I should have paid more attention to the title of this book. I was expecting to read about Sargent and the painting of Dr. Pozzi and less about Pozzi's life and the famous people surrounding him in Belle Epoque Paris. But it is interesting to consider how people and relationships and money and social power don't change much from generation to generation. ( )

Boring, didn't finish it. ( )

Reading The Man in the Red Coat is like lounging in a sumptuously furnished room before an artfully murmuring fire, with an inexhaustible carafe of excellent wine, and a brilliant, wry, erudite friend. Your friend knows everyone and has read everything, and you slouch into your velvet chair as he regales you with stories and gossip and anecdotes about Belle Epoque Paris. Artists, actors, socialites, poets, poseurs, eccentrics, dandies, languid aristocrats, heiresses, politicians, novelists, and Dr. Samuel Pozzi... there's something juicy or weird or fascinating about all of them, and he rambles from tale to tale, stopping by the way to explain about Oscar Wilde's testimony, Pre-Raphaelite art, Dreyfus (Pozzi was Dreyfus's physician), homosexuality, and whatever happened to Sarah Bernhardt's amputated leg (Pozzi was one of Bernhardt's lovers).

Barnes slily lets you know what he's about, when he describes a notorious novel of the day by Huysmans called A Rebours ("Against the Grain"): "One of the originalities of A Rebours is how frequently it breaks off from its already slender narrative and diverts into essayistic mode. There are reflections on contemporary literature, on art and music..." (p. 39). The "slender narrative" here is the life of Dr. Samuel Pozzi, a "disgustingly handsome" and brilliant surgeon of the era, who wrote the first proper medical textbook on gynecology in France, with admonitions of antiseptic technique, of speaking with courtesy and honesty to your patients while always maintaining their dignity and privacy, and warming the speculum with warm sterile water before using it. And in essayistic mode, Barnes goes everywhere else. The book is delightfully illustrated with postcard portraits of contemporary celebrities, culled from the merchandiser Felix Potin's chocolate package collection, a 19th century version of bubblegum or Pokemon trading cards (and yes, Pozzi was gorgeous).

The book rambles, wanders, and sometimes repeats itself. It is lush, discursive, something to have a cozy wallow in. If you want a straightforward scholarly biography, look elsewhere. But for a gossipy, articulate, slightly salacious, Francophilic, eccentric read, you can't do better.

juliestielstra.com
( )

[The Man in the Red Coat] by [[Julian Barnes]]

I was already reading this one, a Mother's Day gift, when several friends posted about how much they loved it. I can't say that I was quite as impressed, mainly because the topic, Belle Epoque Parisian society (1871-1914) just didn't interest me all that much. The book centers around the life and work of Dr. Samuel Pozzi,the subject of John Singer Sargeant's well-known painting, Dr. Pozzi at Home. Pozzi was a physician who specialized in gynecology and abdominal surgery, and he is credited with bringing Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods to France and with being among the first surgeons to perform a laparotomy. A handsome man, he gained notoriety for seducing a number of his patients, and he had several mistresses, including Sarah Bernhardt. Although he was a society physician, he was also in charge of a hospital that cared for poor patients. He is the most likable person in this social biography, coming across as a kind, caring, generous man and a loyal friend (although falling rather short as both a husband and father).

The book begins when Pozzi accompanies two friends and fellow aesthetes, Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou, to London for a few days of "intellectual and decorative shopping." They look forward to visiting The Crystal Palace and to meeting Henry James and carry a letter of introduction from Sargeant. These two are--well, shall we say, less admirable than Pozzi? Montesquiou spent his life collecting curiosities (the bullet that killed Pushkin, a tortoise that sadly died after he had its shell gilded and bejewelled), dabbling in poetry, and portraying the dandy to an extreme that surpassed Oscar Wilde (who also comes into play several times throughout the book). He was openly homosexual and not particularly kind to his devoted lover. Polignac, a closeted homosexual, married an American heiress for her fortune; both claimed it was a happy marriage, perhaps because his wife, a divorcée who had threatened her husband on their wedding night, preferred women.

A real plus is the series of photos of prominent Parisians that appear throughout the book. these were originally inserted into candy bars--kind of early baseball cards that people collected. And of course, many paintings of the main figures are reproduced as well as photographs both formal and casual.

[The Man in the Red Coat] does an excellent job of recreating the era with all its parties, political debates, duels, scandals, excessive spending, and artistic innovation. James, Proust, Sargeant, Bernhardt, Wilde, Whistler and others weave in and out, but the focus is on their social presence, not their art. In the end, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the details and anecdotes--and not terribly interested in a good deal of them, I'm afraid. Fortunately, Barnes keeps coming back to Pozzi. Excerpts from his daughter's diary are at times heartbreaking: it's clear that she was torn between remaining loyal to her mother and desperately longing for her father's attention. And unlike many of the stories about Polignac and Montesquiou, which I found mostly silly or annoying, those about Pozzi, including several surgeries and accomplishments and his own death, were intriguing and helped to reveal this complex man. ( )

A whirlwind of entertaining erudition on the Belle Epoque. Charming and funny, with an unforgettable cast of caractères vrais. ( )