.... INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY,JULY28, 2015 | 7 Culture art music

ANDRÉ MORIN

REVUE NOIRE

Works from the Fondation Cartier show, clockwise from above: an un- titled photo by Jean Depara; ‘‘Sooner or Later the World Will Change,’’ a 2014 painting by Monsengo Shula; an untitled water- color from 1929 by FABRICE GOUSSET/CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR, PARIS Albert Lubaki; an untitled 1974 paint- ing by Moke of the Ali-Foreman ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle’’ boxing Showcasing bout in Kinshasa. Congolese art

PARIS the broader public exceptional works the worksinthe exhibition shyfromdi- from acontinent wherethe television rect political confrontation. Mr.Samba, only presents dark, disastrous images one of Congo’s best-known artists, veers In Paris, ‘Beauté Congo’ of war and illness,’’ he added. into the political with a work depicting a features 90 years of work Mr. Magnin said the survey was inten- FLORIAN KLEINEFEN child soldier with the words, ‘‘I am for ded as a‘‘political and historical’’ ges- peace, that is why I like weapons.’’ rarely seen outside Africa ture that sought to disprove the common space at the foundation, which is housed In the 1950s, the photographer Jean artists,’’ Mr.Bandoma said at the exhi- ‘‘Beauté Congo’’ has received posi- misconception that art in Africahad in a glass box designed by Jean Nouvel. Depara, born in 1928, captured a mo- bition opening. ‘‘I define myself as an tive reviews in France since it opened BY RACHEL DONADIO skipped several generations from the In the late 1920s and early 1930s, work ment in Léopoldville, where rumba was artist, not an African artist.’’ on July 11, but therehas also been some traditional worksof the past to those by the Lubakis wasshown in important allthe rage and ladies of the night wore Today, Moke’s cousin Monsengo Shula, criticism. Pascale Obolo, a filmmaker The art practically leaps off the walls. A made after many African countries be- museums and galleries in Europe. cocktail dresses. His images, in rich sil- 55, a self-described autodidact, worksin and the editor of Afrikadaa, a cultural striking painting of President Obama, came independent of their European Djilatendo wasrepresented in an exhi- ver gelatin prints, recall those by the the popular vein, but with an ‘‘Afrofutur- journal, found fault with the ‘‘very neo- Nelson Mandela and Patrice Lumumba, colonizers. (Belgian colonial rule in bition in Brussels along with Magritte. Malian photographersSeydou Keïta ist’’ twist. The exhibition features his colonial and paternalistic’’ attitude of the Congolese leader who was assassin- Congo ended in 1960.) Although much of But after 1935 and a fight between curat- and Malick Sidibé, but unlike Mali, 2014 painting ‘‘Sooner or Later the World Mr. Magnin and other European curat- ated in 1961. Luscious black-and-white this show is dedicated to contemporary ors, they stopped producing and were Congo isn’t a Muslim country, and its Will Change,’’ depicting African astro- ors who bring African art into European photographs of 1950snight life in Léo- artists like Chéri Samba, who painted eventually lost to history. Mr. Magnin night life is racier. nauts in outer space, with an African museums. ‘‘We’re in a world of global- poldville, nowKinshasa. Whimsical wa- the image of world leaders, the earliest said he went in search of their work Various worksin the show arededic- statue at the center of their satellite. ization,’’ she said. ‘‘We don’t need tercolors from the 1930s. workshere have rarely been shown in after learning about it in abook he ated to the ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle,’’ the Also on view are colorful futuristic France or Belgium in order to show art These are among 350 works by 41 such numbers, and the exhibition makes stumbled upon in 1989 in Zaire, as the politically charged 1974boxing match in cityscape sculptures, architectural from Africa.’’ artists in ‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ an electric, a strong case for the continuity of rich country was then called. (It is nowthe Kinshasa in which Muhammad Ali de- models gone wild, by the artist Bodys Some questioned why the only wom- eye-opening survey of art from Congo artistic production over the last century. Democratic Republic of Congo.) Isek Kingelez, (‘‘Phantom City,’’ 1996) an included in the exhibition wasAnt- from 1926 to 2015 at the Cartier Founda- ‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ which runs through ‘‘Beauté Congo’’ also showcases the The exhibition offers a window and Rigobert Nimi (‘‘TheCity of Stars,’’ oinette Lubaki, from the 1930s, and why, tion here that offers a window into a dy- Nov. 15, begins in the 1920s, when the artists who participated between 1946 into a dynamic art scene. 2006), who uses found material and for instance, the show did not include namic art scene not often showcased in husband-and-wife painters Albert and and 1954 in an academy ‘‘for popular in- castoff electronics. Born in 1965, Mr. the prizewinning artist Michèle Western museums. Antoinette Lubaki and the artist known digenous art,’’ as the catalog puts it, Nimi lives in Kinshasa without electric- Magema, who was born in Congo in 1977 ‘‘We wanted to create a narrative that as Djilatendo moved from decorating started by a former French Navy officer feated George Foreman, amoment of ity, Mr.Magnin said. At the show’s and has been exhibited widely in reintroduces these exceptional artists traditional huts to creating works on pa- and artist, Pierre Romain-Desfossés. black pride in a newly liberated country. opening, Mr.Nimi and other artists in Europe. ‘‘I’m surethey exist,’’ Mr. into the history of art,’’ said André per at the request of aBelgian colonial They include vibrant, naturalistic un- These include photos and a colorful 1974 the showspoke of the challenges they Magnin said of female artists in Congo. Magnin, a boisterous Frenchman who administrator. The Lubakis’ watercolors, derwater scenes of fish and of birds in painting by Moke, who worked in the face. ‘‘For an artist to become a ‘‘Unfortunately, I haven’t met them.’’ curated the show. He has traveled to often of animals or leaves, fallsome- trees from the 1950s by the artist known popular style and died in 2001. Steve celebrity, he has to go to Europe,’’ Mr. Others questioned the possible com- Congo for decades, cultivating relation- wherebetween realism and fantasy, as Bela, who worked as a night guard for Bandoma, born in 1981, revisits the Nimi said. mercial implications of the show, since ships with some of the artists featured while Djilatendo’s geometric patterns Romain-Desfossés before taking up match in his 2014 ‘‘Cassius Clay’’ series, Congo’s current government has Mr. Magnin acquired work by some of as well as buying work on behalf of a hover between traditionalism and mod- painting,which he did with his finger- done in papier collé with ink. ‘‘I try to go come under fire by human rights groups the artists featured herein building up major collector. ‘‘We wanted to show ernism. The show fills all of the exhibition tips, without a brush. against the stereotypes of African for its repression of dissent, and most of CONGO, PAGE 8 Cheers, but small impact, for revisionist ‘Tristan’

BAYREUTH, GERMANY famous love potion rather than drink- With anonymously contemporary dé- Despite the production’s stage-filling ing it, taking radical responsibility for cor (by Frank Philipp Schlössmann and sets, the overall impact on Saturday BY ZACHARY WOOLFE their actions. Matthias Lippert) and timeless cos- was modest. It makes few ideological The second act is not the lovers’se- tumes (by Thomas Kaiser) that are si- claims but also, more problematic, few It’s the season of re-evaluating well- cluded summer idyll but a fleeting union multaneously medieval and futuristic, emotional ones. Despite the terrors im- loved characters we thought we knew. in a dystopian prison yard into which this ‘‘Tristan’’ is cleaner than ‘‘Die plied by its settings, its mood is never First Atticus Finch, a saintly warrior for Marke’s thugs have thrown them to be Meistersinger,’’ its divergences from persuasively disconcerting or persuas- racial justice in Harper Lee’s‘‘To Kill a watched over