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Available
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Publication
Harper & Brothers
Description
The Horse's Mouth, the third and most celebrated volume of Joyce Cary's First Trilogy, is perhaps the finest novel ever written about an artist. Its painter hero, the charming and larcenous Gulley Jimson, has an insatiable genius for creation and a no less remarkable appetite for destruction. Is he a great artist? a has-been? or an exhausted, drunken ne'er-do-well? He is without doubt a visionary, and as he criss-crosses London in search of money and inspiration the world as seen though his eyes appears with a newly outrageous and terrible beauty.
User reviews
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The picaresque novel has a noble tradition reaching back to Don Quixote. In his novel, The Horse's Mouth, Joyce Cary created a picaresque hero for the twentieth century. Gully Jimson is the epitome of a life force and his creativity in life as well as art carries him forward and wins the reader's
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heart. Cary's theme is one of the creative artist pitted against authority of all kinds. The novel opens with opens with Jimson, newly released from prison, reveling in his freedom admiring the clouds in the sky and the murky waters of the Thames. The adventures begin as Jimson caroms from one episode to another leading to his ultimate creation, a great mural that will be the culmination of his art. The combination of exalting prose (Cary is after all, Irish by birth) and a wonderful story make this book a true pleasure to read. Show Less
LibraryThing member abirdman
A fantastic novel, holds up to multiple readings. Classic plot-- the artist as lovable scoundrel. A wonderful movie was made of it in the late 50's, starring Alec Guinness.
LibraryThing member otterley
THis is technically an incredibly impressive book; a bravura first person picaresque narrative from the mouth of the inimitable Gully Jimson. Cary never slips from the persona, offering us an artist with a fecund imagination, creative use of language, sensual love of images and women, and an
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irrepressible and irresponsible engagement with life at its richest. Comedy, tragedy, love and pathos mingle, often on the same page, in a novel that's rich and fruitful. Show Less
LibraryThing member ToddSherman
That’s it,’ I said. ‘It’s the jaws of death. Look at me. One of the cleverest painters who ever lived. Nobody ever had anything like my dexterity, except Rubens on a good day. I could show you an eye—a woman’s eye, from my brush, that beats anything I’ve ever seen by Rubens. A little
—The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
I’ve never read a book so true to the character of a true artist. So scathing of other’s art while damning the whole enterprise and his paltry participation in it. I thoroughly loved this book and its frank appraisal of all things faked, true or, more likely, some combination of the two.
Several pages in, the binding started to crack and I had to tape up the entire side. But tricky, unsticky, recalcitrant page eighty-seven kept popping out the book for the rest of the journey. Like a buzzing fly that’s too savvy or drunk on morning sunlight to land in a suitable place for pestered human hands to swat. And if the physical aspect of this mass market paperback seemed to match the dilapidation of Gulley Jimson’s approach to relationships, art and life, well then, that’s fine by me. This worn-out copy’s got a life all its own.
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miracle of brushwork. And if I hadn’t been lucky I might have spent the rest of my life doing conjuring tricks to please the millionaires, and the professors. But I escaped. God knows how. I fell off the tram. I lost my ticket and my virtue. Why, your ladyship, a lot of my recent stuff is not much better, technically, than any young lady can do after six lessons at a good school. Heavy-handed, stupid looking daubery. Only difference is that it’s about something—it’s an experience, and all this amateur stuff is like farting Annie Laurie through a keyhole. It may be clever but is it worth the trouble? What I say is, why not do some real work, your ladyship? Use your loaf, I mean your brain. Do some thinking. Sit down and ask yourself what’s it all about.’—The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
I’ve never read a book so true to the character of a true artist. So scathing of other’s art while damning the whole enterprise and his paltry participation in it. I thoroughly loved this book and its frank appraisal of all things faked, true or, more likely, some combination of the two.
Several pages in, the binding started to crack and I had to tape up the entire side. But tricky, unsticky, recalcitrant page eighty-seven kept popping out the book for the rest of the journey. Like a buzzing fly that’s too savvy or drunk on morning sunlight to land in a suitable place for pestered human hands to swat. And if the physical aspect of this mass market paperback seemed to match the dilapidation of Gulley Jimson’s approach to relationships, art and life, well then, that’s fine by me. This worn-out copy’s got a life all its own.
