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Rating: 
Summary: Extraordinary journal
Review: Ever since 1980, when I first read the French version of this diary, I have been hooked. It was indeed, as Marie Bashkirtseff herself wrote, a book in which she wrote herself down, all her dreams, her good and bad behavior, the good and the bad traits of her character. Later I learned that the diary had been badly cut by editors, first in Doris Langley Moore's book on Marie, later in the very interesting documentary by Colette Cosnier (1985) Since that time I had the (slight) hope that the diary would appear uncut. I am very glad that Phyllis and Katherine Kernberger took up this job and give us now the first half of the diary. They have done it exceptionally well (even before the uncut French edition which is now underway), and Chronicle books have taken care to make the book look right. I understand why some people find this first volume boring, but they are wrong however, particularly when we interpret it in the light of the tragic events to come in its sequel. I hope the 2nd volume will appear soon. I am a real fan: I went to Paris to visit the streets mentioned in the book (and her enormous tomb), I even went to her birthplace in Ukraine!
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting book
Review: I am not quite finished with the book and am very much enjoying it. I cannot wait to see the next volume and am happy to hear it will be published soon. The book is a fascinating insight into the everyday lives of Marie and her family in the 1800's.
Rating:
Summary: You will fall in love with Marie
Review: I first became interested in Marie Bashkirtseff and her diary after I read about her in Anais Nin's early diary! haha. Anais Nin seemed to be deeply inspired by Marie, so I too wanted to know more about her. Reading her journals makes you feel like you really know her, like you're really there spying and eavesdropping, an invisible observer, seeing all these events in her life unfold, probing her deepest thoughts and desires. At least that's how I felt. And as a young man, I guess I find myself drawn to these 19th century heroines, with their intriguing personalities, strong intellects, and passionate love-affairs. I'd love to see Marie's paintings. Are they in the Louvre or Musee d'Orsay? I heard many of them were destroyed in the air-raid bombings of World War 2, unfortunately. Was she a Classicist or Realist? It seems she was very good, but just how good? What's her rank among the great artists of her day? And would she have been even greater had she lived to fulfill her full potential? And it's too bad we'll never know what her voice sounded like, apparently she was a fine singer too. I was also pleased to read that Marie got a little chubby in her final years. I'm into slightly plump chicks haha.I didn't really understand the "half the face showing" for the front cover iof this book. I think it would've looked better with her whole face. Oh, and the title gives me a wry smile. I was totally enamoured with Marie, the only thing I found a bit off-putting was her pride and shallow social ambition, eg. to marry for status and money. That's all she seems to care about, besides being noticed and adored. But she also shows that she has many positive qualities and these far outweigh the negative. When it comes to her love-life, she had a few suitors but from what I gather, she doesn't seem to have ever fallen in love, even though she occasionally used the term loosely with regard to men like Audiffret, Antonelli, or her childish teenage infatuation with the Duke of Hamilton. It even appears that when she died a month shy of her 26th birthday, she died a virgin. Anyway, a few years ago I was aquainted with Katherine Kernberger, who along with her mother translated this Volume One of Marie Bashkirtseff's diaries. She kindly sent me the as yet unpublished diaries that would make up a second volume, the rest of the diaries. Reading this manuscript was an amazing experience. I literally put my own life on hold for weeks and just got lost in the intriguing life of a pretty, talented, exceptional, young woman named Marie Bashkirtseff. I do hope this second volume of Marie's diaries will be published soon, so that eager readers will be able to see the rest of her true story. Oh, one other thing. Since reading the diaries, I've discovered that Marie's close friend in her final days, the painter Jules Bastein-Lepage, with whom she was so obsessed, actually died the same year as her--1884. It must have been very soon after, perhaps prompted by Marie's own death? In the end he was ill and bed-ridden, and she would sit with him in bed, keeping him company. I wonder if he felt about her the same way she felt about him. What a tragedy if they had both been in love with each other and yet neither of them knew it! And to die in such a short space of time apart! I wish someone could tell me something about Marie's funeral--the public reaction, people who attended, where she's buried, etc? There's an old bio by a Stanley Jackson called "Guy de Maupassant"; the chapter titled "Moths" sheds some interesting light on Marie and her correspondence with literary men. It's interesting to note the things she left out of her diary. And she was a painter, so why was she writing to novelists rather than painters like Renoir and Monet?? She had a very interesting letter correspondence with the famed fiction writer Guy de Maupassant. There's a tiny book called "I Kiss Your Hands" which has all their letters to each other. It's very interesting. But it ends very vaguely, a letter by Maupassant offering to meet her (sort of) at a theatre, and then nothing. No surviving response. This was close to the time that Marie died though, of tuberculosis. If you hunger for more on Marie, I encourage you to read this correspondence. David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"
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