Theft: A Love Story

---

---

Customer reviews

review by: Keen Reader date: 2008-09-19 rating:
What a great theft of expectations
I decided to read Theft A Love Story partly as a way of introducing myself to the work of Peter Carey. After all, twice winner of the Booker prize, I felt that in not having read any of Carey's novels I was missing out on an important literary experience. I could have chosen to read one of the two Booker winners, namely Oscar and Lucinda or the True history of the Kelly Gang. I chose to read Theft simply because it is Carey's most recent novel. However, it was an unmitigated mistake which have probably turned me off the work of Carey for good.

This is a pretentious and overrated novel. I suspect that its high praise rests on Carey's previous work. I normally finish novels even struggle to finish them when it is clear that I am not enjoying them and can see no literary merit. However, in respect of Theft, I failed to finish it. Quite frankly it was not worth the effort.

At least up to the point where I read, the story thus far was uninteresting. There are claims that the book is funny. Perhaps it is if you like shallow and obvious comedy. I prefer comedy that is subtle and sophisticated. I did not find a reason to laugh. Here is an example of its crude comedy one of the two narrators, Hugh, tells us that his mother: "had a terror of knives, dear mum, poor mum, and who could blame here when you saw Blue Bones or Grandpa Bones walk in the back door? Big men always in a towering rage. Each night my mother took the knives and hid them in the Chubb safe. She had her left breast taken by amputation. God bles her. Therefore it follows. Hide the knives."

Theft greatest pretentiousness is that it attempts to explore the world of art: who exploits whom, fraudlent behaviour is alleged to be exposed and the question who creates and owns a work of art is raised. I must say that I did not care and do not care for such a world. Not that I don't like and admire works of art it is rather I do not think that Carey had anything of significance to say about art.

There is no reason to recommend reading this novel.

---

review by: freisitzer date: 2008-08-14 rating:
Exhilarating, exuberant tour-de-force, a literary gem of a book
Peter Carey's "Theft: A Love Story" is a literary tour-de-force, a brilliant book, a witty spoof on the art world, a tale of two brothers and a story about love, a story taking us from Australia to Japan and to New York, to sum it up: a magnificent book.
How often do you find yourself multiply re-reading sentences, phrases, even pages- not for the sake of understanding it, but out of sheer joy of re-enjoying the just-read phrases, sentences and pages. Not all too often, I would think. Peter Carey's writing is so exuberantly enjoyable, that there is actually no way avoiding multiple re-reading, enjoying the prose melt on your tongue. Scenes, sentences, phrases, which I just wanted to read to my friends, but where to start, each and every page is just full of excerpts you want to share with others.
"Theft: A Love Story" is the tale of two brothers, one of them a previously well known painter, now taking care of his art dealer's offbeat located home, also taking care of his huge and "slow" brother Hugh. It's a tale of love too, of brotherly love- they just don't seem to be able to live with each other, but obviously can't live without each other either. The story is told in turn (chapterwise) by the two brothers, and although both are rather huffy, grumpy characters (brothers all the way), who both really seem to have a ball verbally whacking each other, it is, due to master ventriloquist Peter Carey's intriguing prose, easy to recognize, whose narrative we are reading at that moment. Of course, the "Love Story" mentioned as un undertitle is the love story of Marlene (who walks into the lives of Michael and Hugh one rainy night, starting off the story there) and Michael. "Theft" is also a story of an art fraud, of mischief, even of murder, but never (at least I don't recall) have frauds and thieves been more overtly likeable than Peter Carey's characters in this novel.
"Theft: A Love Story" is sheer enjoyment, a literary masterpiece, a gem of a novel. One of the novels, which leaves you (though sad- for having finished reading it) with a big big smile, happy for having been fortunate to have read this book.

---

review by: date: 2008-05-14 rating:
I tried...
I give this book two stars instead of one because I could not bring myself to finish it. I hate not finishing a book once I start it, especially one such as 'THEFT' that I was so looking forward to reading, so believe me I tried. I suffered through page after page of this book for over two weeks only to get a little more than halfway through. You heard right, it took me two weeks to just get to the halfway mark, that is because every time I read a page or two I found myself falling asleep, as this had to be one of the most boring books that I have ever read! 'THEFT' has a promising concept, a former world renowned painter finds himself, after being bankrupt on the verge of making a comeback only to get involved with a mysterious woman who threatens to bring down all that he has worked for. It sounds as though the book has a lot of suspense and intrigue. There is a promise of adventure as the clues unravel about the art theft & murder but at least for the first half of this story those things come in the smallest of doses. I couldn't even give a proper synopsis of the book because as far as I could tell, not much happened other than two brothers complaining an awful lot about each other. Every time you would see a hint of the story taking shape the focus of the story would change and it ended up being dragged out.

