Customer Reviews

Headlong: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I was not planning on sumbitting a review of this book until I read with alarm the undeserved slammings from the majority of the other reviewers. I was genuinely stunned to find the overwhelmingly negative response, or, at best, lukewarm reactions or damning with faint praise. This is especially true since my own experience of Headlong was extremely positive. I found the story to be engaging and funny and also well written. I found the characters believable and fully formed and did not mind at all the sidebar lecture on the Dutch Masters. In short, I LIKED it from start to finish, and found it to be one of the most entertaining novels I had read in a long time.

Considering the garbage that is being fobbed off on the unsuspecting public in the past few years, Headlong seemed like a breath of fresh air. I mean, there are some books that make it to the best seller list that make me wonder if the lost art of book-burning should be revived. But this was not one of them. Why not save the one-star reviews for books like the Historian and its idiotic and overpaid ilk?

If it is possible to experience whiplash while reading a book, then "Headlong" may be just the literary vehicle.

The deliciously measured pace with which Frayn leads us into his farce picks up speed as our art-besotted hero pratfalls his way to nabbing the missing masterpiece from its bumpkin owner.

Yet no sooner does Frayn have you hurtling along his farcical highway when he slams on the brakes and takes a sideroad into the arcane world of iconography, iconology and Netherlandish painting.

Then just as you've adjusted yourself to Frayn's scholarly, languid and rather taxing explorations of these disciplines, wham! He's put his foot to the floor and once again we're careening along with Martin Clay and his roadshow of inept scheming and second-guessing.

In the end, the reader requires a virtue which Martin seems to entirely lack: patience.

But it's worthwhile to endure with Frayn's detours and pedantry. Not only are they fascinating exercises in genuine scholarship, but they also make Martin Clay a thoroughly plausible art detective, dogged academic and blinkered buffoon.

Though sometimes ponderous, Frayn's meanderings through the artistic and political history of Europe are a curiously successful counterbalance to the slapstick results they engender.

There is one superbly comic moment which ties these two polar opposites together. It comes when Clay finally clutches his prize. His words of triumph are surprising yet obvious, and like the novel, hilarious.

Michael Frayn is an excellent writer who can appeal to the intellectuals and can also reach a mass audience with his wit and great prose. However, Headlong is a work of fiction that requires at minimum a passing knowledge of art history, because the detail is intense and can sometimes be detrimental to the plot. Even if your knowledge is minimal, an interest in art helps if you are willing to absorb the lessons that the book teaches as a matter of course. This is the book's one big flaw, because it becomes absolutely necessary to understand the historical and cultural facts that Frayn gives because they are essential to the plot moving forward and you can get bogged down in trying to follow it. It's really not that bad, but sometimes it's frustrating. In spite of that, this is one of those books that you can read in a few days because once the plot gets in full swing, there is a strong urge to get to the end and see how everything is resolved. It's very enjoyable and more importantly, makes you think. I can definitely see this novel becoming a film someday.

"Headlong" is a confession by the narrator of his failed plan to secure, identify, and present to the nation a long-lost painting by Pieter Breugel. Not entirely failed -- for a brief time at the end he does secure it -- but the rest of his plan comes to naught, as the reader knows it must, for Martin tells us in the prologue that he will come to look ridiculous. Martin's failure is the reader's fun, however. His descriptions of his country neighbor's seething mass of friendly dogs, the neighbor's forward wife, his own scurryings about the neighbor's house in an attempt to examine the painting are the top level of pleasure in this novel. The next level is more serious: a consideration of the circumstances of Breugel's life, his fears, the hidden meanings of his paintings. Frayne makes Martin's excursions into the bloody history of the Netherlands and the conditions of art production just as interesting as the adventures of his protagonist. "Headlong" is in places laugh-out-loud funny; it has tender moments of marital affection; it has intellectual detective work and art interpretation. It is my favorite novel of 1999.

