Love is Blind

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He turns down the chance of a comfortable and interesting life with the unusual Margaret Mead-alike American, such is his belief that Lika will one day honour their agreement and turn up, and the ending was predictably sad, with Lika inevitably turning up just too late. Yet there is also a sense of mischief and playfulness imbued into its narrative that takes the form of several elaborate homages to other books and stories. It was premiered at Hampstead Downstairs(2016) and has recently had a new production at the Theatre Royal Bath. This is the first in a chain of many travels that will see Brodie living in Nice, Biarritz, Geneva, Trieste, an estate in Russia and even the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean! He develops an obsessive love for a Russian singer and this is both the driver of the book’s events and the main subject of William Boyd’s interest.

But then it began to fizzle out as more and more characters disappeared and less and less began to happen. This ultimately sets the tone for the last third of the book which becomes a paranoia- laden thriller. In any case, however, there are only flickers of the charm you would want to steadily emanate from such a period production.He now carries the Russian fire inside him, and the confrontations are as powerful, as emotional as his time in exile.

Objectivity and resignation are fine in theory, but this is a love story after all, and, no matter how hard he tries, Brodie Moncur cannot command the yearnings of his heart. Even if the chances of winning were genuinely 2-to-1 (in practice, roulette is biased to the house) the expected winnings are zero. Kilbarron's amour is the beautifully arresting Russian opera singer, Lika Blum, a woman Brodie falls for hook, line and sinker, a passion that will have devastating repercussions on his future.The book appeared with a glowing tribute on the back jacket by Gore Vidal, and Picasso’s biographer, John Richardson, spoke about Tate’s friendship with both Braque and Picasso.

By this point I really did have the feeling that I fully understood Brodie – I was virtually living inside his head – I believed that I was tuned into his line of thought and fully understood his (sometimes drastic) actions. Perhaps he is regarded somehow as too “traditional” – well-crafted novels with a story, a plot, sound characterisation and a beginning, middle and end.Chekhov, though unnamed, appears in only half a dozen pages of Love is Blind, yet his spirit hovers over nearly all of it. One couldn’t avoid the fact that it was probably not going to end well for poor old Brodie and his rotten lungs. A collection of his non-fiction writings, 1978-2004, entitled Bamboo, was published in October 2005. He has always experimented with form, varying the way in which he presents us with the story of a life.

My point here isn’t to chart the extent of Love is Blind’s Chekhovian overlay but just to reflect on what the internet adds – and takes away from – reading fiction. Its rowan- and yew-dotted cemetery was crowded with ancient graves, former parishioners, the late, good folk of the Liethen Valley.

A rich historical piece that showcases a number of key European destinations, Love is Blind offers an interesting reading experience.