Gina Collia-Suzuki
Autor(a) de The Wonderful Demise of Benjamin Arnold Guppy
Obras por Gina Collia-Suzuki
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome legal
- Collia-Suzuki, Gina
- Data de nascimento
- 1969-07-15
- Sexo
- female
- Locais de residência
- Somerset, England, UK
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425- Gina Collia-Suzuki was born on July 15th 1969 in Birmingham, in the United Kingdom. Initially a student of Western art, she encountered Japanese woodblock prints for the first time in 1985, during a visit to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery at the age of fifteen, and was immediately taken by their striking and bold designs, the compositional skills of their designers and the abilities of the craftsmen responsible for carving the blocks. In 1986, whilst studying for a foundation diploma in art and design, she met Jack Hillier, the world-renowned Ukiyo-e scholar, who became her mentor, and their friendship lasted until Hillier’s passing in 1995.
In 1988 Gina went on to Birmingham Institute of Art and Design to study for a degree in ceramics and glass. At the same time, under Jack Hillier’s guidance, she began in-depth research into the woodblock prints of Kitagawa Utamaro and their effect upon 18th century European artists. As her passion for prints increased, however, she moved further away from three dimensional design, eventually giving up working in clay and glass altogether and preferring to work in oils.
Gina began collecting woodblock prints whilst still a student, initially concentrating on book illustrations and then moving on to broadsheets, focusing particularly on those by Kitagawa Utamaro. Since then she has devoted herself to the study of Utamaro’s prints, eventually concentrating her research on the specific subjects portrayed in his illustrated books and broadsheets.
A few years ago, following a house move, Gina found herself living with nuisance neighbours. This experience inspired her to write her first work of fiction, 'The Wonderful Demise of Benjamin Arnold Guppy;' a satirical tale about a thrity-something housewife who is driven to murder her elderly neighbour.
Gina currently lives and works on the southwest coast of England, with her husband and a family of eight female rats.
Membros
Críticas
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 4
- Membros
- 16
- Popularidade
- #679,947
- Avaliação
- 3.8
- Críticas
- 2
- ISBN
- 4
The story is told from the perspective of Alex, the young wife who is eventually responsible for the "wonderful demise" of Ben Guppy (not a spoiler - this is revealed in the very first paragraph of the book). The entire book is Alex's version of the events leading up to the fateful day. It actually reads more like Alex is telling a friend what happened rather than a typical novel narrative. I enjoyed the story and the writing style. I've always been a fan of dry British humour, with a bit of gallows humour mixed in, so this was right up my alley. There were a few laugh-out-loud moments.
I only have a couple of minor criticisms. One is that we get a lot of details about the Guppys, their lifestyle, their other neighbours, and their crazy antics but we don't know anything at all about the younger couple. All we learn about them is that their names are Alex and Roy. I could understand their frustration with the Guppys but I think I might have cared a bit more about their situation if I actually knew more about them. While I enjoyed reading about their crazy dealings with the Guppies, the lack of any real information about their own lives detracted a bit from that. I found myself wondering why they didn't just move away, which is only explained in passing towards the end.
The other issue that I had, and this completely subjective, was the way the novel was organized on the page. The chapters were long and there were no breaks within the chapters themselves, so there would be pages and pages of text with little dialogue. One paragraph would be describing a particular incident and in the next paragraph, we've moved on to two weeks later but there is no visual break. I found that a little difficult to follow, personally, but again, a totally subjective thing.
Overall: some minor issues but generally an interesting and entertaining read.… (mais)