Contrapposto

I enjoy most of what Dave Eggers writes, so I was always going to read this one. It still surprised me. It feels more mature and more grounded than his other books, and I say that as someone who liked the other books.

It follows two people who love art, their stories winding around each other from their teenage years all the way into old age. Along the way it makes some genuinely interesting observations about the art world, about what it actually means to be a “successful” artist, and about how people who are real artists look at things differently from the rest of us.

Mostly though, it is just pure, good writing. The book flows. I don’t have a more sophisticated way to put that. I picked it up and it carried me along and I finished it and wanted more.

The title is an art term, for the pose where a figure rests its weight on one leg so the whole body falls into an asymmetry. I thought about that quite a bit while reading.