Whitney ScharerBesprekingen

An outstanding debut novel, beautifully written and compellingly told. This work of historical fiction excavates the subject - and muse - of some famous early 20th century artists — Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and most famously and intimately, Man Ray — and shines a light on her, Lee Miller's, own artistic talent. The story is set alternately in the late 1920s-early 1930s Paris art world; the grim liberation of Europe from the Nazis in the 1940s; and the later period of decline and reminiscence in the mid 1970s.

I knew nothing about either Lee Miller or Man Ray before I read this book. However, I was absolutely fascinated by this story. Several times during the time I listened to the audio version of the book did I have to take a break to google both Lee Miller Man Ray for their art.

Now, I had an ecopy of this book, but I decided to listen to the audio version during work. However, I couldn't stop listening and start reading when I got home. The narrator, Therese Plummer did such an excellent work that I just couldn't stop listening to her telling the story about Lee and Man. I have a favorite scene from the narrator, and it's when Lee and Man are in the darkroom for the first time and you can really feel the tension between them. Listening to the scene (and other intense scenes) is just, in my opinion, even better than reading them when the narrator does such a good job as with this book.

It's so easy to forget that this is just fiction (based on facts) when you read this book. The characters come to life in a way that makes you think that this is all true. Like there was a stenographer there all the time writing down everything that happened and was said. That's how I felt listening to the book. Like I was a fly on the way witness all that happened.

In the end, I just want to say that this is an absolutely fantastic book! And I recommend it warmly. Read it, listen to it. Do what feels best for you!

Complex Life of Lee Miller

Historical novels are one thing. Historical biographies of a real person are all together another. In the typical historical novel, generally the facts run true to course and authors insert their fictional character to interact with the historical ones in the context of actual events. In the historical biographical novel, the person, in this case Lee Miller, is the central character. The author has to read a lot into the person, which it seems is what Whitney Scharer has done in The Age of Light. Has she done a good job? She’s done a better job than a number of recent biographical novels that come to mind, among them The Paris Wife and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

Scharer focuses on a narrow but important slice of Lee Miller’s life, Miller’s formative years developing her photographic skills first as an assistant and then partner of Man Ray. She met Man, as he liked to be called, in 1929. She started as his assistant. She soaked up knowledge and got to exercise her creative aspirations, even taking over some of his fashion work, freeing him to work on his art. They also became lovers. At first, they were unbridled passion for each other. Then he was all passion for her, but also controlling. He betrayed her artistically, according to the novel. She reciprocated by betraying him sexually. Finally, she left Man in 1932, devastating him. (They did later in life becomes friends.)

Scharer portrays Miller as a complex woman. Miller understood her sexual powers and used them to her advantage. Commitment put her off, and yet she felt dependent on a men, probably because of the relationship she’d had with her father, a man who photographed in the nude as a child, even after a family acquaintance raped her at seven. Then, too, at the time, living as a fully independent woman was challenging, to put it mildly. Even within the avant-garde set in which she and Man lived, free love, for example, involved women but also excluded them as well when in a relationship.

Scharer intersperses fast forwards to Miller’s life as a war photographer and correspondent for Vogue, a magazine she had a long affiliation with as a model and photographer. Given to periods of depression when she was with Man, these bouts intensified during the war and after the war. As Scharer points out, Miller observed and recorded some horrifying things. For instance, you can find online her photo of Leipzig Deputy Mayor Ernst Kurt Lisso and his family after they committed suicide in his office. Imagine walking in on this scene of horror. As a matter of fact, looking up Miller’s and Man’s photos as you read along is one of the pleasures of the novel.

Scharer in her afterword states that her goal was to show Miller’s complexity, the complicated nature of her character, both creative and ambitious, but also fragile and flawed. Miller does come across as this, but not necessarily someone you might be comfortable with. And because this is a novelization of her life, you do wonder, was Lee Miller really like this?

