Headlong

Fantastic book! Fun, classic plot elements, with some great twists and turns. A very smart read, too. Bravo!

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?

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 ste

"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.

Comsidering the error in the Kirkus review (the protagonist's wife is Kate, not Julia) and the pan below by the "art historian" (with this book, Michael Frayn, among so many other things, pulls the rug out from under all interpreters of art and history), I wonder if there's anybody reading this wonderful book with a clear, interested eye. There's so much going here-an intellectual mystery, sophisticated humor, the disintegration of a consciousness and escalating slapstick-that one wonders just how many balls author Frayn can juggle. My guess, based on the wisdom, the courage, the talent on display, is as many as he wants too. Sure, the characters aren't heros, but who really fascinating is? This novel thrills, challenges, instructs and best of all, elbows you in the gut. It's as if A.S. Byatt's POSSESSION was written by Evelyn Waugh.