by guards and pursued by the original text carefully considered. ively much of anything. It is fluent and Mockingbird,’’ was revealed as a patron- harsh floodlights. This is a post-Stasi, No, there is not the ‘‘tentlike cabin’’ that sensible, but that may not be enough izing bigot in Ms. Lee’s newly published post-Snowden ‘‘Tristan,’’ or perhaps it the libretto gives Isolde aboard Tristan’s when approaching one of the most dis- shows that the composer anticipated ship, but that tent does find its way into orienting works in operatic history. OPERA REVIEW what we have tended to consider a re- Ms. Wagner’s second act, when the lov- One of the production’s greatest cent phenomenon: the death of privacy ers cobble together a makeshift shelter strengths may be a weakness: Christi- companion novel, ‘‘Go Set a Watchman.’’ —even, in this production, in death. an Thielemann’s conducting was per- Now the revisionists have come for Ms. Wagner has made the opera a ver- The new production makes haps too subtly colored, too easily flow- King Marke. In a new production of itable taxonomy of gloomy nightmares. few ideological claims, but ing, too effortlessly responsive for its Wagner’s ‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ that The first act, set aboard Tristan’s ship, is own good. opened the Bayreuth Festival on Satur- a labyrinth of shadowy staircases to also, more problematic, few Mr. Thielemann’s approach to Wagn- day, the thoughtful, melancholy king of nowhere, a combination of M.C. Escher emotional ones. er has unique naturalness. In the first the opera’s libretto, saddened by and Piranesi. The looming walls and re- act, which frequently takes the form of ENRICO NAWRATH/FESTSPIELE BAYREUTH, VIA EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY Tristan’s betrayal, is depicted as a bru- tracting cylindrical cages of the second a kind of call-and-response between Georg Zeppenfeld, left, and Stephen Gould during a rehearsal of ‘‘Tristan und Isolde.’’ tal, unfeeling tyrant. At the end, rather act lead to a third act permeated by fog out of some fabric to hide from the glare singers and orchestra, his answers al- than blessing the dead bodies of Tristan and dotted with a hall-of-mirrors profu- of the prison-yard lights. ways arrived with immediacy. But like and Isolde, as Wagner indicated, Marke sion of Isoldes —some living, some col- Any restive fundamentalists in the his oddly unanxious ‘‘Parsifal’’ at the Evelyn Herlitzius, announced last Stephen Gould actually sang Tristan drags Isolde —here very much alive — lapsing mannequins —conjured by audience might also have been calmed Salzburg Easter Festival two years ago, month as a replacement for Anja with a tone mellower and more lyrical away, still insisting on claiming the Tristan in his madness. by seeming homages to the festival’s his ‘‘Tristan’’ smooths over the work’s Kampe as Isolde, got her own catcalls: than the bellowing of many other ten- bride Tristan stole from him. At this point, it is news when a produc- past, in a summer when Wagner’s home strangeness, its emotional extremes. Her voice is angular rather than luxuri- ors in this impossible role. Best of all That is not the only intervention by tion at Bayreuth, known for its cadre of here, the Villa Wahnfried, is having its Recently given the essentially new ant, though her sound has clarity, and was Georg Zeppenfeld as King Marke, the production’s director, Katharina fierce traditionalists, does not get booed, reopening as an expanded museum. title of music director at the festival, Mr. she acts with febrile focus. She was the his bass rich, his malignancy potently Wagner, who has led the festival since and on Saturday, Ms. Wagner and her The third act of ‘‘Tristan,’’ its playing Thielemann, rather than Ms. Wagner, odd woman out in a cast with consider- underplayed. He made the production’s 2008 with another of the composer’s design team seemed to receive only spaces defined by soft fields of light (de- was the one to bear some scattered boos able vocal glamour. The bass-baritone most surprising revision entirely con- great-granddaughters, her half sister, cheers. That speaks