Complex Life of Lee Miller

Historical novels are one thing. Historical biographies of a real person are all together another. In the typical historical novel, generally the facts run true to course and authors insert their fictional character to interact with the historical ones in the context of actual events. In the historical biographical novel, the person, in this case Lee Miller, is the central character. The author has to read a lot into the person, which it seems is what Whitney Scharer has done in The Age of Light. Has she done a good job? She’s done a better job than a number of recent biographical novels that come to mind, among them The Paris Wife and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

Scharer focuses on a narrow but important slice of Lee Miller’s life, Miller’s formative years developing her photographic skills first as an assistant and then partner of Man Ray. She met Man, as he liked to be called, in 1929. She started as his assistant. She soaked up knowledge and got to exercise her creative aspirations, even taking over some of his fashion work, freeing him to work on his art. They also became lovers. At first, they were unbridled passion for each other. Then he was all passion for her, but also controlling. He betrayed her artistically, according to the novel. She reciprocated by betraying him sexually. Finally, she left Man in 1932, devastating him. (They did later in life becomes friends.)

Scharer portrays Miller as a complex woman. Miller understood her sexual powers and used them to her advantage. Commitment put her off, and yet she felt dependent on a men, probably because of the relationship she’d had with her father, a man who photographed in the nude as a child, even after a family acquaintance raped her at seven. Then, too, at the time, living as a fully independent woman was challenging, to put it mildly. Even within the avant-garde set in which she and Man lived, free love, for example, involved women but also excluded them as well when in a relationship.

Scharer intersperses fast forwards to Miller’s life as a war photographer and correspondent for Vogue, a magazine she had a long affiliation with as a model and photographer. Given to periods of depression when she was with Man, these bouts intensified during the war and after the war. As Scharer points out, Miller observed and recorded some horrifying things. For instance, you can find online her photo of Leipzig Deputy Mayor Ernst Kurt Lisso and his family after they committed suicide in his office. Imagine walking in on this scene of horror. As a matter of fact, looking up Miller’s and Man’s photos as you read along is one of the pleasures of the novel.

Scharer in her afterword states that her goal was to show Miller’s complexity, the complicated nature of her character, both creative and ambitious, but also fragile and flawed. Miller does come across as this, but not necessarily someone you might be comfortable with. And because this is a novelization of her life, you do wonder, was Lee Miller really like this?

Such a beautifully written book, and a gorgeous portrayal of Paris late 1920s and early 1930s. Paris was altogether another character in the story.

The Age of Light is a fictionalized story of Lee Miller, a model, photographer, and writer who lived from 1907 to 1977. In 1929, She met Man Ray, a noted artist and photographer in Paris. She had come from the United States, where she had done extensive American Vogue and Vanity Fair modeling. Her father had been the photographer for many of the nude photos that had made her famous. She has a great desire to become a photographer and settles for being Man Ray’s assistant.

While working as Man Ray’s assistant, their relationship soon changes to that of lovers. Throughout the relationship, Man Ray and Lee have mutual love and affection for each other, and sometimes the descriptions of their feelings seem more like lust. Man Ray and Lee create phenomenal paintings and photographs and enjoy artistic innovations by melding their creative artistic energy. In many ways, Man Ray demonstrates his need to exert power over Lee rather than empower her to be an artist based on her own talents. Lee becomes a peripheral part of Man Ray’s social network, but there are elements of the art scene in Paris that she is excluded from. Lee has her own set of control issues and many incidents of mistrust, jealousy, suspicion, and miscommunication lead to the gradual demise of their three-year relationship.

Whitney Scharer attempts to educate readers about Lee Miller’s biographical information. Lee was raped at age seven by a family friend and contracted gonorrhea. This seemed significant in her childhood. There is also a claim that Lee’s mother was jealous of her and her relationship with her father. These events from her early life were not developed as bio-fiction plot points. Additionally, the prologue focuses on Lee’s eventual marriage to Roland Penrose, but there is little information about this part of her life in the book.

