Review: A beautiful and troubled story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 7, 2011
It is stories like this one that move readers to set their sights on good writing and higher standards.  "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh" by Douglas Smith is a very well-written and quite a lovely story about a man named Maroch, a woman named Laure, Maroch's wife Elise, and a businessman called Karsh.  Karch makes a deal with Maroch that he will find a viewer, a person who can look at a piece of art, for example, and someone like Maroch will guide that person back in time to see the painting and where it was originally painted and where it is located now, if that information isn't known. Karsh knows that there are several Van Goghs that exist, but are not in museums anywhere and he would like to find them, because there is a lot of money in such a discovery.Karsh knows that Laure is an excellent viewer and that she is obsessed with Vincent van Gogh.  She prefers to go to the places where he painted, and so Karsh, Maroch and Laure go to Auvers, France where van Gogh did the last of his paintings and where he also killed himself.  He is buried there as well.  As Maroch thinks over things, including the death of his wife, Elise, he hears her voice in his mind giving comment on just about everything.  She still seems to be with him.  Mardoch is also falling in love with Laure, who is French-Canadian and has a police record in Canada.  She is a very broken person, and so is Mardoch, and in their own ways, they help each other and fall into a love relationship that is very tender, but fragile.The story starts at nearly the end, then goes back to the beginning as Mardoch is trying to get out of making the deal with Karsh to go along with Laure as the viewer. In the end he agrees, and what transpires after that is what happens as Mardoch and Laure begin their relationship and also work to find out more about van Gogh's missing paintings.  Laure, in Auvers, will have more power than she imagined as she sits on the ground at the church and concentrates on van Gogh and will shock both Mardoch and Karsh with what happens. She will also have the power to change the future, which gives the story its final twist.The short story was a 2009 Aurora Award Finalist. It is an excellent story and is worth reading more than once.  I highly recommend this as part of a Kindle library.