Who killed the knight?
Oct. 20th, 2020 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: The Flanders Panel, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
This had been on my to-read list since I created my Goodreads account in 2014, which inclines me to the view that it was one of their initial recommendations. Having considered whether I still wanted to read them, I recently took the opportunity to buy a few second-hand books on that list. As such, disappointment was inevitable.
It is the 1980s or 1990s in Madrid. Julia is an art restorer, and has just received the X-rays examining a painting she is working on in preparation for an auction sale: The Game of Chess by fifteenth-century Flemish artist Pieter van Huys (confusingly, there is a real Pieter Huys who lived about 100 years later). They reveal a hidden message, presumably written by the artist, then erased as the painting was completed. Quis necavit equitem? - Who killed the knight? Intrigued and with the expectation that further research may increase the painting's value, she and her colleagues and friends begin an investigation, but things take a dark turn as her former lover is found dead the day after she visited him to discuss the painting, and it seems they are playing their own fatal game of chess.
To be clear, I enjoyed most of the ideas in the book, and even ideas which I did not enjoy, I nevertheless found thought-provoking. There is some clever playing around and a continued air of suspense. But the writing and/or translation grates quite frequently: the characters are over-drawn, and there is an air of misogyny. It is easier to set aside attitudes and prejudices in a historical work, but (originally published in Spain in 1990) this was written as and feels like contemporary fiction. The mansplaining in the discussions with Julia about basic chess moves irritates. Julia's chain-smoking also annoys me, though in a different way. The conclusion - of which I had worked out some with a degree of probability - felt in some ways rather predictable and unimaginative, though also with some possibly unintentional humour and a clever twist.
The blurb includes a testimonial that it is "reminiscent of Umberto Eco's novels, but Pérez-Reverte's plotting is much tighter and his narrative is more exciting". So far as "tighter" can mean "shorter", and "more exciting" is a possible description of "overloaded with action", this is fair enough. Oddly, I think over time this may become more of a period piece.
This had been on my to-read list since I created my Goodreads account in 2014, which inclines me to the view that it was one of their initial recommendations. Having considered whether I still wanted to read them, I recently took the opportunity to buy a few second-hand books on that list. As such, disappointment was inevitable.
It is the 1980s or 1990s in Madrid. Julia is an art restorer, and has just received the X-rays examining a painting she is working on in preparation for an auction sale: The Game of Chess by fifteenth-century Flemish artist Pieter van Huys (confusingly, there is a real Pieter Huys who lived about 100 years later). They reveal a hidden message, presumably written by the artist, then erased as the painting was completed. Quis necavit equitem? - Who killed the knight? Intrigued and with the expectation that further research may increase the painting's value, she and her colleagues and friends begin an investigation, but things take a dark turn as her former lover is found dead the day after she visited him to discuss the painting, and it seems they are playing their own fatal game of chess.
To be clear, I enjoyed most of the ideas in the book, and even ideas which I did not enjoy, I nevertheless found thought-provoking. There is some clever playing around and a continued air of suspense. But the writing and/or translation grates quite frequently: the characters are over-drawn, and there is an air of misogyny. It is easier to set aside attitudes and prejudices in a historical work, but (originally published in Spain in 1990) this was written as and feels like contemporary fiction. The mansplaining in the discussions with Julia about basic chess moves irritates. Julia's chain-smoking also annoys me, though in a different way. The conclusion - of which I had worked out some with a degree of probability - felt in some ways rather predictable and unimaginative, though also with some possibly unintentional humour and a clever twist.
The blurb includes a testimonial that it is "reminiscent of Umberto Eco's novels, but Pérez-Reverte's plotting is much tighter and his narrative is more exciting". So far as "tighter" can mean "shorter", and "more exciting" is a possible description of "overloaded with action", this is fair enough. Oddly, I think over time this may become more of a period piece.