Interspersed in the Man Ray story are snippets of Lee Miller’s work as a photojournalist during World War II, which obviously took place years later. Settings include London, Normandy, and Saint-Malo. I wished that these segments were fleshed out a bit more so that I could have better understood Lee Miller when she finally worked on her own as an artist, rather than in the shadows of Man Ray. Whitney Scharer’s emphasis was more on romance than a biography, which interfered with the enjoyment of a novel that I thought would highlight the work of an exceptional woman.

https://quipsandquotes.net/?p=611

Elizabeth „Lee“ Miller hat in Amerika gemodelt. Doch sie wollte mehr. Sie wollte fotografieren. Sie ist erst 22 Jahre, als sie nach Paris kommt, wo sie als Assistentin des Fotografen Man Ray arbeitet. Schon bald beginnt eine Liebesbeziehung zwischen den beiden. Lee möchte auch Fotografin werden, doch Ray will das aus eifersüchtigen Gründen nicht. Er betrachtet sie weiterhin als Assistentin. Aber Lee ist eine starke Frau und sie geht ihren Weg. Bekannt wurde sie durch ihre Fotografien, die sie als Kriegsreporterin im zweiten Weltkrieg gemacht hat.
Mir hat dieser Roman gut gefallen. In jener Zeit war es Frauen kaum möglich, ihren eigenen beruflichen Weg zu gehen. Frauen sollten sich um Familie und Haushalt kümmern. Ein Beruf wurde daher als unnötig betrachtet. Falls sie aber versuchten, ihren Weg zu gehen und beruflich erfolgreich zu sein, so wurden die Leistungen nicht anerkannt und ihnen Steine in den Weg geworfen. Aber Lee lässt sich davon nicht beeinflussen, sie hat ihre Vorstellungen vom Leben und geht ihren Weg trotz aller Widerstände.
Auch wenn ein Großteil ihrer Geschichte von ihrer Beziehung zu Man Ray erzählt, so konnte man ihre Entwicklung doch gut verfolgen. Lee hat eine facettenreiche Persönlichkeit. Dabei ist sie keinesfalls fehlerlos, aber ich mochte sie dennoch. Besonders interessant war für mich ihre Zeit als Kriegsfotografin.
Ein interessanter Roman über eine faszinierende starke Frau, die ein selbstbestimmtes Leben führen möchte.

This book is well written but there really is no plot. It's really just willy-nilly with seemingly no point and I lost interest. The World War II sections were great but unfortunately there's just not enough of them to keep my interest with this one.

The Age of Light follows the passionate affair of Lee Miller and Man Ray, real-life,famous innovative photographers. Set against the backdrop of 1930's Paris interspersed with scenes of Lee Miller's life as a war correspondent during WWII, the historical fiction novel focuses more of the plot towards Lee Miller, including early childhood memories, trauma, and her turbulent relationship with her parents. The author's writing is superb and kept me engrossed until the very end. I loved the focus the author gave to Miller's search for independence and acceptance as a woman in a predominantly male profession. The characters were well developed and felt true to what is known about their lives. The setting was fantastic. Many scenes were so well described that I felt as if I were there. This was a fabulous book and I enjoy looking forward to seeing more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, for an advanced copy of the book given in exchange for an honest review.

Ecellent biographical fiction - Man Ray and Lee Miller had a complicated professional and personal relationship well documented here.

Elizabeth „Lee“ Miller war gerade erst 22 Jahre alt, als sie nach Paris kam. In den USA hatte sie gemodelt, aber festgestellt, dass ihr das zu wenig war, sie wollte lieber selbst fotografieren. In Paris trifft sie den Fotografen Man Ray, der sie als Assistentin für sein Studio engagiert. Doch schnell entwickelt sich eine Liebesbeziehung zwischen den beiden. Lee möchte Fotografin werden, aber Ray ist eifersüchtig und betrachtet sie auch weiterhin nur als Assistentin. Doch sie will sich behaupten und geht ihren eigenen Weg. Bekannt wird sie wegen ihrer Arbeiten, die sie als Kriegsreporterin im zweiten Weltkrieg gemacht hat.
Es ist eine Zeit, in denen Frauen ein selbstbestimmtes und unabhängiges Leben kaum möglich war. Wenn sie ihrer Berufung nachgehen und es ihm Beruf zu etwas bringen wollten, nahm man sie nicht für voll und machte ihnen das Leben schwer. Anerkennung für ihre beruflichen Leistungen bekamen sie nicht. Doch Lee hatte ihre eigenen Vorstellungen von ihrem Leben. Sie will Fotografin werden und sie geht ihren Weg trotz Widerständen. Ich konnte mich gut in sie hineinversetzen und sie war mir trotz ihrer Fehler sehr sympathisch. Im Laufe der Geschichte entwickelt sie sich weiter und zeigt eine Reihe von Facetten ihrer Persönlichkeit.
Ihre Liebesbeziehung zu Ray nimmt in diesem Buch einen relativ großen Raum ein, dabei ist das nicht unbedingt der interessante Teil ihrer Lebensgeschichte. Doch ich denke, dass diese unabdingbar ist, für ihren weiteren Werdegang. Die Zeit als Kriegsfotografin ist für mich viel spannender.
Ich finde es auch sehr spannend, einen Blick aus heutiger Sicht auf Lee Millers Kampf um ihren Weg und die Anerkennung ihrer Arbeit zu werfen.
Mir hat dieser Roman über eine außergewöhnliche und faszinierende Frau, die für ein selbstbestimmtes Leben kämpfte, sehr gut gefallen.

