The Electric Michelangelo

Cy's canvas is the human body and, in a characteristically physical and richly imagined passage, Hall describes how the stories that gush from his clients as they sit or lie under the needle are mixed with the tattooing ink and worked back, as translations, into the broken skin. And for all his concentration, Cy is not immune to passion. He has had experience of women almost from the beginning of his apprenticeship - clients inflamed by the pricking of the needle and eager for sex by way of finale -though without further entanglement; but his love-affair with Grace, a bareback rider and tightrope walker who enters his life shortly after the outbreak of war, is of a different order.

Grace is an immigrant of indeterminate origins, a representative of suffering European womanhood: She comes to Cy with the request that he tattoo her body with a single, repeated motif: In accepting the task, Cy commits himself to experiencing with unprecedented immediacy the conflict between his priestly sense of his artistic calling and the claims of the flesh he routinely handles with such privileged intimacy.

The outcome of that conflict is neither simple nor decisive, but high aspiration and fleshly desire are tentatively reconciled at last in his retrospective acknowledgment that perhaps those difficult, exhilarating tattooing sessions "were the times he was making love to her after all". The Electric Michelangelo touches on many important themes but the novel is, above all, an analysis of pain. From his earliest childhood among the consumptive guests in his mother's seaside boarding house, Cy has been forced to confront suffering.

Hall brings us back repeatedly to the subject, not as a theoretical question but as palpable fact. It's hard to read - certainly hard to read without wincing - her account of the fate of Riley, dragged out to a lonely spot by unspecified enemies who break his clever, creative fingers with a claw-hammer; and even harder to read of the suffering of Grace who, for a few brief weeks after the tattooing, is able to "celebrate the identity of her body as her own sovereign state" but who fails to reckon with the vindictiveness of the affronted male psyche as embodied in Sedak, a religious fanatic who sees it as his duty to restore her decorated skin to "God's original purity of naked cleanness".

It is the story of the three people who would shape his soul, all three somewhat eccentric and flawed, tortured and gifted. His mother, Reeda Parks, runs a hotel for consumptives in Morecambe Bay, where the "soft air" is said to assuage their symptoms, and shows him what it is to This is the story of Cy Parks, from his coming of age on the shores of Morecambe Bay in England to his career as a tattoo artist on the boardwalk of Coney Island, New York in the early decades of the twentieth century.

His mother, Reeda Parks, runs a hotel for consumptives in Morecambe Bay, where the "soft air" is said to assuage their symptoms, and shows him what it is to give oneself to the care of others.

Review: The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall | Books | The Guardian

His mentor, Eliot Riley, teaches him the art of tattooing while fighting his inner demons and his own bad habits. And then there is Grace, an enigmatic circus performer who would become his muse and his canvas, his true love, the source of his greatest sorrow. The language in this book is stunning and the author's ability to bring the settings and characters to life is incredible. We are able to see these three souls through Cy's eyes and to love them as he does despite their scars and their failings.

I drank this book in from start to finish and it will stay with me for a long time. It is just wonderful.

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View all 5 comments. This book was written really well with some truly beautiful passages in it. I highlighted about 9 different passages that I loved. So it's strange to me that I just I don't know, I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading it, but at times I just wished I was reading something else. Jan 28, Allie rated it liked it.

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The images of blood, coughed up from lungs or pulled with a tattoo needle, are vivid enough to make me queasy. Likewise, I can perfectly imagine the characters and their every mannerism, except the main character Cyril whose perspective gives the story. However, after all these carefully constructed visuals I was left wanting more plot. The main action takes many fewer pages than the descriptions and happens so abruptly t What Sarah Hall does well in "The Electric Michelangelo" are descriptions. The main action takes many fewer pages than the descriptions and happens so abruptly that I had to reread it to understand what had happened.

After creating all these fascinating characters, I really wanted Hall to do something with them. I realize that some things were left intentionally mysterious, but I feel like a great thing about fiction is its ability to reveal some of the secrets that you never find out in life. Apr 18, Meghann rated it did not like it. Jul 19, Shazia rated it did not like it. I can't believe this won the Booker Prize. I chose it because of the prize I've liked books by many other winners and the intriguing subject matter - a tatoo artist from the period after the Great War and during the second World War, set in an English coastal tourist town and Coney Island.