"Headlong" is a very entertaining sort of novel that revolves around a wonderful plot device: a man finds, in his boorish neighbor's house, a neglected painting be believes may be a lost Bruegel. The rest of the novel revolves around his plot to confirm the painting's identity and to steal it from the undeserving neighbor. Frayn does a remarkably good job of showing how protagonist Clay, while neglecting his own philosophical scholarship, engages in his quest to confirm the painting's authenticity, and the history and art history are mixed in fast and furiously. The novel becomes one of those intellectual mysteries in which the clues are scholarly details, and this material is handled remarkably well, and I learned a great deal about Dutch political and aesthetic history. This aspect of the story, however, is hung on a less effectively executed plot to free the painting from its undeserving owner. If the book drags at times it is not because it gets bogged down in history, it is because it doesn't bog itself down sufficiently in the present. I would have liked to have seen the characters fleshed out a bit more, motives made clearer, and the emotional investments of the characters made more real. Ultimately, however, "Headlong" is an effective and engaging read.

Visited London for the first time this past August and among the highlights of the trip were reading 'Headlong' and seeing Frayn's 'Copenhagen'. Terrific blend of farce, moral ambiguity and scholarship, this is one of the best books I've read all year. Tremendously entertaining, it also includes some of the most lucid art history I've ever read. Frayn makes Bruegel's paintings come alive and his descriptions of Holland under Spanish rule are chilling. Very intelligent. Very funny.

Michael Frayn's "Headlong" takes us on a wild caper of deception, obsession, and the discovery of a lost masterpiece that could turn the art world upside down. Or not. The novel opens with a confession by the narrator, Martin Clay, that he either is a fool or a fool as well as "the subject of outrage and horror." What follows is an account of a philosopher's headlong plunge into an escapade that begins and ends in the deceptively peaceful English countryside.

Frayn deftly takes us from scholarly analysis of Flemish art to slapstick moments in the crumbling estate of country bumpkin Tony Churt. Just when we think we are learning something about the subtleties of iconography and iconology, we find ourselves laughing at Martin's desire to tackle "normalism" as his next project. Occasionally the reader is left scratching her head in disbelief at Martin's willingness to put his marriage, his reputation, and his life on the line for a hunch. But just as we wonder if this character has lost his mind, Frayn reminds us of what a truly remarkable (and lucrative) discovery it would be if his hunch were on the mark.

In the meantime, the author provokes us to think about the true value of art and what determines whether a painting is a masterpiece or worth little more than a collector's taste. Perhaps more profoundly, he also asks us to explore the human price for preserving culture. He peppers these provocations with a dose of wry British humor.

Historians' knowledge of Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, circa 1525 - 1569, leaves plenty of holes for Frayn to climb through and develop a believable theory for his tale. Just enough is know about Bruegel for scholars to salivate over the possibilities of what kind of man he was, what he believed in, and what his artistic and philosophical intentions were. Anyone who has gazed upon a Bruegel painting or print knows it can be an unsettling experience. It is easy to end up staring for twenty minutes at a peasant's gap-toothed grin before noticing a telling, sometimes macabre, detail that represents the turbulent times in which the artist painted. Or, as with the series of "The Seven Virtues," the viewer easily could get caught up in trying to decipher the multifaceted meanings of Bruegel's allegorical figures.

In the end, Martin's infatuation with Bruegel evolves not so much from the aesthetics of the artist's work, but from the genius and daring of a man who "painted the many things that could not be painted." The philosopher's fixation on one small detail reflects the real-life pains curators and collectors have gone through to identify Bruegel's work. It's worth reading "Headlong" to find out how Martin Clay becomes entangled in the world of Netherlandish art and an adventure he'll never live down.

A philosopher turned art historian chances upon a rare find in a debilitated country house - a lost painting by Bruegel, the 16th century Flemish master. There are only two problems - how can he coax it from its (semi-) legitimate owner, and how can he really be sure it's genuine, certain enough to jeopardize his wife and daughter's future?

What transpires is a headlong plunge into shame and hypocrisy. The Babel-like demolition of Martin's aspiring academic pride is painfully inevitable. Drawn deeper and deeper into a self-constructed conspiracy theory - the politicization of Bruegel's "Months" - he decides that he must possess the painting at any cost, or, rather, the attendant glory of its restoration to the world. The result is a dizzying fall from grace, scorched by his selfish, reckless ambition.

