The Horse's Mouth

Gulley Jimson is a totally rad main character! I've never seen a profile of an artist this imaginative and complete. Gulley lives and breathes and climbs off the page right into your reality. He is obsessed with painting--he sees things he wants to paint everywhere and he describes it all in beautiful detail. This would be annoying in any other book. But Gulley is such a charmer, and Cary so talented, that as Gulley scrapes... Read Full Review

The Horse's Mouth is the concluding volume in Joyce Cary's first trilogy. It is the story of Gully Jimson, a gifted artist but a selfish and erratic man. However, his sense of humor, even at his own misfortunes, make him an interesting character. Although this is the third volume in a trilogy, you need not have read the first two to enjoy this one. When you have read the trilogy, however, you will appreciate Cary's ability... Read Full Review

Gulley Jimson is an artistic genius. Not too many people in the novel realize it, except, perhaps, for a down and out art critic who wants to introduce him to the world and for a stammering young man, nicknamed Nosey, who idolizes and persistently follows Gulley around to the latter's constant annoyance. Although some reviewers call Gulley Jimson a con artist, he himself is "conned" out of a number of his paintings, which... Read Full Review

It's often been said that Cary's novel is the best ever written about a painter and the process he goes through in creating his art. The genius of the novel is that Gulley Jimson is such an unlikable character, given to violent fits of temper, all the while he is possessed of genuine genius and immense talent. The book is hilariously funny, but Jimson's misdeeds dangerously increase as the novel continues to the point where... Read Full Review

Our narrator in this masterpiece is the unique and insightful Gulley Jimson, a distinctly unclassifiable "modern artist." We often laugh, sometimes cry, while we learn his views on society, government, art, life. His journey through London in the late 30s and life in the late 60s is like his description of art: neither true nor false, but created. The two first books in this trilogy are fun and have the same set... Read Full Review