The Electric Michelangelo (P.S.)

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Cy Parks is the Electric Michelangelo, an artist of extraordinary gifts whose medium happens to be the pliant, shifting canvas of the human body. Fleeing his mother's legacy -- a consumptives' hotel in a fading English seaside resort -- Cy reinvents himself in the incandescent honky-tonk of Coney Island in its heyday between the two world wars. Amid the carnival decadence of freak shows and roller coasters, enchanters and enigmas, scam artists and marks, Cy will find his muse: an enigmatic circus beauty who surrenders her body to his work, but whose soul tantalizingly eludes him.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Art as Life; Life as Art April 29, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

The Electric Michelangelo is at once a fascinating study of both character and career. Author Sarah Hall lovingly chronicles the life of tattoo artist Cyril Parks from childhood through later adult life. The novel is set on the norhthern coast of England and later moves to the bawdy atmosphere of Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY. That is where, in the late 1930's, Cyril Parks sets up his tattoo shop and begins his adventures in America.

He eventually meets a woman named Grace, who is a circus performer and also becomes a client of Cyril's. While growing up in England, Cy was primarily influenced by his independent mother, Reeda, as well as his violently disturbed tattooing instructor, Eliot Riley. In the character of Grace, Cyril discovers qualities of both his mother and of Riley. This is a very powerful point of the novel.

Sarah Hall writes some amazing prose, and she infuses humor throughout the story. At times philosophical and symbolic, The Electric Michelangelo has strong, very human characters, and it gives insight into the lives of its inhabitants through the unigue profession of tattooing. The book can be compared to some of the works by John Irving, where we find strong female characters, various points of irony, and offbeat humor surfacing along the way.

This is one of the most original novels I have read this year. Although it is largely narrative, I found myself drawn into the book more and more as the story developed. There was a quiet, unassuming way in which the themes and messages of the book were conveyed. Through Cyril's tattoo artistry, we are shown a unique way of thinking, living, and dealing with the world, based on his art and profession. There is no fluff here. This is a meaty perspective on the human condition using subject matter that I have encountered in no other work. Given the chance, The Electric Michelangelo will lead the reader on a magical, rewarding journey.

5 out of 5 stars

Among the best I've read November 2, 2004
9 out of 13 found this review helpful

I first noticed this book from the Booker Prize short list. After the prize was awarded to "A Line of Beauty" I hesitated a bit over which one to buy. The synopsis of the book here at amazon was next to useless, but thanks to a good review written by "Trial Critic" I ended up reading this one. The best choice I've made in a long time.

A beautifully written enthralling story with great characters and especially the vivid depiction of Coney Island back in the day. Simply a great book.

5 out of 5 stars

A superior reading experience October 16, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall is masterfully written. There are several aspects of the book that I would like to point out.

First, in some ways one of the strenghts to this novel is minimal number of characters, minimal number of cities, and minimal number of intereactions. There are four main characters; Cy, this mother Reeda, his mentor Eliot Riley, and the woman he falls in love with, Grace. The action takes place in two cities; Morecambe England and Coney Island, NYC. Significant dialogue happens in two taverns; the Dog and Pheasant in Morecambe and the Varga on Coney Island. Cyril Parks is loved and protected by a wise mother, Reeda, who runs a boarding house by the sea for TB patients and performs abortions late at night for local girls in trouble. Her emotional stability gives Cy a bedrock of natural compassion and internal resources. She dies of breast cancer and Cy decides to become apprentice to the alcholic Eliot Riley, an angry bitter drunkard who introduces Cy to the profession of tatoo artist. After the death of Eliot, Cy migrates to Coney Island and makes a living on the boardwalk and socializing at the Varga, the local diner for circus and carnival folks. He meets a young angry intelligent beautiful Russian Jewish bareback rider and her horse, Maximus. She is agnostic, skeptical, and obviously has seen much pain and disappointment in her life, which she keeps to herself. Cy loves Grace but her personality is so much stronger than his, that his courtship must be carefully plotted. I will not say more about the straight forward story line since I don't want to ruin the reading experience of others, but the point here is that Hall uses a very minimal approach so as to better explore the few characters and situations she introduces.