Again, I give this book two stars instead of one because since I did not finish it, something, somewhere down the line could happen to make this a more interesting book. However, I personally couldn't suffer through another 100 pages before that happened.

---

review by: date: 2008-02-24 rating:
I must be missing something....
This was my first Peter Carey and if it wasn't on my reading group list I would never have chosen it. I can see the book's merits, however I really didn't enjoy this book at all and found its negative, cynical tone quite depressing.

However, the characterisations of the brothers, the evocation of their individual voices, the imagery and the tangible descriptions of life in small town Australia are masterful. The problem for me is that these make the plot line almost invisible. I was so involved in the inner dialogues that I couldn't figure out what was happening in the plot.

The book's themes are very interesting and thought-provoking, and I loved the final sentence of the whole thing (admittedly partly because it was just that)for its wise, prophetic tone.

I'm glad to have read this, and it's likely that I will dip into it again, because the writing is stunning in parts. But I am not a Carey convert through this offering.

(For an interesting counterpoint to the themes of this book check out Lewis Hind's The Gift - especially the first part exploring the value vs giftedness of art.)


review by: date: 2008-01-19 rating:
I admire this book a great deal, but I can't say that I really enjoyed it
Carey does well in creating two distinct voices for Butcher and his brother and really does a great job in conveying their personalities. Butcher is a selfish, self-centred man, fully focused on creating his work and bitter that he is no longer in fashion and thereby unable to command high prices. Hugh is an idiot-savant (at times, too savant for my liking) and with a tendency to TALK IN CAPITALS at odd times in his narration. In reality, the story is about the relationship between these two men - the resentment that Butcher feels for having to look after his damaged brother and the resentment that Hugh feels for never being allowed to do what he wants to do - and is explored through a plot concerning the theft of a painting by Leibovitz (Butcher's favourite artist and the person whose work inspired him to paint in the first place).

We meet Butcher and Hugh in the small outback town of Bellingen, where they're living in a house belonging to Butcher's patron, Jean-Paul, maintaining it for him whilst Butcher paints. Into their life crashes Marlene, a woman Butcher assumes is American, trying to get to Butcher's neighbour, Dozy (who owns the Leibowitz painting) in order to authenticate it. When the painting later goes missing, it's Butcher who is suspected of the crime and he's forced to return to Sydney, where he again meets up with Marlene and when she tells him she can help revitalise his career with a show in Tokyo, they become lovers and embark on a journey that takes them to Tokyo and Manhattan. On the way, Butcher and Hugh learn more about the Leibowitz family and Marlene's connection to them and also the dark scam at the heart of the story.

Carey is a lyrical writer and he excels at setting scenes and creating a sense of place. However, compared with the richness of the Butcher and Hugh characters, I felt that Marlene was too slight and trite a character to be truly believable and really wanted to know more about her and her relationship with Olivier than what we get on the page. Ultimately, Butcher was too bitter and unpleasant a character for me to feel drawn to, but I did feel tremendous sympathy for Hugh, albeit there were times when I'd have liked to see Carey play down the savant quality and show him as a simpler human being. Also, I felt that the plot hinged on a huge improbability (one that I'm not going to give away because I don't want to spoil it), but it was a fact that really irritated me because I'd been hoping for a more fulfilling pay off to the scam than what we're given.

---

Similar products

Everyman
The Inheritance of Loss
The Road
On Chesil Beach
Half of a Yellow Sun

---

Similar categories

Books . Subjects . Fiction . Authors, A-Z . C . Carey, Peter
Books . Subjects . Fiction . By Period . General AAS
Books . Subjects . Fiction . General
Books . Subjects . Fiction . General AAS
Books . Refinements . Language (feature_browse-bin) . English
Books . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . Paperback
Books . Refinements . Font Size (format_browse-bin) . Regular Size

---