{"id":1817,"date":"2010-07-13T01:03:50","date_gmt":"2010-07-13T08:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2010\/07\/in_praise_of_lumpy\/"},"modified":"2010-07-13T01:03:50","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T08:03:50","slug":"in_praise_of_lumpy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2010\/07\/in_praise_of_lumpy.html","title":{"rendered":"In praise of lumpy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a one-word hint in Michiko Kakutani opening paragraph that her review of Laurence Gonzales&#8217; novel will take a disparaging tone:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Think of a contemporary version of Mary Shelley&#8217;s &#8220;Frankenstein&#8221; in which an egotistical scientist&#8217;s creation is not a hideous-looking monster but a well-mannered teenage girl who quotes Shakespeare, listens to Tom Petty and uses Facebook and YouTube. This is the high-concept premise of Laurence Gonzales&#8217;s lumpy new novel, &#8220;Lucy.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/07\/06\/books\/06book.html?ref=books\">more<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Right. It&#8217;s &#8220;lumpy.&#8221; When lumpy is the first descriptive in a book review, that review will fall short of rave. The same can&#8217;t be said in visual art, where a critic might easily use the word as praise. In visual art, silky is not a top and lumpy a bottom. They are just another spectrum across which artists secure a place.<\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Venus_of_Willendorf\">Via<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"venuswillendorflump.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/venuswillendorflump.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0pt auto 20px;\" height=\"742\" width=\"403\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a one-word hint in Michiko Kakutani opening paragraph that her review of Laurence Gonzales&#8217; novel will take a disparaging tone: Think of a contemporary version of Mary Shelley&#8217;s &#8220;Frankenstein&#8221; in which an egotistical scientist&#8217;s creation is not a hideous-looking monster but a well-mannered teenage girl who quotes Shakespeare, listens to Tom Petty and uses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}