to the sobriety of the signed by Reinhard Traub) and punctu- at his bow. Perhaps that was a response Iain Paterson was a hearty Kurwenal, vincing. Eva Wagner-Pasquier. This ‘‘Tristan’’ staging, and perhaps to some relief that ated by floating pyramids that keep ap- to his musical choices, or perhaps to his and the mezzo-soprano Christa Mayer abjures magic: The title characters, in this director has not offered a repeat of pearing and vanishing, evokes the ab- conservative politics or his seemingly floated Brangäne’s offstage warnings ‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ runs through Aug. an agonized mixture of lust and guilt her messy ‘‘Die Meistersinger von stract ‘‘New Bayreuth’’ aesthetic of the ever-growing power here at Bayreuth. to the lovers in Act II with haunting 23 at the Bayreuth Festival, which ends from the start, ecstatically pour out the Nürnberg,’’ first performed here in 2007. 1950s and ’60s. It was clearer why the soprano poise. on Aug. 28; bayreuther-festspiele.de. .... 8 | TUESDAY,JULY28, 2015 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES culture music art books

Two sides to every song

LOS ANGELES ship both as a songwriter matching in- tronic domain, on ‘‘Wildheart’’ Miguel nior vice president for urban program- telligent wordplay to sweeping tunes often cranks up electric guitars. ‘‘I’ve ming at the iHeartRadio network and and as a genuinely soulful singer who always loved to write on the guitar but the program director of the hip-hop/ Miguel starts claiming doesn’t need digital assistance. ‘‘If I never had the confidence to play on my R&B station Real 92.3 (KRRL-FM) in his own identity with ever pulled up an Auto-Tune plug-in in a own records. I played more on this al- Los Angeles, which presented one of Miguel session, he’d shoot me,’’ said bum —not that it’s any good, but it’s Miguel’s preview shows here. ‘‘He new album, ‘Wildheart’ Oakwud, one of Miguel’s producers. still me,’’ Miguel said before the sound- really is a musician, and he’s about ‘‘He’s interested in baring his honest check over lunch in the Los Angeles whatever his experience is, as opposed BY JON PARELES soul to the listener.’’ beachside neighborhood of Venice, just to making a record for radio, which I re- Miguel has been a songwriter, and north of where he lives in Playa del Rey. spect. It’s definitely risky, but I think Something was not right. Wireless mi- sometimes a duet partner, for Usher, Casually but sharply dressed in a gray he’s got a lot of confidence.’’ ANDRÉ MORIN crophone in hand, Miguel was circling Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and Ludacris. His hoodie, a T-shirt, assorted neck chains, Indeed. ‘‘None of my singles have ‘‘Yes, One Must Think,’’ a 2014 painting by Chéri Samba. the floor of Club Nokia here during the voice is front and center in Mariah black pants and studded boots, he was ever sounded like anything else that soundcheck for a concert to preview his Carey’s ‘‘#Beautiful,’’ a million-selling easygoing, impeccably polite and brim- was on the radio, so I’m used to not get- new album, ‘‘Wildheart.’’ It was one of song he wrote with Ms. Carey and oth- ting the initial ‘Oh, yes!’right away,’’ the warm-up shows before his first ers. His own ‘‘Adorn,’’ the Marvin ‘‘I wanted the album to feel Miguel said. ‘‘My music has always headlining tour, where he’ll be playing Gaye-tinged single from his 2012 album like twilight, like dusk, right been something that just grows on much larger clubs like Terminal 5 this ‘‘Kaleidoscope Dream,’’ was the most- people and stays around. It’s kind of Showcasing 90 years coming Sunday in New York City. played song on R&B/hip-hop stations when the sun is going down cool, the notion that maybe not every- The band was charging through for six months, sold more than a million and when the colors in the sky thing is so obvious, but there’s some- rocked-up versions of old and new songs, copies and won a Grammy as best R&B just seem the most vibrant.’’ thing in there that’s real and lasting.’’ of Congo’s dynamic art and Miguel wanted more punch from the song. Yet on his first two albums, in Miguel’s full name is Miguel Jontel drums. He consulted with the sound man 2010 and 2012, Miguel largely presented Pimentel. He’s the son of a Mexican- CONGO, FROM PAGE 7 artist JP Mika, standing by one of his and went back to singing but wasn’t sat- himself as a typical R&B figure: a lov- ming with energy, always holding the American father, who was a teacher, the holdings of Jean Pigozzi, a business- paintings, which also features Mr. isfied. Eventually an idea struck. The erman working a spectrum from sweet gaze of a conversation partner whether and an African-American mother who man, with what Mr.Magnin said was Obama and Mr. Mandela. drummer, RJ Kelly, was performing be- nothings to raunchy come-ons. it was an interviewer or the waitress worked as a clerk for an architecture the largest collection of African contem- In this one, each man is split in half, hind a plexiglass barrier, which provides With ‘‘Wildheart,’’ Miguel claims his who had met him at a party somewhere firm. ‘‘I really am Los Angeles,’’ he porary art in the world, with 12,000 depicted simultaneously as his younger a cleaner sound on a small stage. Down own more specific identity: as a Califor- along the coast. said. ‘‘Not only in the sense that I’m works. and older self. Mr. Shula, who painted came the barrier; the drums finally nia native of mixed ancestry and ‘‘Wildheart’’ entered the Billboard Mexican and black, and they’re the Hervé Chandès, the director of the the African astronauts, said he hoped boomed. ‘‘It sounds way better,’’ Miguel boundless aspiration, and as a song- 200 album chart at No. 2 when it was re- dominating ethnicities in this city, but Cartier Foundation, said he wasn’t con- being included in the showwould drive said, relieved. He cursed the idea of writer who finds his entire complicated leased on June 29 and has lingered in in the energy of Los Angeles, and how cerned. ‘‘If André hadn’t been there, I up prices for his work. ‘‘Of course,’’ he sounding ‘‘clean’’ with a four-letter word hometown —Hollywood, beaches, the the Top 10, though it’s not propelled by everywhere you go there’s this weird couldn’t have done the exhibition,’’ he said. and a smile and added: ‘‘I don’t want suburbs, the ghettos —both around a hit single. ‘‘Coffee,’’ a romantic morn- juxtaposition of hope and desperation. said. ‘‘I needed someone with the Nearby were rich color photographs perfection. It’s gotta feel right.’’ and within himself. The music also tra- ing-after ballad, remains in the bottom And that’s my life, that’s who I am. knowledge of the artistic life of Congo.’’ from the 2011 series ‘‘A View,’’ by Kiripi Miguel’s decision to follow his in- verses modern Los Angeles, invoking half of the Billboard Hot 100. ‘‘I wanted the album to feel like twi- Back at the exhibition opening, some Katembo, born in 1979. They show im- stincts has led him to shake up both his hard rock, gangsta funk and a whiff of ‘‘It’s definitely a departure from light, like dusk, right when the sun is of the artists thanked Mr. Magnin for ages of Kinshasa reflected in its message and his sound. Now 29, Miguel surf-rock along with multiple schools of what he’s done before, and it’s very dif- going down and when the colors in the championing them. ‘‘He helped me a lot puddles. A world turned upside down, has been a musician since he was a R&B. ferent from what you’re hearing right sky just seem the most vibrant and it’s after he said, ‘Find your style,’’’ said the saturated with grit and color and love. teenager. He established his craftsman- Where modern R&B is a largely elec- now on radio,’’ said Doc Wynter, the se- the most beautiful. But also all the vice

A concealed attraction: The obscure places between men and women