Second, Hall engages in skillful social commentary through the interactions of her characters, reminding me of the masterful job that VIctor Hugo does in Les Miserables. Social class and mileau commentary is best revealed by the manner in which the characters navigate to survive. Social commentary has more power through empathy than via lectures. This is true of Les Miserables as well as The Electric Michelangelo.

Third, Hall engages in insightful analysis of the art of the tatoo and the impulses that drive human beings to mark their bodies. Some people mark their bodies to show experiences they have survived, such as military service or service in a particular part of the world. Others, mark their body to show committment. Others mark their bodies to signify loss. Some seek a tatoo so that the painful experience acts as an initiation rite, taking them apart and building them again with a symbol to show they have been rebuilt. Some men select terrible images to attempt to warn other men to stay away from them, that they are dangerous. Her commentary on the purposes of tatoo are skillfully interwoven throughout the work.

Fourth, but you may ask "what is this book really about?" I would say that the overwhelming theme is recovery from loss, the resources we have to overcome loss, the lessons we learn from overcoming loss, and the baggage we carry into our next significant relationships and situations from our previous loss.

The language is poetic and vibrant, the characterization exact and empathetic, the flow of events was strategic, and in the end Hall has produced an incredible book. She wrote this book when she was 30 years old. She has certainly learned a lifetime of lessons in her short life and she reveals these lessons like a master.

5 out of 5 stars

A Rare Gem December 18, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is without a doubt one of the finest novels I have ever read. The writing is pure heaven, the metaphors and similes are creative divinity--where does she get them? She is so highly gifted and so young that she can look forward to a wonderful career and you can be sure that I will follow her progress.
Yes the novel can be heavy going at times but the beauty of her story and her talent as a writer just kept me wanting more and I earmarked so many passages because they were the finest, among the best poetry that I have ever read, her imagination and facility with language is stunning, not to mention the level of research that she did.
A wonderful and rare performance--Bravo!

3 out of 5 stars

(3.5) "I paint hearts. And I paint souls. That's what I do." October 29, 2005
8 out of 12 found this review helpful

Morecambe Bay is a seaside resort, where Cyril Parks' mother, Reeda, runs a consumptive's hotel. Cy's task is to collect the guests' waste, those who are there to recover their health before returning inland. The consumptives readily offer their bodily fluids to the boy, grateful for his pleasant ministrations. Actually, Cy's beside manner is decidedly impersonal, an extension of the services provided by the hotel. Reeda has run the Bayside Hotel since her husband's death in 1907, although she performs darker services for young women in the dark of night, relieving them of unwanted pregnancies. Cy is destined never to know the man, a captain lost at sea.

By the time of his mother's death in 1923, Cy is an apprentice to a local tattoo artist, Eliot Riley, a drunken reprobate who has the skills of a genius when performing his art, but is a harsh taskmaster to his young student. Gradually Cy learns the trade and when Eliot is beset by his equally hard-drinking enemies in the trade, Cy is ready to take over, finding his own talent, fascinated by the designs he draws on the willing flesh of customers. Eventually, Riley's death purchases Cy's freedom and he sails to America with a forged passport, soon to begin his life anew. In New York, Cy gravitates naturally to Coney Island, which he discovers is not unlike the seaside town of his youth. Establishing himself there, Cy becomes known for his work and takes the title, the Electric Michelangelo.

It is there that Cy meets Grace, a circus woman who lives in his building and plays chess at a local watering hole. As Cy inks in the images Grace requires to establish her niche in the circus, he gets close to this fascinating woman who is also his lover, his task ever more intimate as he colors her skin. But Grace remains tantalizingly separate, an enigma Cy cannot solve. A terrible event occurs, an incident he is helpless to anticipate or prevent, "a scene of unimaginable and accommodating violence".

Hall's research is rigorous, but the prose is often tedious, mostly unrelieved narrative with little dialog to relieve the pages. Dickensian in detail but strangely passionless, the characters struggle for survival. Only the accents change; the humanity remains the same as Hall tells an unusual story, never flinching from the physical realities and occasional violence. By the end, Cy has achieved the promised emotional depth, certainly improved by his intense relationship with Grace. The art of tattooing is embellished by this novel, exposing the unique beauty created by the ink. A man of his times, Cy is defined by the experiences of his life, his brief shining moment as the Electric Michelangelo. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

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