#Art History Picasso/Cocteau

• Author: Claude Arnaud
  
• Title: Picasso tout contre Cocteau  (240 pg)  2023
• Genre: non-fiction
  
• Language: French
• Rating: D-

by Claude Arnaud (no photo)

Bad news: Although it’s extremely well-researched,
I find reading about some of the minutiae of the sulphurous friendship between Picasso and Cocteau a grind after 100 pages.
It’s a pity.

Good news: I did learn more about the many of the prominent French literature/artistic heavyweights: Blaise Cendrars, Max Jacob, Marcel Duchamp, Apollinaire, Eric Satie, Radiguet via Wikipedia and…unfortunately not much in this book. Arnaud writes in snippets of original thought and fills the rest of the pages with citations by Cocteau.

Personal: Reading this book was like eating bran flakes:
You know it’s good for you, and to some degree you enjoy the wholesomeness of it,
but it’s not always particularly exciting.

Did this book deserve the #Prix André Malraux 2023?

I don’t think so.
Je m’ennuie vite (…bored tears)
Je termine le livre mollement. ( half-heartedly)
But a French book is never a waste of reading time
…it always increases my vocabulary.