Que vient faire ce titre pour un livre qui parle, c'est vrai, beaucoup de photographie, mais surtout, surtout d'amour, d'alcool et de sexe. Biographie un peu trop grandiloquente de Lee Miller, pauvre jeune et jolie femme égarée dans le milieu surréaliste parisien, tombant amoureuse de Man Ray tout en ayant conscience de sa domination et de son égoïsme, allant jusqu'à signer seul des œuvres réalisées à deux. La fin de Lee est pitoyable, ça, on n'y peut rien , ce doit être la réalité, mais elle aurait pu être présentée avec un peu moins de pathos.

I was intrigued to read this one as I love books built around famous painters. The painter in this instance is Man Ray who is a well known surrealist painter from the 1920's and 1930's. Lee Miller was an American Vogue model aspiring to be a photographer. She finds herself somehow in Paris in 1929 and in Man Ray's orbit. Lee is trying to break away from modelling and wants to pursue photography so was thrilled to get a job as Man Ray's assistant. Lee almost loses her identity in Man Ray's shadow, but she still attempts to get him to teach her everything he knows about photography. Man is attracted to her beauty and endlessly paints and photographs her. But all is not well in their Paris studio. Lee keeps trying to break out from under Man's thumb, and Man continues to try to keep her there. The story ran hot and cold for me though. Parts of the book were quite good. I really enjoyed the photographic insight and I loved the setting - Paris just before WWII. But, I have to admit that I couldn't stand Lee. She is a grasping, selfish and unlikeable person, but I suppose that is how you have to be if you want to pursue your goals, no matter what the cost. Man Ray himself was egotistical, manipulative and controlling, but again not that unusual for a famous artist. The main thing I didn't like though were the graphic sexual scenes throughout the book. I must admit I wasn't prepared for those. The bones of the story are fairly good though, so that is why I gave it three stars instead of one or two. It is a pretty good snapshot of life in Paris just before the war, and of the lifestyles of famous people. There is some name-dropping too such as Ernest Hemingway, Picasso and Jean Cocteau. The book switches timelines from 1930's France to the war years when Lee was a war photographer and correspondent. This allows us to see that she did manage to continue her career at the end of her relationship with Man Ray. If you are interested in 1930's French artists, photography and film-making you may enjoy this book.

This was an unexpectedly good book about, to me at least, a less than captivating subject. The focus here is the artist/photographer Man Ray and his assistant/partner Lee Miller and their evolving relationship in Paris as she struggles to be an artist in her own right. Photography and painting would not be a subject that I would indulge in. but I got an ARC so I decided to give it a whirl. I read constantly and can never remember a novel where the characters come so alive. to me. I loved it.

Lee Miller was Man Ray's assistant and lover; together, they discovered the technique they called solarization. But Lee, like other women artists of the period, was shunted aside as the men took all the credit. She and Man each betray the other, in different ways, and they go their separate ways: Lee becomes a war photographer and journalist, then marries Roland and moves to the British countryside, where she struggles with depression and alcoholism until her editor commissions her to write about her time with Man Ray.

