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Summary: a real page-turner for people who do not like "page-turners"
Review: First of all this is one of the few underrated books in amazon. I have just finished reading it and I still feel the thrill, speed and colors of it. There are some somethings in this book that made feel the same way as I felt when I read "the name of the rose". This book has many levels many facades, it can be classified as comedy, mystery, tragedy and romance at once. It is written for people who can enjoy solving a good problem, or people who are simultaneously interested in human relations, art, history and having a good time. It is just a fun book to read with a lot to offer on the way to the end. Being interested in art and history is a plus but not needed.
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Summary: You Have To Be Dead To Think This Isn't Funny
Review: Finding lost medieval paintings just to spite your wife? Well, no. It's to avoid work, really. In Frayn's world the two are not incompatible. In fact, they're inseparable.
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Summary: Ah, iconography....
Review: Michael Frayn's "Headlong" is a fun, funny tale of intrigue with the added kick of being a repository of "Northern Renaissance" art tidbits and curiousities. Reading this novel is akin to spending a weekend at a spirited seminar with very bright experts: One feels smarter for having been vastly entertained. This is a highbrow beach read with fun characters, settings, plot twists, and ironies.
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Summary: great Dutch (art) history lesson, not-so-great novel
Review: 'Headlong' seems to be the case of where an obviously gifted writer decides to write a thinly disguised story of himself and/or his passion. And as in most of these cases, the results are less than if he chose to write it as non-fiction.The 'story' is about a couple, keenly knowledgeable of art history, who upon meeting their wacky neighbors discover that they own a small collection or art antiquity. One particular piece of art is suspected to be a missing piece by a famous Dutch painter (its origins and value is not understood by its owners), and our happy couple proceed to swindle, or rather attempt to swindle, their neighbors - all to a humorous effect. The story is then, in effect, placed on hold while the author delves into great lengths about this Dutch painter, they type of paintings he did and why, etc. We are given a lengthy art history lesson. Enjoyable? Yes, generally. However the 'story' itself is rather contrived, with the author not bothering to flesh out the characters. Bottom line: a curious read to be savoured by art history buffs. All others will probably be bored with it all.
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Summary: Art history meets detective story meets morality play
Review: Philosopher Martin Clay is asked by a neighbor to appraise a few paintings; he's unimpressed with all but one, a pastoral scene that he believes to be a long-lost Bruegel. But instead of leveling with his neighbor, Martin decides to keep mum and buy the painting himself. Is Martin truly motivated by a desire to see a great work of art returned to a museum so that the world can enjoy it, or is it simply greed? Can a nerdy academic successfully scam his more worldly neighbor -- and convince his own wife that it's worth doing? Is the painting truly the Dutch masterpiece that Martin believes (or wants to believe) it is? Will Martin's marriage and family survive his obsession with the purported Bruegel? Frayn keeps the reader guessing, mixing art history lessons about the Dutch masters with Martin's bumbling attempts to pull a sting, deftly portraying the unintended disruption to Martin's family life and marriage that inevitably follows. The book is perhaps a little too didactic when it comes to Martin's art history research, and this is why I found the beginning of the book slow going -- it is densely packed with names and dates, references to obscure artists and intellectuals as well as more well-known ones, and in-depth analysis of various Dutch paintings. But it's worth persevering as the novel builds up steam until its hilarious and supremely fitting denouement.
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Summary: A Delightful Romp Through the World of Art
Review: I was given a copy of HEADLONG quite by chance and loved it. The often tedious relm of art history has never come alive quite like this before. Frayn's book combines a page turning detective novel about art with a cautionary morality play. The protagonist of the story ensnares himself in a tangled web of deceit that is almost impossible to escape. The many twists and turns of the first person plot are held together masterfully with a selfdepreciating ... humor that makes HEADLONG an absolute delight.