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LibraryThing member d.homsher
Nutsy painter lives a big life. Only force that can match him: his former lover, soft, aging, pink and conniving. It all falls down in the end.Inventive prose, irresistable energy, great fun. The story of an iconoclastic, impractical, and money-hungry (or at least money-needing) artist who devotes
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himself to painting a remarkable, and incomprehensible, mural on a crumbling wall, while at the same time doing everything he can to reclaim one of his older paintings - a prettier thing - that he would be able to sell in order to support his current project. Unfortunately, the woman who has the painting is his former lover, the subject of the portrait, who loves this picture of her younger, lovelier self and is a lot more cunning than the artist. Show Less
LibraryThing member SimoneSimone
Everything you've ever wanted to know about artists, warty wens and all. A treasure.
LibraryThing member ThePortPorts
It's a rare thing for me to give up on a book, but by page 200 I was, well... looking forward to greener pastures so thoroughly I decided to just go ahead and climb the fence and out of Mr Jimson's little story.
I feel guilty. Really. Especially since the community values it so highly. Maybe it's a
There are things I like. Coker is a cool character, and the thing between Jimson and Sara is, well... weird. A bit sad, though I think that's probably purposeful. The writing style is interesting and I liked the artistic imagery. I could have done without the Blake, but then, that would be a different novel.
Which is my point. I needed it to be a different novel. So, onward! So many choices.
I feel guilty. Really. Especially since the community values it so highly. Maybe it's a
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cultural divide. Or a generation gap. I don't know. There are things I like. Coker is a cool character, and the thing between Jimson and Sara is, well... weird. A bit sad, though I think that's probably purposeful. The writing style is interesting and I liked the artistic imagery. I could have done without the Blake, but then, that would be a different novel.
Which is my point. I needed it to be a different novel. So, onward! So many choices.
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LibraryThing member Michael_Godfrey
Gully Jimson must go down in the annals of literature of one of the most compelling first person narrators. With all the self-knowledge of a gnat, he reveals the complexity of a narcissistic, degenerate, lovable genius. Rarely have I so wanted to slap a character around the chops (and I am not
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violent) while simultaneously hugging him and protecting from his insane, creative, compulsive self. I bought the book when it was on my reading list as an undergrad, for a paper entitled "The Twentieth Century Novel," in 1982, but it somehow wriggled out of my commitments for the year and remained, languishing on my shelves, unread until now. Had I read in in 1982 it would have been one of my favourite books for the year and for my entire undergrad reading programme. The question now is whether, forty years later, and as a much slower reader, I should devour more Cary. The Horse's Mouth is sheer delight. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
This story is a slice of life of a formerly popular painter. The public has deserted him, the bottle seems a devoted friend, and his current obsession is large wall murals of generously proportioned women. A friend is using him as a house sitter, but, will find a good deal more art in his house
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than he had when he left. The main character is designed to be charming, and impish (the film cast Alec Guinness in the part), but I was left with a less encouraged view of the bohemian and its role in enlightened British life. Show Less
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
Even after 50 years I still remember that I found this book very boring.
LibraryThing member SandyAMcPherson
My copy of this book is too old to show an ISBN! A great story of a rascally old painter who harasses his only patron with phone calls and lives in poverty. He is an outstanding artist but socially inept in dealing with people. Cary writes so well, you practically live the story as you read it.
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This is the only one of the series I kept. Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
Gulley Jimson was quite a character but on the whole I felt that the humor in this book was more of the sort which made me smile inwardly than the sort which make me laugh aloud.
LibraryThing member SylviaPlathLibrary
Reading "The Horse's Mouth": hard to get into. I see why it didn't sell much here: too rich a surface, all knots and spurtings of philosophy, but only as emanation from the bumpy colored surface of life, not imposed on it. Plot not spare and obvious, but a spate of anecdotes. Podgy old Sara eternal
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as Eve, Alison, wife of bath. This old battered hide: needs a brain and a creative verve to make it liveable in, a heater in the ratty house. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Original publication date
1944-08
1957 (rev.)
1944