Quotes

...if you tell something enough times it becomes true, just the way a photograph can trick you into thinking it's a memory. (16)

Here in Paris, where she has come to start over, to make art instead of being made into it, no one pays much attention to Lee's beauty. (20)

...she finds she prefers the world boxed up, contained inside the camera's frame. (68)

"Light is our tool. Film is just a surface for capturing and holding light, but until the film has been developed, extra light becomes the enemy." (89)

Maybe she doesn't like how vulnerable the words [I love you] make her feel: how they show her to be a person who feels deeply and demands reciprocation of that feeling. (221)

Or she can leave. Lee has always been good at solving problems by leaving....If she leaves, maybe she can stave off the sadness that threatens to engulf her. (226)

And she thinks, with a feeling of wonder, that her life is like a giant turning crystal, each surface catching the light at a different time. (296)

"My art - it's about choosing when I release the shutter. It's not about setting up a scene and making a picture of it. It's about being somewhere at the exact right moment and deciding it's a moment when no one else might think it's anything." (315)½

This is a beautiful, profoundly moving account of the life of Lee Miller, model, photographer and war correspondent who is not as well known as she should be. The book opens in 1966 when, settled in a stale marriage in England, Miller's good friend and editor suggests that she write an article about her time with Man Ray in 1920s/1930s Paris. The book then moves back in time to tell the remarkable story of a city at the height of artistic creativity and style. This is a fictionalised historical biography, and Whitney Scharer proves to be a wonderful writer, capturing the spirit of the age and its characters.

Miller, having moved to Paris from America, meets the famous artist and Surrealist Man Ray and starts a passionate affair. Their life is a social whirl of parties and artistic creation; here we meet Salvador Dali, Jean Cocteau (in whose 1930 film ‘The Blood of a Poet’ Miller acts) and many others. There are many conversations about artistic manifestoes and techniques which never intrude in the development of the story, and which actually were really interesting. Both Miller and Ray are complicated characters, each with their own emotional baggage and, even without knowing the story, we know it is a doomed love affair from the start. What Scharer creates, however, is a beautifully poetic telling of a particular time and she draws her characters with such precision and skill that I felt myself really invested in the story.

The novel is written in the present-tense, which I felt entirely appropriate for a book with the artistic process at its heart. There is an immediacy to the events, a sense of creation in progress, and it is all done with great lyricism and skill. And the ending, when Miller and Ray meet after a long time gap, is a subtle and clever acknowledgment of the limits of the form of book Scharer has written. Some things we will never know (exactly what was said, how people really feel): ‘What passes between them will be just a memory. There are no pictures of it.’

Interspersed throughout the book are flashes forward from the main time-frame to Miller’s time as a war photographer, and her experiences in witnessing the horrors of war and, in particular, the liberation of some of the concentration camps. It helps to create a picture of a complex and emotionally battered artist, who thoroughly deserves being ‘celebrated’ in this book. It reminded me of the stories of Dora Carrington or Frida Kahlo and is a timely and important book.

Lyrical, honest and moving, this is a wonderful exploration of the artistic process, a particular period in time, and an unflinching look at characters who are all too human. This may well be one of my books of 2019..

This is one of those novels that sends me to the non-fiction stacks in the library to learn more about its main character. I knew that Lee Miller had been a war correspondent, but did not know that she also was a fashion model, and the assistant to and muse for Man Ray. a commercial photographer in her own right, and also the wife of the British surrealist painter and curator Roland Penrose.

This book concentrates primarily of Miller's relationship with Man Ray and her own coming of age as a photographer in her own right, interspersed with vignettes of her later traumatic experiences as a photographer and war correspondent during Work War II. It's a great study of a woman coming to terms with herself and casting aside the conventional female roles - even in Bohemian circles - and striking out on her own to follow her own dream.

I'd never heard of Lee Miller prior to this novel, but I love 1930s Paris, so I had to pick up this book. Now that I have, I'm wondering why I've not encountered this woman before. Lee Miller lived a life full of art and fame - she was first an American model, then an artist and photographer and even a WWII photojournalist. She worked with the greats of her era and had an affair with Man Ray, who was both her lover and teacher. Lee Miller is a woman one should hear more about, and I hope this book generates more interest in her life and work. Plus, it's a good book to read and escape to 1930s Paris through, too.

