Sound and Vision
William Boyd, Love is Blind
Viking, 384pp, £18.99, ISBN 9780241295939
reviewed by Christopher Shrimpton
On a grey day in Edinburgh at the tail-end of the nineteenth century, a young Scotchman – full of talent and promise – looks out through his shop window and sees little to stir the spirit. The heavy rain has turned the sooty buildings near black, and the sky hangs crushingly low. He optimistically polishes and replaces his glasses, taking a second look. The scene remains bleak.
The young man is Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner for an Edinburgh piano maker, and he is at the beginning of an adventure. Edinburgh is too depressing and his job too unrewarding. He is a gifted pianist with perfect pitch, reduced to attracting punters by tickling the ivories in the showroom window. One day Brodie is summoned to his boss’ office and given an escape route. The owner’s profligate son has been installed in a newly established Paris branch, which is, unsurprisingly, doing poorly. Would Brodie accept a raise and move from dreary Edinburgh to the City of Lights?
What follows is a fleet-footed adventure from Scotland to Paris to St Petersburg to the south of France and beyond, ending, unexpectedly as it does, on the remote Andaman Islands. This global hopscotch is occasioned by Brodie’s blind love for Lika Blum, the muse of both concert pianist John Kilbarron and his brother Malachi.
William Boyd has shown himself to be a nimble and humorous writer. From the Wavian black comedy of his early novels A Good Man in Africa and An Ice-Cream War to the deftness of Any Human Heart, Boyd has displayed a light touch and roving intelligence. He has very decisively cast this tale in the solid mould of the nineteenth-century historical adventure novel, particularly in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson. The novel opens with a quote from Stevenson’s Virginibus Puerisque: ‘falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world.’ Thus is our hero ensnared early on, destined for an illogical adventure.
The plot often depends upon doubtful human behaviour and heavy-handed contrivances – a particular brand of cigarettes may turn out to be important if it is mentioned often enough – but there is enough life and colour to hold the eye. We are given fine villains and fine set-pieces. John Kilbarron is a drink-sodden genius in the Romantic tradition, with lank hair, an open shirt front and an opium addiction. His more sinister brother, Malachi, has a touch of Tammany Hall thuggish swindler about him: puffing on a cheroot, bursting from his bright waistcoat, he often darkens doorways to extract money for his brother.
The action unfolds against a rich backdrop. Brodie is carried first-class through the blissfully doomed world of fin-de-siècle Europe. Food, apartments and music are attentively described. The action that plays out against this scenery is equally rich. Decisive moments unfold with a sense of occasion, delivered in slightly breathless prose. Here is Brodie’s pistol duel with Kilbarron:
And here is Brodie’s father, a minister, about to deliver a fire and brimstone sermon:
This is all good fun. However, Brodie’s rather stagey father is in keeping with a feeling of artificiality that permeates Love is Blind. GK Chesterton described Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae (a novel read by Brodie) as ‘literally a sketch in black and white.’ He meant this as a compliment on its well-balanced artistry. In Love is Blind, a similar approach is in evidence. Brodie’s father is black-hearted and falsely dressed ‘in a black surplice’ with dyed red hair; Malachi Kilbarron is a shadowy figure shrouded in smoke, with a ‘grey-flecked, dense, black goatee’ and ‘dark grey suit.’ The unattainable Lika Blum is ambiguous, sometimes dressed in white, other times all black. Brodie’s father despises his son partly for being suspiciously dark of complexion, a curiosity that is never explained or returned to. Chesterton drew attention to this technique in Stevenson as a sign of care and assiduity, but in Boyd it feels confected and second-hand. So too with Boyd’s prose style, which can often lapse into easeful cliché and clunky exposition. For example, it feels as though a great many chapters end with some variation of ‘everything was falling into place,’ and the need to corroborate Brodie’s musical expertise allows for dull recitations of ‘Discovered and patented in 1821, it was an arrangement of levers that. . .’
Happily, Boyd has a sense of humour which compensates for these flat passages. There is one particularly amusing scene reminiscent of Withnail’s pleading ‘I have a heart condition!’ and the low-key comeuppance of Brodie’s absurd father is satisfying in its unexpectedness. But these lonely moments are set adrift in a sea of endless plot and cardboard characters. Despite some early page-turning occasioned by swashbuckling set-pieces and enjoyable villains, the story begins to falter, and all momentum is lost as Brodie keeps finding a different place to do the same thing. This only changes when, for no particular reason, he ends up on a small island learning about the sex lives of natives.
There is much to enjoy and much to lament in this novel. It is odd that such a talented writer should shackle himself so closely to the constraints of plot and genre. The book is an ode to love and the fine genre traditions of Stevenson, but, as we know, love is blind and can be treacherous.
