Far From Brooklyn

So, after reading Gombrich’s Story of Art, I was intrigued by the figure of Leonardo and wanted to learn more.  I picked up this impressionistic volume by Sherwin Nuland, whose name I was familiar with as the author of “How We Die,” which is basically what it sounds like – a description of what happens when we die. Cheery!

It didn’t seem the most apt pairing of biographer and biographee, but I had read some other brief bios in the “Penguin Lives” series and enjoyed a few quite a bit, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Now, it’s not Nuland’s fault that so much of da Vinci’s life is unknown, but his way of leading us to this fact is a lengthy anecdote that is essentially a tourist’s tale of being duped while traveling in Italy – and that sets the tone.  This is a book by an enthusiast, not a scholar; a fellow seeker rather than a guide.

Once in a great while an author can use his own ignorance as a kind of narrative tentpole–well, once in a very great while.  I’m thinking of Nicholson Baker’s U and I, a sort of bedlam of a critical appreciation. It’s one of my favorite books, and it increased my appreciation of its subject, John Updike, even though I had read far more of Updike than Baker had at the time.

But that was a charming one-off artifact – and at least Baker had met Updike a couple times.  Or perhaps I was charmed in fact because I did know so much about Updike already, and could fill in the spaces that Baker left blank.

In any case I wasn’t so charmed with Nuland’s book.  It’s workmanlike and did answer some of the questions I had about da Vinci, but so would have the Wikipedia entry.

Leonardo da Vinci by Sherwin Nuland