Poisoned Ivy by Scot D. Ryersson

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I think Poisoned Ivy was inspired by the very own life of J.C. Leyendecker, the artist whose illustration is on the cover; at the beginning of the XX century he was a very famous advertising illustrator and most of the time he used the same model, Charles Bean, who was also his in-living model and partner. Charles’s relationship with Leyendecker was of love (probably) and possession (for sure), arriving to almost captivity at the end of Leyendecker’s life, when Charles was his only connection with the outside world. Charles didn’t survive Leyendecker for many years, almost proving that, where one was the other soon followed, Charles the always present shadow of the artist.

At the beginning of this novella, it’s easy to recognize in Wynter, the young and almost detached from reality artist, Leyendecker, and in Crale, handsome like and Adonis, friendly and loved by everyone in the college campus of Yale, the notorious Charles. But Charles/Crale is not the man in the Football Hero image in the cover; the man in that image is rougher, stronger, earthier. Where Crale has the body of a renaissance man, a Greek warrior maybe, Marrok, the man in that image, is more a Roman gladiator, where Crale represents the philosophy and study, Marrok is more sweat and game fields.

Both of them, in any case, are the epitome of something that was dying: after the I World War and before the II World War, the hero was dying, and the massification was starting. And being a different type of hero, both of them could have been good for Wynter.

Crale loves Wynter, that is clear, but his love is possession; he is from a wasp family, old and wealthy, and he was taught that, only for his name, everything was due to him. He “chooses” Wynter, and then he wants Wynter, no matter if Wynter is not aware of that, or if maybe he doesn’t want it. Crale knows better, he knows what is good for his friend. If Marrok didn’t enter the picture, Crale would have probably obtained his goal, and probably Wynter would have not minded that life.

But with Marrok everything is different; in a way Crale doesn’t want to awake Wynter to reality, he doesn’t want for him to be aware of the “world”: if Wynter remains detached, Crale has power on him, he will be his only link to reality. Marrok instead is like a shake, he turns upside down Wynter’s world, changing its course irremediably.

Problem is that the author had to do a choice, and probably he placed passionate love before the esthetical one. I think that he was a bit too harsh with Crale, some of the scenes were so tender (when he “kisses” Wynter’s cup to savour the essence of his beloved), that I was really cheering half for him and half for Marrok, I was not really able to choose.

http://www.bcpinepress.com/catalogDetail.php?bookCode=0050

Amazon Kindle: Poisoned Ivy

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Alex Beecroft, Cover Illustration by J.C. Leyendecker

Comments

[lazylfarm.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Elisa, for this review. It sounds like you enjoyed the story, even if you were a bit conflicted at the end...

L

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

In the end, I would have liked for Wynter to split himself, one for Crale and one for Marrok, but that was not possible.