The Lady in Gold

I'm unsatisfied, and I feel like the book title and premise misrepresented what it ended up being about. The beginning was promising, and I really enjoyed the picture the author painted (heh heh) of pre-war Vienna and the sorts of people it attracted. The depictions of Adele, Klimt, and all their associated friends and flings were interesting. From there, though, the book rushed its way to World War II and then spun its wheels there while it tried to tell short little stories of anyone who had even a tenuous connection to the painting or Adele or Klimt, and their experiences with World War II. It felt like half the book was stuck here, and I ended up getting really fatigued at reading Nazi story after Nazi story. It also felt like the painting, what I thought was the subject of the book, was mentioned very little during this section.

The book then sped up again, speeding us along to what I was expecting more of – the actual fight for the painting. Or so I thought, anyway, the legal battle ended up spanning only a small handful of chapters (and the chapters in this book are only a page or two), and then it was over and Maria had won her fight. The rest of the book was Vienna's complaints about the paintings being purchased.

I like a good non-fiction book about random historical topics, but this one didn't feel like it fit the bill for me. It lacked direction and cohesion, because while the people stories were for the most part interesting, I never had a clear idea of where one thought was leading to the next. It also lacked substance about the actual painting beyond what was told pre-WWII, which is a letdown considering the book title implied more. This one missed the mark with me, I think.