I think it won the award because the writing is so artful. Each phrase is a little poem. It seemed to me that the author got so caught up with her beautiful writing that she forgot about the need for plot or I can't believe this won the Booker Prize. It seemed to me that the author got so caught up with her beautiful writing that she forgot about the need for plot or character development.

Other people may be fine without that, but I am not. There are definitely interesting part, but mostly I slogged through this book out of sheer determination to finish. This book struck me as a prime example of what B. Apr 29, Nancy B. I expected this book to be a kind of fluffy story about a tattoo artist and his adoration of a girl, but it turns out that it's really a brilliantly drawn coming of age novel for the art of tattooing, america, and one engaging young man.

The girl, who doesn't come in until late, is intriguing and solid, with a feminist bent that is believable and respectable. Oct 16, J. Grice rated it liked it Shelves: I liked this book well enough, although the pacing was a bit slow at times. May 31, Carol rated it really liked it Shelves: This book was terrific - I had very much wanted to read it and it lived up to every expectation I had. Set during the first half of the 20th century, it's about Cy Parks, who grows up in an English seaside resort town and becomes a very good tattoo artist.

He emigrates to America, where he plies his trade in Coney Island. There he encounters the enigmatic Grace, who does an equestrian act in one of the park's circuses. Their oddly intimate relationship develops through the medium of her request This book was terrific - I had very much wanted to read it and it lived up to every expectation I had.

Their oddly intimate relationship develops through the medium of her request for an unusual full-body tattoo. Hall's prose is gorgeous - her poetic and perceptive descriptions bring the story and its characters right inside. Reading this book was a distinct pleasure. The Electric Michelangelo also has a distinct Tom Waits feel to it. This story and its characters bear a strong resemblance to the people and narratives that appear in Waits' material. For me, this added an extra savor to the novel. Oct 19, Govnyo rated it really liked it Shelves: I read this after "discovering" Hall through her short story anthology, Madam Zero.

The novel is worse, though only marginally so - I was still gripped, and the writing is absolutely sterling. The plot is fairly uninteresting - a boy is born in Morecambe, he grows up, the book follows the significant milestones in his life then winds up. There is love and death and hate, as is the norm. T I read this after "discovering" Hall through her short story anthology, Madam Zero.

The protagonist, Cy, is a brooding, silent, "arty" type. So essentially we have a placeholder plot and some placeholder characters, which is nothing to get excited about. The reason I enjoyed it so much is the writing. On pretty much every other page, there is a mind-blowing sentence, and in between there is more than enough to keep you going. There are three points at which the plot climaxes, all three have to do with loss, all three are explosively rendered and the second and third I re-read.

It is an astonishingly immersive reading experience for those who love language. Why is it worse than the short story anthology? There is a lot of filler here. And the lacklustre plot does not grate in a ten page piece as much as it does in a page novel.

The Electric Michelangelo

There are two whole parts of descriptive material, in which Hall tries to capture the spirit of the Lake District and the other place in the interwar era. This she does very well, though there is just not enough action in those bits, and it ends up being a bit of an effort. It is possible to skim over those bits, since they are entirely redundant as far as plot development is concerned. The short stories obviously suffer from no such defects. It is worth bearing in mind that there is no connection between Madam Zero and this, I just read the former a few days ago and was mesmerised.

I have spent more space here criticisng this than praising it, which is wrong. It is a great book that filled two nights very well, and I likely recommend it to others for its delectable writing. Mar 15, L. Si autoarea mi-a lasat o impresie buna, deoarece a stiut sa vorbeasca frumos si ingenios despre un subiect care imi displace - si anume "arta tatuajului". Cy o priveste pe Grace drept opera lui de arta, o opera pe care o iubeste. Se indragosteste de ea doar dupa ce Grace isi pierde frumusestea pe care el i-a dat-o.