The Loved Ones. By Mary-Beth Ms. Hughes. artist but that more nebulous, sinister —seem merely decorative, while being heroine’s mother is married to an aspir- 286 pages. Atlantic Monthly Press. $26. talent, a ‘‘stylist.’’ One of the uppercase about decoration itself, yet their reson- ing novelist to whose ambitions the ironies of this book is the difficulty, ance increases as we learn that the plot mother has become devoted. The step- BY THOMAS BELLER even or among people with a talent for is driven by the business machinations father/novelist ends up being a wife ab- making things look pretty, of making of a bunch of suave, debonair, gangster- user. On the way to this discovery the ‘‘Only a flurry. A thin blanket of white, life pretty. Life, fate —and more specif- ish businessmen (Jean’s husband, narrator takes a peek at one of his something to take the gray mounds of ically Jean’s adolescent daughter, Lily Nick, among them) whose product is manuscripts and sees that it seems to snow and make them new.’’ So begins —all resist it. makeup. The essential gestures of feature women with ‘‘surprisingly active Mary-Beth Hughes’s third book, ‘‘The One hears many names in this book: makeup, the product and the motiva- nipples, and insatiable appetites for very Loved Ones.’’ It is 1969, and Jean Devlin Lionel, Billy, Sheldon, Sister Charitina, tions for its use, are both well summar- straight-ahead penis-worshiping sex is leaving her house on the Jersey Shore Father Mulroney, Margaret, Doris, ized by the book’s first words. acts.’’ In ‘‘The Loved Ones,’’ it is Nick, Cubbie, Mimi, Nick, Clyde Boll, Irving As for those names, one slowly begins Jean’s husband, who stands in for that BOOK REVIEW Slater, Vivienne Vimcreste, someone to recognize some and understand who failed, wife-abusing, active-nipple-writ- named Teedle (who shovels snow). is important. Chief among these is Cub- ing novelist. He is attractive and libidin- in ‘‘the Valiant wagon she used for er- Who are these people? Some are negli- bie, Jean and Nick’s son, Lily’s younger al, and Jean speaks of him with lustrous, rands.’’ The departure is fraught, partly gible and never returned to. Others, brother, who became ill and died when lustful admiration. We do not trust him. because the fraughtness of departure is central. It’s like being at a party where he was very young. The surface plot is Every now and then Ms. Hughes re- one of the book’s themes, and partly be- you know no one, and where everyone kicked into action when Nick gets a big minds us that makeup is both a total cause of the nature of the driveway. is talking about people you have never job at a cosmetics company that re- fantasy of marketing and a thing pro- ‘‘Jean made the reverse up the steep heard of, in a manner so oblivious to quires him to move to London. Jean does duced in factories. A character will curve, then backed into the roadside outsiders it feels hostile. Perhaps my not want to go. Gradually we realize this erupt in stream-of-consciousness in- pull-off where most delivery drivers early agitation with ‘‘The Loved Ones’’ resistance is due in part to her attach- spiration for a new blush (‘‘Melon chickened out and parked. They’d rather —which culminated in leaving the book ment to the house, but also to the life that Felony’’) or fragrance (‘‘My Felonious hand carry a refrigerator than make the in a city I had flown to, unaware until I transpired there before Cubbie’s death. Heart’’). Market research is done, in plunge, but Jean could do it blindfolded.’’ was boarding the plane home —was Ms. Hughes’s prose is elusive, allus- part, by executives loitering in depart- People back out of driveways all the animated in part by self-pity. There is a ive, artful, intriguing and infuriating. ment stores; when the company presi- time. As long as no one gets smashed point beyond which in medias res is no There are no quotation marks; a char- dent spots one ideal customer at Har- into, it is banal enough. But Ms. Hughes longer a style but an act of reproach, if acter’s speech blends into the text; the rods, the woman turns out to be Jean. does not do banal, and I often thought not hostility, from writer to reader. For points of view shift often. Line to line, ABIGAIL GOH This head honcho is an irascible, impul- of this maneuver —Isuppose you could the first 50 pages the book put me in a there is no guidance for the reader. Ms. sive tycoon named Billy; he is sur- call it a detail of the house’s design —as bad mood. Hughes likes to start her scenes with comedy but also somehow moving. rounded by henchmen and acolytes I read her book. It