The Painter of Battles: A Novel

Arturo Pérez-Reverte paints a dark picture of how an artist's war experience effects how the creative image distorts reality for his novel, THE PAINTER OF BATTLES: A NOVEL. The story centers on the main character, Andrés Faulques, a war photographer, and who is referred to as the "painter of battles" who has now taken up painting as a way to express the ravages of war that he has personally experienced as well as the history of war that has been depicted for twenty-six centuries through a painting or photograph. While Faulques is busily painting a mural, he is confronted with his past, which revolves around fellow photographer and lover, Olvido Ferrera, and a visit from a stranger, Ivo Markovic, with whom he shares long conversations with about the images he has captured in his photographs. This is a complex story that is cleverly written with much artistry and allegory. Although the book is not considered a suspense novel, there are elements within the contents of the book that portray subtle tints of suspense. The conversations between Faulques and Markovic examine the human condition as it relates to the war experience of the late twentieth century wars in Eastern Europe, Africa, Central America, and Asia, which the camera has captured and frozen in time. The dialogue between these characters may have the reader reeling with questions about a historical event, and how the photograph of that event lends itself to different interpretations; the photograph may be deceptive to reality. While reading Pérez-Reverte's story, Susan Sontag's book, ON PHOTOGRAPHY, comes to mind in terms of the unreality of a photographic image may convey, and how one interprets its meaning or significance to one's life. THE PAINTER OF BATTLES is an extremely graphic novel that shows the intricacies of the war experience. Pérez-Reverte succeeds in bringing the story and characters alive, but it may take more than one read to understand the complexity that is involved. The book falls within the same lines as an Ernest Hemingway novel, and is recommended reading for those who have an interest in the genre of war literature.

Andres Faulques was a war photographer and he's shot plenty, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, Eritrea and the Balkans to name a few. While shooting in what was left of Yukoslavia he got a shot of a Croatian soldier named Ivo Markovic before the battle of Vukovar. The shot was used on the cover of a lot of magazines and garnered Faulques a lot of fame. It made Markovic famous too and that wasn't good, because it destroyed his life as Markovic's face became known as the face of defeat. He was recognized at an Army detention center and tortured by Serbs and later sent to a prison camp for two long years. The cover shot also doomed his wife and child, because the Serbs went looking for them and when they found them the tortured and killed them. Now Markovic has a grudge, he wants to kill the photographer. Meanwhile Faulques has decided to hang up his camera and take up a paint brush. He lives in a three hundred year old tower by the sea on the Spanish coast where he is painting the inside of the tower with epic battle scenes. This is going to be his final work, but one day Markovic shows up at his door and tells Faulques that he is going to kill him. But not right away, first he wants Faulques to know how his famous photograph has ruined his life. And thus begins a story about two men that held me captivated. The men spend pages and pages talking to each other, going over their past, wars and how detached Faulques photos seemed. This is not your average read. It's not the kind of book that will take you away, grab you with its thrills and chills. It will keep you in your seat, keep you reading, make you wonder why people kill each other, go to war, do what they do. Arturo Perez-Reverte is a genius and only a true genius could keep you involved with a story like this. Mr. Perez-Reverte does that. This book is a masterpiece. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

The Painter of Battles is a beautifully written word picture encompassing everything from "the Butterfly effect", to art history lessons, to a morality homily on the futility of war and the evil that man bestows on his fellow man. Perez-Reverte draws you into the story as he meticulously recounts (probably from his own experiences as a war journalist) example after example of the insanity of war and examines the cruelty and finality of its outcome. In essence, Perez-Reverte gives us and in depth look at the nature of man who he perceives as possessing an in-born inescapable evil that he has, utilizing his superior intelligence, refined through the centurys into an art form. This story of two men, inescapably linked by a war, a chance encounter and a photograph, and the culmination of those events is mezmerizing. As the story progresses, their relationship becomes almost symbiotic in nature. This is definitely not your "run of the mill" novel and Perez-Reverte is not your run of the mill writer. His fluent prose and evocative observations will fill your mind and soul like a fine dinner satisfies your hunger. Perez-Reverte has created his own "Butterfly Effect". By writing this book, he has effected the perception of his readers.