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Summary: Fiction for the sake of art
Review: This is a novel about art and obsession, written in turns as mystery and as farce. The mystery concerns how a long-lost painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder could have turned up un-noticed in a crumbling mansion in the English countryside. Could this be the piece that makes sense of the others in the artist's priceless cycle of 'The Months'? And what does it say about the role of Bruegel in the turbulent birth of the Dutch Republic? Pastoral or polemic - what are his paintings really about? Meanwhile, the farce concerns the lengths to which protagonist Martin Clay will go to get his hands on the unrecognised painting (which may or may not be what he thinks it is). Frayne has produced an hilariously convoluted plot in which Clay deceives everyone he meets - most of all himself. Whether it is comedy or tragedy, Avarice seems to be the winner, though perhaps Clay's 'confession' - the book - is his attempt at showing that he has learned the error of his ways. Reading this, I learned a great deal about Bruegel and the bloody history of the Netherlands of his day. An aquaintance of mine checked all of Frayne's references and found that they were indeed accurate. I too was left with a feeling of wanting to know much more about the intrigue that surrounds Bruegel. If the book has a weakness it is that the plot is barely enough to support the weight of the research. I wonder whether the best way to write about an artist isn't simply to write about the artist. On the other hand, I picked up a piece of fiction, but now I'm hooked on the art...
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Summary: Brilliant.....it should have won the 1999 Booker Prize
Review: Michael Frayn's "Headlong" is a heady thriller with a difference. It's exciting, exhilirating, yet incredibly intelligent and enduring. The novel begins on a deceptively quiet note as art historian Martin Clay retreats to the English countryside with his wife and baby daughter to finish his project on the study of nominalism. But fate quickly intervenes and we find ourselves plunging headlong with him into a journey of discovery of his own corrupt soul as he schemes to covet a painting he suspects to be the missing piece in a series of six by the great Flemish painter Peter Bruegel. The owners he attempts to wrest the prized treasure from are no angels, as we soon discover. The immorality of their mutual intent cancel each other out - they are a rotten bunch - so we find ourselves (shamefully) rooting for Martin as he rollercoasters his way through seemingly countless new obstacles that keep popping up from all sides to derail him. Fueled by a relentless nervous energy and the rush of adrenalin pumping through our veins, we ride with him as he negotiates each twist and turn to yield surprising results. The whole scheme is a farce. Martin knows it. So do we, but Frayn's genius lies in turning the farcical nature of the exploit to reveal a humour and a realism that is at once touching and ironic. Every impulsive tick or nuance experienced by Martin registers with us. Instantly. It's as if Martin is rendered skinless. Transparent. Significantly, Frayn's foray into 16th century Dutch art history isn't the pointless or impenetrable diversion some readers have made it out to be. I was intimidated at first but needlessly. It was friendly, absorbing and relevant. Frayn's prose is always sharp, witty, intelligent and accessible. "Headlong" should, in my opinion, have won the 1999 Booker Prize. Not that J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" wasn't a deserving winner. It's just that "Headlong" has that extra spark that should have tilted the balance. One of the best novels I have read in a long time. Don't miss it !
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Summary: A Thrilling Artistic Quest
Review: I found this book very entertaining. The story is engaging and the protagonist is well rounded. You are drawn into his dilemma of wanting to make his fame and fortune. Any student could relate to his desire for procrastinating on his work by following a fanciful idea about an undiscovered treasure. I found his system of rational to be amusing and the way he carries out his theoretical ideas verses his wife's a touching way to pull the characters along. The fact that it is probably going to be made at the expense of a couple women is what makes the story more complex. You want to tell him that he can have a comfortable and happy rural living with his plump wife. You know eventually he will go back to her. The question is whether he will survive the experience. It was really thrilling when it became a matter of life or death. Of course, the story is a cliché and the narrator admits this in the beginning. You are always conscious that you are being told a story, but it is a very engaging one.
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Summary: Liberal arts answer to the techno-thriller
Review: An unworldly academic tries to cheat an eccentric landowner out of a valuable picture and ends up losing his money and almost his wife. The farcical plot is loaded with long stretches about art history, the way some thrillers are loaded with technology. It's as well that we should not forget the atrocities in the name of religion committed in the Netherlands and Frayn does a worthy job of reminding us. (Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic sits in my library but I had to stop reading it because of the sickening cruelties described). I think there's supposed to be some symbolism about the Catholic/Protestant divide and the flawed hero's marriage. It was funny in parts but I think comic genius is rare and Frayn just does not quite have it. The present tense is used throughout and I found this intrusive.
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