Uzès Book Club

Uzès Book Club
Tuesday 21 July, 3:00pm
At a Member’s home the third Tuesday of the Month

Our July book is ‘The Man in the Red Coat’, by Julian Barnes. In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days’ shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker – a scientific man with a famously complicated private life.

Pozzi’s life played out against the backdrop of the Parisian Belle Epoque. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.The portrait around which this history is woven is a magnificent work from Sargent’s Paris period, before he fled to London following the scandal created by another of his works – Madame X.  The member who suggested this book had been inspired by a trip to Paris last year to see an exhibition of Sargent’s Paris works, including the portrait of Pozzi, at the Musee d’Orsay.

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Book club numbers are limited, as we meet in members’ homes, and unfortunately, we currently have a waiting list. Feel free to contact us if you want to receive our reading list (created by member poll) or to be added to the waiting list.

Christine Frati                                              Angela Denton-Thompson
christine@britsnimes.com                             angeladt@britsnimes.com