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Georgia A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe Dawn Tripp Books

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Georgia A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe Dawn Tripp Books

What Dawn Tripp has done is very difficult to do on many levels. One is to dare to assume the voice of one of the most iconic Americans of the 20th century. She committed to a voice and carried it through, with only the most momentary wobbles. Secondly, the first person is often chosen for the joys of creating the 'unreliable narrator', but Tripp picks a different route creating a woman who has her egoism, but also a lot of insight about herself and the man she married. Thirdly, this version of O'Keffe is complex - certainly not entirely likable, sometimes unkind and even cruel, but a believable mix of the good and bad angels we carry within us. Fourthly, she's written at some length about what she imagines painting felt like for O'Keffe in a convincing enough way that you (or at least I) got an inkling of what moved her to paint so compulsively. Fifthly, she's captured how a marriage can go sour, then yo-yo back repeatedly, each time with less spring, until an accommodation is reached. And, finally, she conveys what we would now call Georgia's feminism, but at the time was just a natural reaction to being treated as a woman artist, as opposed to just an artist, in a forthright way without shoving a gendered perspective down our throats. The writing is lyrical throughout, with one arresting image cascading over the next. It's the language of the painter of the intensely observed and often erotic floral paintings. One wonders if someone who loved such stark surroundings of the Texas and New Mexico desert and loved her minimalist abstract work as much as her more vibrant paintings would express herself so fulsomely all the time. As wonderful as I thought this book is, I suspect O'Keffe, who seems to have been a very private person who carefully preserved varying degrees of emotional distance from everyone, including Stieglitz (according to this novel), would have quite likely hated this book.


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Georgia A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe Dawn Tripp Books Reviews

