophor slipping under my shell, and a strong agitation froze the center of my being."(Leo Carey)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Little is known about Ovid's life in exile in the first century A.D., and only two lines of his acclaimed Medea survive today. In this strong debut novel, Alison reimagines Ovid's sojourn on the east coast of the Black Sea, where Emperor Augustus, in the middle of a campaign to restore morality to his new empire, has banished the poet, displeased by the success of his Loves and The Art of Love. Here Ovid meets Xenia, a wild-eyed young woman who lives in isolation. The only literate person in her community, Xenia acts as town mystic, casting spells, healing the sick and telling futures. Ovid, who admits he believes in Amazons, with "their strong sweating thighs clutching galloping horses, wild howls coming from their parched, cracked mouths," is eager to be stunned by the "fishy, monstrous, unreal." He imagines the jealous, stormy Xenia to be his Galatea and sweeps her back to Rome, where she unwittingly becomes the muse for the lost Medea, his darkest work. From Alison's depiction of a trio of gossips at a patrician's dinner party, "dark eyes flying from one to the other like torches," to her description of an evening walk in Rome freighted with the knowledge that thousands of animals are "denned beneath the city's streets until they were let out, half starved, to devour terrified criminals or be speared in the emperor's shows," she demonstrates familiarity and ease with her subject; and her historic detail is never pedantic. Even those unfamiliar with Ovid and Roman history will delight in this tale of romantic intrigue, rife with blood, jealous rage and the consciousness of human frailty. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Contemporary soap opera meets Ancient Rome in Alison's passionate first novel about the renowned poet Ovid's fall from imperial grace. At once inventive and historically accurate, the book chronicles Ovid's infatuation with Xenia, a young witch/healer he encounters while vacationing on the Black Sea. A steamy fling is followed by the pair's return to Rome, where Ovid intends to craft a masterwork inspired by his latest muse. Unfortunately, his desires are thwarted by a potent mix of greed, jealousy, narcissism, and the desire for immortality. Alison's feminist take on the outcome of the couple's conflicts is exhilarating. So, too, are her vivid descriptions of Rome, from narrow streets lined with bookstalls to sumptuous feasts served to the elite by slaves. Fascinating and clever, this is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered what happened to Ovid's Medea or pondered his abrupt banishment to the edge of the Roman Empire. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.