Luncheon of the Boating Party

I blame Shogun. 

Luncheon of the Boating Party isn't bad, it just pales in comparison to Shogun, which leaves Susan Vreeland's work seeming a bit washed out. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Luncheon of the Boating Party is the story of Renoir's painting by the same name, created in 1881, just as France was recovering its composure from the Franco-Prussian war, which would of course set the stage for World War I, but that's another story. Vreeland has taken pains to recreate the circumstances under which Renoir's masterpiece was painted, carefully considering the zeitgeist, as well as the individual models. The models ranged from upper-crust Charles Ephussi to Angele, a sometimes-streetwalker in Montmartre, to say nothing of Aline, who will many years hence become Madame Renoir, and Alphonsine, for whom Renoir's affection is apparent, until she is upstaged by Aline. As the French might say: ouf!

Vreeland has chosen to narrate her work in the voices of Renoir and seven of the models. Although this style can work well, in this case the story felt choppy, leaving gaps here and there. The effect was heightened by the fact that, while the perspective changed, the narrative voice seldom did, such that all of the characters seemed to act and feel alike. Both the characters and the era seemed to me to receive short shrift, although here I am especially cognizant of the fact that, consciously or otherwise, I am comparing them to Shogun, which is more than a little unjust. A more legitimate complaint, I'm certain, is the occasional usage of French, which frequently feels clumsy, interspersed as it is with English in a single phrase, for example the word "two" appearing in English, but the rest in French. I found this both confusing and distracting.

In the sense that Vreeland has imagined the thoughts and feelings of the models as well as Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party reminds me of A Piece of the World. In writing the latter, Christina Baker Kline has the advantage or imaging only one model, not the dozen-plus Vreeland faced; perhaps for this reason, Kline was able to create a depth of character that is lacking in Luncheon of the Boating Party.

So what's the final verdict? Those who love Renoir, or perhaps even Impressionism more generally, will enjoy learning more about the backstory of one his iconic works. It is certainly many measure above The Painted Girls, which belongs to the same genre of creating the backstory for a painting (in this case, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen). I preferred Luncheon of the Boating Party so much that I couldn't help but be that much more cognizant of my own present shortcomings here, in comparing Luncheon with the completed dissimilar Shogun. Alas.