The young man is Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner for an Edinburgh piano maker, and he is at the beginning of an adventure. Edinburgh is too depressing and his job too unrewarding. He is a gifted pianist with perfect pitch, reduced to attracting punters by tickling the ivories in the showroom window. One day Brodie is summoned to his boss’ office and given an escape route. The owner’s profligate son has been installed in a newly established Paris branch, which is, unsurprisingly, doing poorly. Would Brodie accept a raise and move from dreary Edinburgh to the City of Lights?
What follows is a fleet-footed adventure from Scotland to Paris to St Petersburg to the south of France and beyond, ending, unexpectedly as it does, on the remote Andaman Islands. This global hopscotch is occasioned by Brodie’s blind love for Lika Blum, the muse of both concert pianist John Kilbarron and his brother Malachi.
William Boyd has shown himself to be a nimble and humorous writer. From the Wavian black comedy of his early novels A Good Man in Africa and An Ice-Cream War to the deftness of Any Human Heart, Boyd has displayed a light touch and roving intelligence. He has very decisively cast this tale in the solid mould of the nineteenth-century historical adventure novel, particularly in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson. The novel opens with a quote from Stevenson’s Virginibus Puerisque: ‘falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world.’ Thus is our hero ensnared early on, destined for an illogical adventure.
The plot often depends upon doubtful human behaviour and heavy-handed contrivances – a particular brand of cigarettes may turn out to be important if it is mentioned often enough – but there is enough life and colour to hold the eye. We are given fine villains and fine set-pieces. John Kilbarron is a drink-sodden genius in the Romantic tradition, with lank hair, an open shirt front and an opium addiction. His more sinister brother, Malachi, has a touch of Tammany Hall thuggish swindler about him: puffing on a cheroot, bursting from his bright waistcoat, he often darkens doorways to extract money for his brother.
The action unfolds against a rich backdrop. Brodie is carried first-class through the blissfully doomed world of fin-de-siècle Europe. Food, apartments and music are attentively described. The action that plays out against this scenery is equally rich. Decisive moments unfold with a sense of occasion, delivered in slightly breathless prose. Here is Brodie’s pistol duel with Kilbarron:
‘Blood! His hand was slick with blood. He could see the blood dripping from his torn ear, like a tap left running. The blood pattered onto the dry blond meadow-grass of summer. Faintness overcame him and he fell to his knees, then his hands and knees. […] Kilbarron was walking over to him, standing over him. He threw away his pistol and reached into his greatcoat and drew out another, cocked. Brodie felt the muzzle press against the back of his head. Cold for a second. He tried to turn.’
And here is Brodie’s father, a minister, about to deliver a fire and brimstone sermon:
‘Brodie remembered what was due to happen next. After a minute or so of this anticipation, Malcolm Moncur would appear, as though miraculously, in his pulpit, sliding through the crimson curtains, arms spread in benediction. And, sure enough, he was suddenly there, in a black surplice with a white linen stock with two long bands at his throat. There was a distinct gasp from the congregation before Malky boomed out in his deep bass voice, “Let us pray!”’
This is all good fun. However, Brodie’s rather stagey father is in keeping with a feeling of artificiality that permeates Love is Blind. GK Chesterton described Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae (a novel read by Brodie) as ‘literally a sketch in black and white.’ He meant this as a compliment on its well-balanced artistry. In Love is Blind, a similar approach is in evidence. Brodie’s father is black-hearted and falsely dressed ‘in a black surplice’ with dyed red hair; Malachi Kilbarron is a shadowy figure shrouded in smoke, with a ‘grey-flecked, dense, black goatee’ and ‘dark grey suit.’ The unattainable Lika Blum is ambiguous, sometimes dressed in white, other times all black. Brodie’s father despises his son partly for being suspiciously dark of complexion, a curiosity that is never explained or returned to. Chesterton drew attention to this technique in Stevenson as a sign of care and assiduity, but in Boyd it feels confected and second-hand. So too with Boyd’s prose style, which can often lapse into easeful cliché and clunky exposition. For example, it feels as though a great many chapters end with some variation of ‘everything was falling into place,’ and the need to corroborate Brodie’s musical expertise allows for dull recitations of ‘Discovered and patented in 1821, it was an arrangement of levers that. . .’
Happily, Boyd has a sense of humour which compensates for these flat passages. There is one particularly amusing scene reminiscent of Withnail’s pleading ‘I have a heart condition!’ and the low-key comeuppance of Brodie’s absurd father is satisfying in its unexpectedness. But these lonely moments are set adrift in a sea of endless plot and cardboard characters. Despite some early page-turning occasioned by swashbuckling set-pieces and enjoyable villains, the story begins to falter, and all momentum is lost as Brodie keeps finding a different place to do the same thing. This only changes when, for no particular reason, he ends up on a small island learning about the sex lives of natives.
There is much to enjoy and much to lament in this novel. It is odd that such a talented writer should shackle himself so closely to the constraints of plot and genre. The book is an ode to love and the fine genre traditions of Stevenson, but, as we know, love is blind and can be treacherous.