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An African stolen from his homeland and sold into bond-servitude in Amsterdam in 1640 is renamed Lenoir. His exotic appearance makes him popular as a model for Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens. With great intelligence and dignity he observes and comments on the art, sex and profiteering that are the chief preoccupations of the city, a world he finds baffling, disgusting, and haunted by strange pale spirits. Part picaresque, part serious exploration of white European society seen through the eyes of a slave, Lenoir beautifully achieves the goal of the greatest historical fiction: to make the exotic familiar, and the familiar utterly new.
Ken Greenhall, a former reference book editor, is the author of four previous works of fiction. His novel Baxter, made into a film, was chosen as one of the New York Times' best movies of 1990. He lives in New York City.
"A sweeping historical triumph."-Edwidge Danticat
"A rare tale that's able both to entertain and enlighten."-Kirkus Reviews
"Wry, bemused and honest, Lenoir's voice adroitly registers both 17th-century Holland and the soul of a proud outsider who struggles to maintain his beliefs, dignity and self-possession even as he is pulled into the perplexing lives and misadventures of those around him...Lenoir speaks from the margins of his society in a voice of supreme sanity and deep wit."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The protagonist of Lenoir is wryly perceptive, simultaneously innocent and jaded, and always compelling."-Jim Shepard
"When we study great paintings, we rarely consider their inspiration. Through Lenoir we discover what the life of one model for the great masters of painting must surely have been like. Engaging, unwavering, ingenious, and courageous, this fresh approach to storytelling is to be applauded."-Jo Ann Mapson
Chapter 1
They are deranged. They are pale, their country is flat and wet, and they have no soul. I believe they are being punished for having only one god.
Their lives are busy and complicated, yet they do not understand the simplest of facts about human existence. For example, it is not clear to them that when one makes
Ken Greenhall, a former reference book editor, is the author of four previous works of fiction. His novel Baxter, made into a film, was chosen as one of the New York Times' best movies of 1990. He lives in New York City.
"A sweeping historical triumph."-Edwidge Danticat
"A rare tale that's able both to entertain and enlighten."-Kirkus Reviews
"Wry, bemused and honest, Lenoir's voice adroitly registers both 17th-century Holland and the soul of a proud outsider who struggles to maintain his beliefs, dignity and self-possession even as he is pulled into the perplexing lives and misadventures of those around him...Lenoir speaks from the margins of his society in a voice of supreme sanity and deep wit."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The protagonist of Lenoir is wryly perceptive, simultaneously innocent and jaded, and always compelling."-Jim Shepard
"When we study great paintings, we rarely consider their inspiration. Through Lenoir we discover what the life of one model for the great masters of painting must surely have been like. Engaging, unwavering, ingenious, and courageous, this fresh approach to storytelling is to be applauded."-Jo Ann Mapson
Chapter 1
They are deranged. They are pale, their country is flat and wet, and they have no soul. I believe they are being punished for having only one god.
Their lives are busy and complicated, yet they do not understand the simplest of facts about human existence. For example, it is not clear to them that when one makes
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Starting with Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn, going right up through Beloved and Middle Passage, much literature has been devoted to the issue of slavery in America. In Lenoir, Ken Greenhall takes a look at the same subject from the other side of the Atlantic. Set in 17th-century Amsterdam, the novel features a black narrator who has been taken from his native Africa and sold as a bond-servant in the Netherlands. His first impression is, predictably, not good: "They are deranged. They are pale, their country is flat and wet, and they have no souls. I believe they are being punished for having only one god.... They buy and sell many things--including African people like me."
About the Author:
Nevertheless, Mbatgha, renamed Lenoir by his captors, makes the best of his situation, learning the language of his white masters and using his own personal beauty to his advantage, posing for the likes of Rembrandt and Rubens. It is the central conceit of the novel, in fact, that Lenoir is the model for Reubens's famous Four Heads of a Negro. But Greenhall is interested in more than just revealing the life of a slave; by moving his character from place to place, he also provides an eyewitness commentary on the strange doings of 17th-century Europeans, from a transvestite British sailor to a troupe of Italian actors. Imagine an African Samuel Pickwick caroming from one adventure to the next armed with an oppressed person's clear-eyed understanding of his oppressors, and you'll have a sense of Lenoir, both the character and the book.
Ken Greenhall has served on the staff of the Encyclopedia Americana and the Columbia Encyclopedia.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherZoland Books
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 1581950136
- ISBN 13 9781581950137
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages256
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Lenoir
Published by
Zoland Books
(2000)
ISBN 10: 1581950136
ISBN 13: 9781581950137
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