Mar 08, Mrs. Danvers rated it it was amazing Shelves: It is amazing that such a young woman could write such a thoughtful story of a man's whole life, with such vitality and mastery. Oct 22, Sara Bauer rated it it was amazing. Too dense to unpack via Goodreads. Sep 18, Peter Stone rated it it was amazing. This is a beautiful book about a tattoo-artist, not a subject I would normally be drawn to. But now I understand why some people, particularly those without great wealth, must have a tattoo. Unlike posh clothes or large mansions, it can say something about you, be it hidden away under your shirt or blazoned on your face for all to see.

It is a statement of your very self, the essence of your being and it may well excite, amuse, horrify or upset others - brilliant. Sarah Hall writes compellingly beautiful prose as she unravels the life of Cy Parks as he learns the dark art in seaside Lancashire before moving to Coney Island during the early part of World War 2, where our hero finally and tragically finds the love of his life. Cy returns to Morecambe in later life and finds a kind of peace - as I did - great book! Aug 21, Rob Stainton rated it liked it Shelves: I'm sure this is excellent in its genre.

But pages in no story had emerged. And I am a "narrative guy". Aug 05, Val rated it really liked it Shelves: Cyril Parks grows up in Morecambe, a working-class holiday resort where his pragmatic, compassionate, widowed mother runs a guest-house. She rents rooms at a discount to customers the other guest-house proprietors do not want to know about, consumptives and sufferers from industrial lung diseases and wartime gas attacks hoping the clean Morecambe air will cure them.

She also 'helps out' a succession of women in her back room at night. She teaches Cyril not to flinch from the unpleasant aspects o Cyril Parks grows up in Morecambe, a working-class holiday resort where his pragmatic, compassionate, widowed mother runs a guest-house. She teaches Cyril not to flinch from the unpleasant aspects of life.

When Cyril is fifteen he is apprenticed to Eliot Riley, a boozy, venal tattoo artist and learns his skills. He also learns how art can lift someone out of a dark and base life, for Riley it is the only thing which can. After Riley's and his mother's death, Cyril takes his skill and his knowledge and sets off for a new life in the USA. Part two of the book shows his life as the self-styled 'Electric Michelangelo' in Coney Island.

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This book has been described as a love story and Cy does become enamoured of a fascinating woman in the last two chapters of the novel, view spoiler [he watches her, fantasises about her, tattoos her, gets to know her body, she becomes the third important person in his life, but he does not get close to her hide spoiler ] , but it is more about places and people and an art away from the mainstream of society. The book is flamboyantly overwritten, but this somehow suits a story which concerns the extremes of both the highs and lows of life, and never the ordinary.

Jan 10, Stacey rated it liked it. This is the longest I have stuck with a book for a while, despite its difficulty. It literally took me 10 weeks to read I'm measuring in weeks because of the whole pregnancy thing; I remember that when I started it, I was about 11 weeks because parts of the book were making me nauseous, and now I'm 21 weeks and the whole thing just made me tired lately. It's not because the book is overly long-it's about pages--it's just that it's very dense. There is almost no dialogue, and the paragraphs This is the longest I have stuck with a book for a while, despite its difficulty.

There is almost no dialogue, and the paragraphs are all very long and detailed. I felt that I couldn't skip over anything, though, for fear of missing something lovely. The quality of writing is this book's strength, and I suspect that's why it was a Man Booker Prize finalist. Depending on my mood, I was either fascinated by the book's originality or annoyed by its tediousness.

Although I am ultimately glad I finished it, I am more glad that it is over and I can move onto something else. I could not recommend this to anyone, unless you are really into writing, tattoos, or reading at the pace of Chinese water torture. View all 11 comments. Jan 19, Ellie rated it liked it Shelves: The premise of this story was what drew me to it.

Seaside resorts, amusement parks, early 20th century life, and body art all appealed to me, but Hall really could have benefited from some good editing. Her writing reminded me of the stuff of 19th century when writers were paid by the word. I often found myself wishing she would get to the point and move the story on. The second half was much more engaging, perhaps because the setting was a faster paced Coney Island, with rich, eccentric charact The premise of this story was what drew me to it.

The second half was much more engaging, perhaps because the setting was a faster paced Coney Island, with rich, eccentric characters. However, even then, I longed for more character development, because each of these people obviously had a back story worth telling. I was especially disappointed that she did not follow up on Grace's story, or, for that matter, give us a hint as to what brought her to this place.