Customer Reviews
Unlikeable characters fantastic plot!! - By: Alice Springs, 07 Dec 2007 
Incredibly well written tale of some very unlikeable people all trying to get their greedy mits on one painting. It is a fast paced page turner that you won't be able to put down.
BUT what makes it a real pleasure to read is that it is interspersed with mini lectures on the history of art & the role of the vatican throughout Europe during the middle ages. A true pleasure this one I highly recommend it.
Too clever by half - By: Mr Venus, 03 Apr 2007 
After the excellent "Spies" this was a disappointment. A reasonably entertaining (if rather implausible) plot is ruined by frequent & lengthy digression - mostly arcane & speculative musings on 16th century Flemish art. I'm sure it's all clever stuff & meticulously researched, but it's actually rather boring & frustrating when it's holding up the story. Of course it might be suggested that all the discursive cobblers is a necessary device to wind the reader up so that he/she becomes as frustrated with the main character (a complete w*nker) as his poor wife is. The problem is that that kind of literary legerdemain has a tendency to backfire unless it's carefully handled. It isn't here.
In fact the book would have benefitted from putting all the guff about Breugel & his contemporaries into an appendix at the back. As someone with a mild interestin Dutch/Flemish art, I'd have been quite happy to read that at my leisure so long as it wasn't interfering with the narrative flow. I suppose my message to Mr Frayn would be to remember the maxim "No-one likes a smartarse".
Funny, entertaining, interesting and clever - all in one! - By: Rivercassini, 28 Jan 2007 
I really enjoyed this engaging literary romp around the mind of a philosopher (or, perhaps, more correctly, I should say his mind & his other mind) & through the 16th century dutch art world. Pleasantly written, with plot that jogs along just as you need it to, you find yourself digesting large amounts of European history without realising you are doing so. This is entertainment learning at its very best.
I liked the way the story flitted between 16th century Holland & 20th century rural England with such ease. I liked the recognisable, engaging characters - especially as they all seemed to warm & fill out as the book went along. Frayn's wit is sharp & pointed - almost to the point of pain at times. I was laughing out loud as Martin circled St James's Square for the seventh timein his clapped out landrover pulling a trailer bound together with baler twine & stinking of sheep's urine, only to miss out on the parking space because he wasn't looking! If there's one thing I didn't think matched the style of the rest of the novel it was the rather flat, cowardly denouement. But I'm not going to spoil the novel for you by telling how it ends.
One other thing. About half way through I realised the book would be so much more enjoyable if I'd had a big, glossy art book with all of Bruegel's picturesin it to hand. I didn't. And the book was too engrossing to put down for a few days while I requested one from the library. So, take a hint, unless you are familiar with the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder already, get a Bruegel book before you start.
Clever and entertaining - a perfect mix. - By: Nicholas Casley, 31 Dec 2006 
Forget the turgid mess that is the Da Vinci Code. Welcome to real literature: a good narrative; real characters; meaningful insights; a beginning, middle & end told with aplomb; & diversions into all sorts of apparently disparate but ultimately homogenous subjects. For as well as Brueghel the man, we learn of Brueghel the painter, Brueghel the esoteric, Brueghel the toady, Brueghel the freedom-fighter. There's also the fascinating history of the Dutch fight against Spanish imperialism, the iconography of Medieval books of hours, the philosophy of nominalism versus universalism, & the ins & outs of the London art market. All this wrapped upin a story of a man on a mission to save what he beleives is a lost Brueghel.
Just short of 400 pages, Frayn encapsulatesin this novel an apparent light-hearted genre piece that has,in fact, quite profound philosophical touches underneath,in particular commentary about what exactly we see when we see things & how. But you can enjoy it on many levels. One of the best works of fiction I've read this year.
An Uneasy Mix - By: A. Ross, 01 Jan 2006 Having previously enjoyed Frayn's novel Spies, I thought I'd give him another whirl, & so picked up this earlier work of his. Alas, this is a book caught between two worlds: part of it wants to be a comic romp, & part of it wants to be an art history lesson. The combination is a rather clunky & sporadically enjoyable farce. Setin the English countryside (with occasional forays into London), the story is narrated by philosophy professor Martin, who has relocated to his country cottage for the summer with his art historian wife Julia & baby daughter Tilda. The plot kicks off when they meet their overbearing cliche of a country squire neighbor, who invites them to dinner at his deteriorating mansion.
In his academic pursuits, Martin is currently veering away from philosophy & into his wife's realm, & when the neighbor asks him to look at some old paintings, the plot thickens. You see, Martin is convinced from a brief glance that a large soot-covered panel is actually a missing work of Bruegel (the 16th-century Flemish painter), one from a series titled "The Months" (of which five are extant). Frayn milks this conceit to the max, as Martin rushes too & froin great secrecy, both attempting to ascertain the work's authenticity & provenance, as well as trying to come up with a con to "have it off" the insufferable neighbor. On the painting side, this involves lots of homework on the iconography & iconology of the workin question, which Frayn handles very clumsily. There is a lot of potted art history cobbled together from various sources, including recountings of the shifting academic debates on "The Months" series. This is all doubtless fascinating to art historians, as Martin recounts all manner of speculation about encoded portrayals of Spanish persecutionin the 16th century & the issues of patronage. However, this all goes on at far greater length & detail than most readers will care for. Whenever the art history bits appear, the pace of the proceedings is inevitably ruined, as the light farce gets bogged downin arcana. It also doesn't help that one really needs to have reproductions of the paintings under discussion to look at while reading.
The rest of the book is rather more entertaining, although like many such farces, Martin creates all kinds of unnecessarily extra complications for himself by trying to keep everything secret. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from watching Martin flounder, since he's not a particularly sympathetic character. He's an average upper-middle class academic who seesin the painting his chance to score a few million & get his namein the history books. But he is constantly bedeviled by the uncertain authenticity of the painting & his own lack of funds to set up the sting of his neighbor. Other complications include the neighbor's flirty wife, the neighbor's sharp brother, & plenty of misadventures. It's all sort of funny, but also sort of pathetic to see Martin bumbling aroundin a cloud of delusional greed. Frayn is certainly adept at skewering types of characters & lifestyle, & his prose is certainly enjoyable, but it's an uneasy mix he's created here.