I made rather heavy weather of The Age of Light by debut American author Whitney Scharer. It's a fictionalised slice of the life of Lee Miller, one of those women more famous for 'being the wife of', than for her own achievements which were considerable. But though the novel does reveal the talent, hard work and determination of a woman who broke into the emerging field of professional photography, the novel focusses a great deal on Lee's romance with the surrealist photographer Man Ray, IMO at the expense of other aspects of Miller's life. At 367 pages, the novel just seemed too long for itself.

However, Scharer writes evocatively of Miller's artistry as a photographer, so much so that I put the book aside to explore her oeuvre online. After her experiences as a photographer during the war, Miller married in the UK and had a son, Penrose, who has rescued her work from the attic, as it were, and created a magnificent digital archive of thousands of photos by Miller, mainly from the 1940s. The photos show the range of Miller's craft, including striking shots of Parisian life, Paris fashion, her surrealist compositions and her work as a war correspondent at Normandy and Dachau.

It was this work at the liberation of the camps which traumatised Miller, and the novel begins with her declining years at Farley Farm, where she lived postwar with her husband the artist Roland Penrose and became a food writer. The stage is set with a surreal dinner party where the meal somehow survives her alcoholism but her editor at Vogue is under no illusions. From there the novel switches to Miller's 1929 arrival in Paris and her ambition to leave behind a successful modelling career and move to the other side of the lens. She attracts the attention of Man Ray and agrees to pose for him in hope of learning the craft of photography, as much a matter then of developing the negatives as it was of managing light, exposures and unwieldy equipment. This aspect of Miller's career is fascinating, and the decadent artistry of the era is effectively made more striking by the author's insertion of brief scenes from WW2 that illustrate how traumatic it was for war correspondents present at the liberation of the camps.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/02/20/the-age-of-light-by-whitney-scharer/

The Age of Light is the story of Lee Miller. A Vogue model turned photographer. Lee went to Paris to work with Man Ray and learn the art of photography. It's the 20s in Paris, so imagine the vice and decadent lifestyles. Lee and Ray had a love affair. But, he was obsessed with her beauty. She didn't want to be viewed as a beautiful toy for any man. Their relationship suffered and eventually ended once her talent in photography eclipsed his. The student becomes the teacher. Miller went on to take stunning photos of WWII. This is a fascinating story about a remarkable woman. Definitely recommend if you have any interest in the subject. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Initially, I was skeptical since there have been many semi-fictionalized biographies of women, primarily. This is well-written and follows the facts of their lives faithfully. Scherer's dialogue rings true, thankfully. There are some vivid descriptions of sex rendered without resorting to flowery or lurid prose. Anyone interested in this era and milieu would enjoy it and may encourage you to explore further via histories and memoirs. It is a good read that moves quickly.
A friend gave me an advance reader's copy. I have no investment in the success of the book.

In 1929, American Lee Miller moved to Paris to become a photographer. She was not stranger to cameras; she had a career as a model of Vogue, and her father used her as a model from toddlerhood on. But she doesn’t want to be a model anymore; she wants to be a creator of art, rather than someone to be gazed upon. These are the days of the Dada and Surrealist movements, of Picasso and Cocteau. She hasn’t been there long before she meets the much older Man Ray and they soon develop a relationship that is sexual, emotional, creative, and business. He teaches her the art and tricks of photography, while she takes care of the business of his studio. He nurtures her talent, but is very possessive, even, at one point, claiming a technique she developed as his own. She is possessive in some ways, too; she was obsessed with Kiki de Montparnasse, Ray’s ex who had posed nude many times.

Miller is not all about Ray, though. She was a war photographer during WW 2, going into dangerous areas; this is the part of her life she is most renowned for. She later became a 5 star chef and a food writer for Vogue- and also an alcoholic. This is an engrossing story of a woman trying to make it in the world on her own considerable talents, rather than as the wife or mistress of a man. Along with the standards of the time that dismissed women as trivial, she had to fight to overcome having had a pretty creepy father and a childhood rape. I loved the eccentric characters that she knew during the 30s, and the descriptions of the parties and dinners. Miller and Ray are extremely interesting characters, but frequently unlikable ones. The writing is lovely. Four stars.