is emblematic of Ms. As it happens, the coffee shop where close attention to minor characters, and Ms. Hughes’s prose is elusive, Here, for instance, is Doris’s hus- who move rapidly in and out of favor. Hughes’s creative DNA: counterintuit- I left the book was called Cafe Grumpy. when we arrive at last at the central allusive, artful, intriguing and band, Clyde, enjoying his bourbon until One of the first pleasures I gleaned ive and hard to follow, but producing in- A similar sense of echo begins to estab- characters’points of view, we don’t see infuriating. Doris surprises him: ‘‘His mouth made from this book, through the thicket of its teresting effects. lish itself in ‘‘The Loved Ones.’’ In the what they see so much as occupy their a little bowl and the aroma snuck up methods, was the comic juxtaposition of From the turnout Jean can see the flurry of names and facts there turns cluttered, confused thoughts, with only through his sinuses and pleasantly these gangsterish figures against Ms. house below, which has a name, Goose- out to be much that is significant; it’s now and then a bit of empirical evi- cates the partygoing, ornamented mi- stewed his brain with thoughts of suc- Hughes’s otherwise dreamy lyricism. neck Cove, a pretty cottage nestled be- just that you must enter a kind of dence edging in. Many of the gestures lieu. It’s as though Ms. Hughes has de- cess, all that had been his, that still was, At one point, Billy erupts into a minor side the Navesink River. Her thoughts dream state and accept that you cannot described are mental ones. Thus, in cided to make her prose inhabit the that he’d grabbed from misfortune and tantrum directed mostly at Nick: follow her gaze, both up and down; she infer what is or is not important, but lines that would be impressive if they shortcomings of her characters, who worse. Everything he’d done and made ‘‘You’re a time waster, Devlin. You’re recalls the ruined state of the house must absorb it all and let it do its work. weren’t so confusing, we get a portrait are burnished and function in a haze of and was, and a smile whispered across pretty and you’re smart, but tell your when she and her father first saw it, Perhaps it’s a clever pun that in a of Jean’s stepmother, Doris, putting on anxious self-regard. I realize this his black-brown eyes, a wisp of joy, un- brother I’d like what he promised some- shortly after he won it in a poker game. book at least partly about design, the jewelry: ‘‘All of her necklaces, good and makes them sound very contemporary til there she was standing right in front time soon. We clear? Now, let’s get ... She has resuscitated it, brought it to writer’s method should yield its pattern trash, had been adjusted once she’d —but one of the things I like about the of him. He’d swallow and say, What the out of the car. And Irving, try not to look heights of not just beauty but glory. so slowly. But like a language you are healed. All of her dresses taken in and book, which is set over a few seasons in hell? I thought you’d gone.’’ like you ate the goldfinch. Because be- ‘‘Every summer for the last five Jean’s exasperated by and then begin to un- then discarded altogether. She was a 1969-71, is the way it evokes musty, out- This same theme —the man’s fantasy lieve me, you did not.’’ quiet little Cape had made the design- derstand, the design is there. The different woman since the surgery; dated visions of success, definitions of interrupted by the reality of his wife —is It’s as though Mickey Spillane er’s showcase.’’ words of that first line, for example — everyone said so.’’ the good life that now feel antique. Ms. handled with more overt comedy in a sneaked into Virginia Woolf’s study to So Jean is not only an appreciator of the ‘‘thin blanket of white’’ that covers The nature of the surgery we are left Hughes is very good at portraying male short story in Ms. Hughes’s collection, add some dialogue. beauty, she is a creator, not exactly an ‘‘gray mounds’’ to ‘‘make them new’’ to guess at, while that ‘‘everyone’’ indi- self-regard as grandiose to the point of ‘‘Double Happiness,’’ in which the The big disadvantage, from Jean’s