Headlong

Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Great Book
Review: Michael Frayn is an excellent writer who can appeal to the intellectuals and can also reach a mass audience with his wit and great prose. However, Headlong is a work of fiction that requires at minimum a passing knowledge of art history, because the detail is intense and can sometimes be detrimental to the plot. Even if your knowledge is minimal, an interest in art helps if you are willing to absorb the lessons that the book teaches as a matter of course. This is the book's one big flaw, because it becomes absolutely necessary to understand the historical and cultural facts that Frayn gives because they are essential to the plot moving forward and you can get bogged down in trying to follow it. It's really not that bad, but sometimes it's frustrating. In spite of that, this is one of those books that you can read in a few days because once the plot gets in full swing, there is a strong urge to get to the end and see how everything is resolved. It's very enjoyable and more importantly, makes you think. I can definitely see this novel becoming a film someday.

Rating:
Summary: A Comical/Historical/Esthetical/and Wholly Delightful Novel
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: Who cares?
Review: I found the plot predictable; the characters unlovable; and the academic digressions ill-constructed.

Rating:
Summary: The Lost Breugel
Review: It's about a painting. It's about a philosopher. It's about a philosopher stealing a painting. It's written by a man whose recent work veers between the intensely cerebral Copenhagen, a two hour dialogue between physicists Werner Heisenberg and Neils Bohr, and the riotuous Noises Off, a masterpiece of farce, all situation and perfect timing. It's Michael Frayn's Headlong. Michael Frayn uses humour to explore beneath the surface of what really is a common brand of literary derring-do : man steals painting. Frayn's fictitious Bruegel really did or does or should exist. It went missing a couple of centuries ago, one in a series called The Months, painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565. A wealthy banker, Niclaes Jonghelinck , commissioned the series depicting the months of the year. Five of these survive: Haymaking in the National Gallery, Prague, The Corn Harvest in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and three others, including Hunters in the Snow in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Michael Frayn's choice of Bruegel could not have been entirely serendipitous. Bruegel's art form was very like Frayn's. He was a master of irony in portraying the robust excesses of his age. The painting Netherlandish Proverbs (The Blue Cloak) probably contains every nuance of farce from the slapstick to the absurd. Headlong has all Frayn's thoughts on Breugel's iconography.

Rating:
Summary: Art Caper with a classical twist
Review: Michael Frayn spins a wonderful, witty and well-researched yarn which kept this reader up all of one Tuesday night recently. His command of the written language is exceptional and while this is not the "Book of Evidence", it is every bit as fascinating. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: an original mystery, humor, a great book!
Review: A well written novel, with fascinating historical details. I could not put it down. And, as you might expect from Michael Frayn, very funny besides. One of the best I have read all year.

Rating:
Summary: History Thick/Characters So So
Review: This is a novel in the tradition of The Name of the Rose. Frayn is clearly more interested in the history of Breugle (which is fascinating), than the concreteness of his characters. For me the historical content was so great that it almost completely made up for the blah characters. By the end I didn't feel like I really knew or identified with any of the characters, but I was incredibly interested in Breugle's art historical period. This book didn't make me want to read more by Frayn, but it did make me want to investigate art history.

Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment
Review: I saw Frayn's play "Copenhagen" in London and loved it. "Headlong" is sooooo boring. I am alomost finished with it, and I cannot wait for it to end.

Rating:
Summary: simply brilliant
Review: perhaps the most brilliant self-enclosed world of littery creation ever...a must read -- allow yourself to become obsessed

Rating:
Summary: Iconology, iconography, whatever you say Michael!
Review: This was, without a doubt, the most awkward book I've ever read. I've read text books that had more character development. Save your money and time. I can't even give it away because I don't want to make any enemies.