It got better as I read. At first I though that there wasn't much substance and a lot of sex scenes. So I took a side trip on Bing/Google to find out more about Georgia O'Keeffe. With that extra insight I finished reading this book. I think that the author missed the point that despite Georgia O'Keeffe's enormous talent, success and romantic relationship with Alfred Stieglitz, she was a repressed woman who felt manipulated by men and the mores of her time. I have a feeling that she could not define her feelings and did the best that she could to cope.
I loved the historical fiction aspect of the book and the details about O'Keeffe's work. I felt, though, that sometimes the book drifted into the romance novel format, which to me was a disservice to what O'Keefe's spirit represented.
I think the writing is very trite. This is a first-person narrative, written as though Georgia O'Keefe wrote it. Unfortunately it seems contrived. I doubt very much that Georgia O'Keefe did much writing. And wonder if she would have written in such a bland voice. I read it because I wanted to know more about her life. But realize that I would have better served reading something someone wrote about her. I realize that my assessment is not like the many five stars. But for me, this is one of the worst novels I've read this year--and I read a lot.
I’ve read nearly every book out there about Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. This one is a terrific read. Dawn Tripp did a remarkable job of inhabiting Georgia’s head, a herculean task. I’m recommending this novel to many friends and artist-colleagues.
In my humble opinion, Tripp deserves a Pulitzer for this superb piece of fiction. In almost every conceivable way, Tripp achieved authenticity in her effort to reveal the soul of the person O’Keeffe and the artist O’Keeffe.
Tripp clearly is in love with her subject. Georgia O’Keeffe the person, that is. Tripp chose to get inside the head and the heart of The Legend to compose a gripping story. She succeeded. I found myself wishing, however, that Tripp wasn’t so awestruck and adoring of her subject, at times. A bit less adulation and more introspection might have helped Tripp produce an even better novel.
I also kept wanting Tripp to understand more fully what animated Stieglitz, O’Keeffe’s father figure and master manipulator; in doing so, she would have more fully developed this key character in O’Keeffe’s life. In addition, Georgia’s strong motivation to be “the bad girl” when she chose to leave Texas and go to Steiglitz in New York might have become a stronger theme. I’ve long thought O’Keeffe was responding to a powerful, successful man because she badly needed him to supplant the father in whom she was so disappointed. She was also terribly angry because her father had betrayed her, and she needed to know she was lovable.
Stieglitz was her path to personal redemption, as well as personal success, both powerful needs. Resolution, though, was far more difficult to achieve.
Georgia O’Keeffe invented herself as The Legend from the get-go as much as Stieglitz did. I’m convinced she knew what she was doing from the very moment she went to New York.
Tripp used her extensive study of correspondence between Stieglitz and his muse to get a sense of O’Keeffe’s psyche for this novel. At several important junctures in O’Keefe’s life, I was left wondering why the book’s story line became so “thin,” the detail so lacking. For example, when O’Keeffe had a nervous breakdown (as we nicely called the “event” back in the day) in her 50s and was hospitalized in NYC, we’re left wondering as readers why this happened when it did and how it did. This merited much more than the few paragraphs it was given. Surely the reason Tripp’s understanding was lacking, was because O’Keeffe wrote little about her inner feelings and conflicts and depression at the time that Tripp had very little to go on.
O’Keeffe was an intensely private person, and either her letters, diaries and journals about that decade of her life never existed to begin with, or O’Keeffe destroyed them when she grew old, to preserve her image as The Legend. As Tripp points out, and as the world has long known, O’Keeffe was meticulous about the process of deciding what parts of her life—and her art—would be shared with the world after her death.
Hence, Tripp could only surmise the extreme dissonance O’Keeffe experienced during her 40s and 50s as an artist, and as a woman trying to succeed in a man’s world, and as Stieglitz’s wife/muse. When she finally experienced the breakdown that led to her time “in the white room,” we’re uncertain about the triggers that really tipped O’Keeffe over the edge or how she emerged from that fractured period.
Yes, we understand O’Keeffe was continually paying a price for her choices…her strong need to love and be loved by Alfred, at the same time as he was having serial affairs; her strong need to be led by a strong father figure and be able to depend on that person at the same time as she struggled to be free of that strong person; her choice(s) to allow herself to be “owned” and mentored and sculpted and groomed as an artist by Stieglitz while simultaneously desiring to be fiercely independent in a creative sense or at least to present herself as a fiercely independent artist.
We are left wondering why this ferociously strong person was unable to reconcile—suddenly—the crashing conflicts she had created for herself over many years. Hey, we all make choices in life, and pay a price. We all struggle for self-realization while dealing with outside influences and pressures from loved ones.
None of my quibbles should detract from the novel itself, nor would I praise it any less because Tripp didn’t fulfill my every wish. She did a masterful job as it is. Hooray, Dawn!
I've been looking for a historical novel on Georgia O'Keefe for several years so was really excited to see this book. I've been to Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu several times, did a program on her paintings and life, have seen her house and photographed her "Jacob's tree" and her cow skulls at Ghost Ranch and have been to her museum in Santa Fe so I had a little knowledge about her life but this book really brings her to life. She was so far ahead of her time......very strong, very strong willed. In reading this book, you feel like you are inside her head, it's just very powerful......and she had such a tumultous relationship with Alfred Steigleitz. I was thoroughly captivated by this book.
What Dawn Tripp has done is very difficult to do on many levels. One is to dare to assume the voice of one of the most iconic Americans of the 20th century. She committed to a voice and carried it through, with only the most momentary wobbles. Secondly, the first person is often chosen for the joys of creating the 'unreliable narrator', but Tripp picks a different route creating a woman who has her egoism, but also a lot of insight about herself and the man she married. Thirdly, this version of O'Keffe is complex - certainly not entirely likable, sometimes unkind and even cruel, but a believable mix of the good and bad angels we carry within us. Fourthly, she's written at some length about what she imagines painting felt like for O'Keffe in a convincing enough way that you (or at least I) got an inkling of what moved her to paint so compulsively. Fifthly, she's captured how a marriage can go sour, then yo-yo back repeatedly, each time with less spring, until an accommodation is reached. And, finally, she conveys what we would now call Georgia's feminism, but at the time was just a natural reaction to being treated as a woman artist, as opposed to just an artist, in a forthright way without shoving a gendered perspective down our throats. The writing is lyrical throughout, with one arresting image cascading over the next. It's the language of the painter of the intensely observed and often erotic floral paintings. One wonders if someone who loved such stark surroundings of the Texas and New Mexico desert and loved her minimalist abstract work as much as her more vibrant paintings would express herself so fulsomely all the time. As wonderful as I thought this book is, I suspect O'Keffe, who seems to have been a very private person who carefully preserved varying degrees of emotional distance from everyone, including Stieglitz (according to this novel), would have quite likely hated this book.