Faulques was an award-winning war photographer. Now he pursues a lonely existence, in an abandoned watch-tower on the Spanish coast. He is painting a mural on the inside walls of the tower, a mural that will encompass (and make sense of) all the horrors of war he has witnessed. Ivo Markovic was a Croatian soldier, whose war-worn face became one of Faulques' award-winning photographs. The photograph had a horrible unforeseen effect on the young soldier's life. Olvido Ferrara was Faulques' lover, for an all too short time, before her horrible dearh. Now old and obviously ill, Faulques is trying to make sense of all that he has winessed, by painting it, when Markovic comes to visit. Comes, he tells Faulques, to kill him. But before he does, they engage in long conversations, study the painting (which will never be finished), meditate on the darkness and cruelty of the universe, reminisce and philosophize. The novel doesn't have a plot in the usual sense. It is an extended meditation on war, death, loss, cruelty and suffering. Cruelty, the old artist begins to understand, is not an aberration but the very nature of nature, part of a terrible symmetry, a balance. Author Perez-Reverte draws upon his knowledge of photography, painting, great artists, great writers, and chaos theory, to create his own verbal painting even as the painter of battles paints his mural. The book shouldn't work, but it does. I found myself riveted--even if I couldn't follow everything--even if I don't know that much about techniques of painting and photography, colors, light and shadow. The work is compelling, brilliant, horrifying and yet dazzling. If you're looking for a light, escapist read, this is not the book for you. If you enjoy literary fiction that will make you think (even suffer), then I recommend the Painter of Battles highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

This novel is a deeply moving suspense-filled reading experience. It is a personal look at what happens to an award winning war photographer many years after he gave up his profession. It is an emotional, thought-provoking, dark and tension-filled inner journey of memories and experiences which come to the surface ... when he is confronted by one of the subjects whom he photographed during the Balkan War. There is a discovery in Quantum Physics which states the person who is doing the experiment affects the outcome or results ... In a very real and personal way, the main character of this novel, Andrés Faulques, forever changed the life of one of the subjects whom he photographed during the Balkan War. Ivo Markovic is a Croatian freedom fighter whose image he captured after a particular bloody battle where very few of his comrades-in-arms survived. The photo was featured on the cover of a magazine and made the photographer famous. As a direct result of this photo, Markovic's family life was changed forever. Markovic paid the photographer a visit on the coast of Spain, where he lived in isolation. Faulques occasionally visited the town for food and paint supplies. Rarely, he ate, drank, and sat in the cafe by the seaside. The town's people knew him as a man of integrity. He was honest and punctual in paying his bills. They respected his privacy and solitary existence. He lived on a hilltop in a tower which he remodeled and made habitable. He was painting a mural which depicted the many facets of war from ancient history into modern times. It seemed like a fitting memorial and legacy of his life. Ivo Markovic came out of the blue to visit the photographer. Markovic did a lot of research to discover where Faulques lived. He wanted to understand the photographer and how he viewed life. He wanted to know what permanent scars (if any) remained with the photographer due to the war scenes he photographed. Markovic saw when Andrés' companion and lover, Olvido, once a world famous model who then became a photographer, had died after stepping on a land mine. Markovic watched Faulques go over to her and hold her in his arms. Markovic wanted to know how this loss changed Faulques' life. Markovic had a score to settle with Andrés Faulques ... he came to kill him. The reason? Faulques' photo had altered the course of Markovic's life forever. Before he settled this score, he wanted to understand and know the man whom he was going to kill. The novel builds suspense and drama in a most creative and intense manner. It is worth reading to discover how the book ends. Through conversation about war and death and personal introspection, two very different men come to certain realizations about each other and the meaning of life. They both experienced great losses through the death of a loved one during the Balkan War. This novel is contemporary and very meaningful. The author uses his own experiences as a war photographer to create a fascinating dark journey which