4.5 out of 5: Part love story, part family saga, part crime thriller

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	• Theft Peter Carey Vintage, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

4.5 out of 5: Part love story, part family saga, part crime thriller

This is the story of an aging, out-of-style artist, his idiot savant brother, and a femme fatale they both fall for. Part love story, part family saga, part crime thriller, this book has something for everyone. The alternating narrative voices (the artist and his brother) are pitch perfect, not gimmicky. Certain plot twists are a bit unbelievable, but the ending is truly masterful: an elegant and uncontrived resolution of several complicated plot lines and character traits. If you're interested in the art scene and not afraid of a few four-letter words, you'll love this one.

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Brilliant roller coaster ride

Theft is great fun. Told in alternating voices of "ex-really famous" painter Michael Boone ("Bucher Bones") and his mentally-challenged brother, Hugh ("Slow Bones"), the story takes on a lyrical quality skipping from Australia to Japan and to New York. A bitter divorce, a complex art scam, a love story of sorts, a brutal murder and the delicate relationship between two brothers combine for a humorous, magical roller coaster ride. Carey's command of language is, in a word, brilliant.

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I expect more from Carey, but not bad!

Peter Carey is a writer I respect a lot. I think he has class and a real talent to put together great stories. Because he is so high in the ranks for me, I may be harsher with this review than with others - because "Theft" is a very good novel, showing true mastery of words, but it is not flawless.

The storyline itself is very simple; banal even, but although predictable, it is engrossing, in a sense: what kept me interested was not the anticipation of an unexpected turn of events, but rather curiosity, how the author would detangle the plot towards the end. The whole point of the plot is revealed in the title, and the details at the very beginning, so there is no waiting for the climax. Therefore, no sleepless nights for this one... The prose is very dense and not easy, characteristic for Carey, but I recommend patience because, all in all, this novel is worth reading.

An intriguing woman, Marlene Leibovitz, appears once at the doorstep of the mansion, where an impoverished, forgotten painter, Michael Boone, is allowed to live with his not the smartest brother Hugh (who not without reason earned himself the nickname "Slow Bones") in exchange for being a caretaker. Both brothers fall in love with Marlene as she involves them in her giant theft scheme. Marlene needs Michael, because the object of the grand theft is a painting by her late father-in-law, an enormously famous painter... The action moves in a brisk pace from Australia through Japan to New York City (the latter being the only place, where Hugh does not get lost because of the grid and he loves it).

Reading "Theft" I could not avoid comparisons with "Oscar and Lucinda", the first of Carey's novels I read, which is amazing, in my opinion. The two fundamental differences are: the style of narration - here two alternating, first-person narrators (both brothers) present their stories from the inside of the plot; in "Oscar and Lucinda" there is an omniscient, third person narrator; and the anticlimactic plot - both the love story and the theft story have easy to imagine outcomes; "Oscar and Lucinda" was phenomenally surprising (and the ending was worth the wait). There are also similarities: very original main characters (although Oscar and Lucinda are the unbeatable pair, Michael and Hugh are very good too, painfully real and at the same time as far from typical as only possible, living their own lives with strong personal philosophies), and the obsessive passion for - there it was gambling, here art. I feel that Carey likes the obsession motif, always very promising, and he gives it an interesting angle. The multi-level schemes, which also appear in both novels, cheating and cheating the cheaters, are fun too.

I found the ending (despite not expecting much of it) a bit of a disappointment, I felt that the idea somehow got diluted. I hated Marlene, her character was extremely irritating and obnoxious (maybe this was intended; or maybe male readers would find her as charming as Michael Boone did). I loved the narration, I like when the novel is shown from different points of view complement each other.

"Theft" gets four stars from me, because I know that Carey can do better and I expect him to. But it is a good, original novel.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Michael "Butcher" Boone is an ex-?really famous" painter, now reduced to living in a remote country house and acting as caretaker for his younger brother, Hugh. Alone together they've forged a delicate equilibrium, a balance instantly destroyed when a mysterious young woman named Marlene walks out of a rainstorm and into their lives. Beautiful, smart, and ambitious, she's also the daughter-in-law of the late great painter Jacques Liebovitz. Soon Marlene sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making--or the ruin--of them all.

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