You will certainly enjoy it if, like me, you are a lover of Bruegel's beautiful paintings. I found the art history intriguing - a trail of evidence in search of a crime, and a powerful deconstruction of the terrifying political and social climate in which Bruegel worked.

The book benefits greatly from having to hand the paintings it describes - these allow you to investigate for yourself the illuminating details picked out by the narrator. I recommend Bruegel, by Keith Roberts: it has a concise biography and excellent, full-page, colour reproductions of the "Months" and other paintings described throughout the book.

In "..1568, the Holy Office [in Rome] condemmed the entire population of the Netherlands to death as heretics, and the king ordered the sentence to be carried out at once, without regard to age, sex or condition."

Readers of "The Girl in Hyacinth Blue" or "The Girl With the Pearl Earring" will find "Headlong" a bit more challenging, however, what it lacks in simplicity and slimness it makes up for in verismilitude. And, unlike one other reviewer, I don't think you have to understand all the esoterica of Dutch painting to "get" the story. Also, if you read and appreciated Simon Schama's "Embarrassment of Riches" and Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose" this book will be a welcome addition to your library.

There are two main stories in "Headlong" --the one in the foreground concerns Martin the "art dealer" philosper who is trying to pull a fast one on his neighbor Tony Churt by acquiring for a nominal sum a potentially valuable painting in the latter's possession. The second story, which I found even more intriguing, concerns the origin of the painting in question which may have been executed by Pieter Bruegel sometime in the bloody 16th Century in the Netherlands.

When Martin first describes "The Merrymakers" many readers will suspect it is a Bruegel or "after" Bruegel. Martin's search for information to determine whether or not the painting is a Bruegel leads him deeper and deeper into a bloody past that is not discussed these days. Contempory history classes teach about slavery and the destruction of American Indians (which took place at the same time), as well as the plight of Jews in WWII, but we don't hear much about the "real" bloody history of Europe--until films like "Braveheart" and "Rob Roy" and "Les Miserabe" gain our attention.

I am American of Dutch descent and have read much history on the Netherlands and the wars of religious freedom, so I was hooked from the beginning on "Headlong." I particularly liked Frayn's analogy between the Duke of Alva's troops (Philip II's Reich commisar) and the Nazi storm troopers of the 20th Century. One of my earliest memories as a child is my mother cursing the Nazis because of the havoc they wrecked on her homeland. Make no mistake about it, "Headlong" is a very serious book about very serious subjects--religious freedom, oppression and exploitation, and censorship.

The destruction of the people of the Netherlands.."seems to have been beyond even Alva, and that same year the Prince of Orange was provoked into armed revolt. The consequences...spread outward across Europe and onward through the centuries. ...To destroy the support for the rebellious provinces in the north [Holland etc.] Philip [II] had to invade England. To cover Parma's crossing of the Channel in defenseless flat-bottomed barges he had to send a naval task force. To restore Spain's falling position after the destruction of this Armada, he had to intervene agaist the Protestants in France. To stem the the hemmorrhage of wealth [from New Spain and the lost Netherlands] after his failure in France, he had to declare bankruptcy...Down went the old empire of Spain. Up came the new empires of the North."

And where did Bruegel figure in all this? I think he was a hero, but you will have to read the book and form your own conclusions. All I can say is I am going to look at the iconography in Bruegel's paintings with a new eye from now on.

Many reviewers have complained about the detail of the art history aspect of the novel. Some have even called it a flaw. I couldn't disagree more! It's the books greatest strength. The ability to reflect on what is only a mix of pigments on a canvas, and to extract intriguing insights into a long-gone century and culture is fascinating. To those familiar with the academic milieu, the iconography/iconology distinction and mutual distain is dead-on and hilarious. If you aren't interested in history and/or art, well, you might not find the book so thrilling.

The main plot is sitcomesque, to be sure (though it's not half as hokey as Ian McEwen's "Amsterdam"). Nonetheless, it is fun to watch the main character's mind at work - everybody thinks they're perfectly reasonable, now matter how flawed they are. If you enjoy that aspect of the novel, consider reading Tim Park's "Juggling the Stars" and its sequel, "Mimi's Ghost". The "protagonist" in those darkly comic books descends into multiple murder, all the while maintaining an entirely reasonable attitude (in his eyes).