The Dictionary of Animal Languages

Ivory Frame has always been a rebellious one. She refuses to be subdued by the nuns at the boarding school her wealthy English parents have sent her to. She finds her way to Paris where she meets surrealists. She has a passionate love affair with a married Russian painter and becomes an artist herse......more

At the beginning of this novel, the protagonist, Ivory Frame, is a frail old woman who has just received word that she has a grand-daughter. This baffles Frame, because she has no children. This enigmatic information leads into a wonderful novel. The novel is advertised and framed as a love story bu......more

A thing of beauty. Incredible. I don't remember how this book came into my hands, but to think that it had sat on the shelf waiting for me. To read the book's description, its plot==about a 90 year old artist who collects sound, and her earlier life in Paris, the surrealists and the lives of the art......more

Michelangelo would be baffled by today’s separation of art and science, whether he hid anatomical drawings in The Sistine Chapel or not. Ivory Frame, however, finds a way to unite art and science in studying and creating her “Dictionary of Animal Languages.” A story that jumps from the present to th......more

A delight. I might never have come across this book had it not surfaced in the longlist for the Tournament of Books, but I couldn't be happier. Even as a first novel it arrives fully formed, gorgeously constructed and preternaturally poised. I have read books before which try to write about painting......more