In A Thing of Beauty, A.J. Cronin plays with the reader’s emotions as he portrays the development of a young artist in early 20th century Europe
High Point: Cronin has an easy style with a strong vocabulary that keeps the narrative intelligent and interesting.
Low Point: His sparse descriptions of his protagonist’s artistic works.
Author: A.J. Cronin
Publication Date: 1955
Genre: Fiction
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In A Thing of Beauty, A.J. Cronin plays with the reader’s emotions as he traces the development of a young artist in early 20th century Europe. He continually tries to override the natural tendency to like and root for the protagonist.
In this case, the protagonist is a young man—still a kid actually—attempting to establish his place in the world as a painter while trying to find a way to subsist. He is immature, naïve, selfish, misunderstood, and generally unlucky. In many ways, he exemplifies the idea that a person’s 20s is generally a throw-away decade.
Despite all that, you will find yourself pulling for him as you would a little lost pup, even cheering some when he achieves a small victory.
Cronin has an easy style with a strong vocabulary that keeps the narrative engaging. If there are any complaints, it might be that his descriptions of the main character’s paintings are rather sparse. He misses an opportunity to provide some critical context, and to allow the reader to better understand the character’s creative nature.
Even so, A Thing of Beauty is a story that is easy in which to immerse yourself—one more example of why Cronin is a favorite author for so many.
Sources For This Book
Free eBook (Project Gutenberg): Not available
Free Audiobook (LibriVox): Not available
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