The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp central figures (in this case, Dr. Tulp) probably paid more, even twice as much. Rembrandt's anatomical portrait radically altered the conventions of the genre, by including a full length corpse in the center of the image (using Christ-like iconography) and creating not just a portrait but a dramatic Mise-en-scène. Rembrandt's image is a fiction; in a typical anatomy lesson, the surgeon would begin by opening the chest cavity and thorax because the internal organs there decay most rapidly. One person is missing: the Preparator, whose task was to prepare the body for the lesson. In the 17th century an important
The Anatomy Lesson (Roth novel) of writing autobiographical novels," adding, "no modern writer, perhaps no writer, has taken self-examination so far and so literally." In "The New Yorker", John Updike was more complimentary finding, "The postmodernist writer's bind is expressed in flat authoritative accents reminiscent of Hemingway...Throughout, a beautiful passion to be honest propels the grinding, whining paragraphs. Yet, though lavish with laughs and flamboyant invention, "The Anatomy Lesson" seemed to this Roth fan the least successful of the Zuckerman trio, the least objectified and coherent." The first and second books in the Zuckerman trilogy are 1979's "The Ghost Writer" and 1981's "Zuckerman Unbound". The