Van Gogh: The Life (Book Review)

Vincent Wept.

Van Gogh: The Life is in the vein of other 21st century bios I've read on Bonnie and Clyde and John Lennon: exacting, detailed accounts thoroughly researched with a fresh eye. Litanies of facts alone, however, cannot tell a story unless they are placed into proper context and perspective. That is what separates the great from the not so great. Judgement on that can be subjective but I certainly place this book among the greats in what is by far the most intimate portrait of Vincent ever created.

My first introduction to Vincent was the 1956 film "Lust For Life" (a quote taken from a Van Gogh letter) but even in my ignorance I knew the film to be hopelessly incomplete of a figure too tragic and towering to ever be fully captured, especially in the limited expressions allowed in those times. What the film did do, as all movies should, is try to tell the spiritual life of Vincent in which case the story is more important than facts in getting to the truth. The feelings I experienced from the film were only backed up by the mammoth research done in "The Life" book.

First let me start with my criticisms. What I loved about the book was the necessary dive into Van Gogh's psychology and how Vincent's paintings told the story of his inner life and mind. The picture of "the sower", of planting seeds for later harvest, was both a family and personal favorite of his, a theme he returned to all his life. And who planted more artistic seeds in his life than Vincent? The tragedy was Vincent never got to reap the fruits of his labor and in this book I sorely missed that as well.

After reading about how a grand seven course meal is meticulously prepared and painstakingly presented for dining, I would most certainly like to know the reactions of those who finally ate it! So a coda on the gradual appreciation and recognition of Vincent after his death would had been greatly satisfying after being starved of it for over 800 pages of a horrid, struggling existence. At times, it was only the thought of that that kept me going through the many, many rough patches of suffering.

Also, the authors in their enthusiasm felt the need to explain everything. "Vincent at four o'clock on a Sunday took a dump because of this drawing he revered and this past experience he never forgot." It's sort of interesting to know that. I mean, I loved all the background Lennon gave on how the Beatle songs came to be but the story lies someplace else. If a man closes his eyes and starts walking, something bad is going to happen. He'll fall into a ditch, run into a wall - whatever - but that's not that story. The story is why did he close his eyes in the first place.

So there is a bit of drowning in detail that gets exhausting over time - oh, but for how long we've been denied such detail! The authors do a good job of not pressing their opinions too far into the narrative. They simply lay out his life and let you decide on what kind of person Vincent was. For myself, I took special delight in the details of how Van Gogh (and his paintings) were a walking Rorschach test on those he encountered. With our God-like view of knowing the final outcome and vindication, every small mind and petty remark is revealed for all its ignoble glory of those who seek only to muddy the waters of everyday life. Fuckers.

John Lennon (1980) "But I had lost the initial freedom of the artist by becoming enslaved to the image of what the artist is supposed to do. A lot of artists kill themselves because of it, whether it is through drink, like Dylan Thomas, or through insanity, like Van Gogh, or through V.D., like Gauguin."

Vincent spent his entire life in a self described "hole" from which he never escaped. The authors did a brilliant job of detailing that hell, of the oscillations between delusional ecstasy to self-beating agony that Vincent soared between like an emotional heroin addict. Vincent's gift was an awareness he could not escape, a rare awareness shared by very, very few. But having that awareness made it no more easy for him to face than anyone else. In the book is described endless cycles of highs and lows as Vincent knowingly lies to himself to push forward in misery while fearing the inevitable collapse of those lies.

Over time the strains of his life withered him. Would salvation had come had he lived I do not know. You see, oftentimes for Vincent, getting what he wanted was the worst possible outcome. For then he could no longer idealize it as the panacea for his every ill. In the few successes of his life, freedom fighter Vincent walked away from them and allowed no praise (unless it suited his manipulative ends). Praise to he who feels himself a fraud is a prison. Deep down inside, Van Gogh knew no amount of professional success could ever substitute for that which he longed for the most: a family life.

The greatest service the book undoubtedly does is dispelling the myth of suicide. Vincent was shot by a tormenting teenage boy - one of many boys who teased and threw rocks at him his entire life. Whether accidental or intentional, it was certainly malicious, done most likely in a fit of burning hatred that genius often provokes. But the fact the death comes at the point in which it did points towards more than a mere coincidence with Vincent's mounting psychological troubles. He was, at that time, open to death and thus death came. That's why the suicide story is so compelling.

There was a time in the Beatles' career just before they took off into fame where they would fall into despair, sensing they were on the right path but seeing no payoff to it. Vincent never made it past that point. The guilt over having to guess, to live his life in theory at the literal expense of his brother Theo, to have brought embarrassment to the family name (not that his family deserved much kudos outside of Theo) and at having no tangible proof he'd done anything with his life was a crushing burden that drove Vincent to his final escape.

Reading of his final few moments on his deathbed with his ever-loyal brother, I wept. Someday this wounding world of ours will die and I cannot wait. Vincent was often his own worst enemy with his attitude and unfaced fears but in a world of truth his life would have been vastly different. As one truth-teller said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." And by that we know - and love - Vincent forever.