The Portrait

by Iain Pears

Book Overview

After the dazzling achievement of his bestsellers An Instance of the Fingerpost ("May well be the best historical mystery ever written." --The Boston Globe) and The Dream of Scipio ("A virtuoso... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573222984
• ISBN13: 9781573222983
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.7" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A twisted little character study artfully rendered

The lives of an artist living in exile and a critic are revealed as the critic sits for his portrait. As the portrait progresses the artist narrates, rendering a vivid picture of their sordid past. As the narration unfolds you begin to see where it may lead. Even so the ending still provides a chill worthy of Hitchcock.

Its like watching a train wreck - you can't keep from reading

There are not many authors who could try a retake of an Oscar Wilde classic and make it work. Iain Pears is one of the few. The Portrait is absolutely wonderful. Yes, you know whats going to happen soon after you start reading it, and suspect how. But the why and wherefore is what makes this story so worth reading. I could not stop reading it. Highly recommended page turner. Some reviewers have mentioned that this book is a change from his art detective stories. Well, yes. But Pears has written two other books, Dream of Scipio and Fingerpost which are nothing like the light and frothy mysteries. If you like this book, you will want to check those out as well.

Inexorable, and thereby lies its dark persuasion

Living in a milieu far removed from his intoxicating days as a rising painter gaining increasing esteem for his flattering portraits, Henry MacAlpine has isolated himself in a form of penance... Perhaps the penance is for the things he did, for his past selfishnessnes, his past surrender to the "Establishment", the easy painting that would please and sell swiftly rather than the more difficult portraitures that strip down, as he puts it, to the skull and even to the soul. But my sense is that his penance is not really for these things. It is for what he WILL do... Iain Pears is a writer of distinction. More than that, although he writes literature that I believe will be enjoyed by readers of wit centuries from now, Pears is also a writer who can tell a rattling good story. His turn of phrase - delicious! I grew to know this Henry MacAlpine as he unburdens himself to his subject, so that MacAlpine was not just painting a portrait of the self-satisfied old friend, the "great" critic William Naysmith, but he is also painting a portrait of himself. We see it all - his attitude to sexuality, religion, penance, art, men, women, crime, superficiality, everything. We see how he has altered and developed, and how he has remained what he is, for in the flowing change and in the constancy both... that is where the truth and validity of a human being lies. We change. We do not change. That is our lot. Perhaps in this sense, at the mercy of events, we are true to MacAlpine's vision of humanity - ludicrous in the face of the great forces such as a storm. But MacAlpine in all his imperfect self is also revealed by his monologue... and we know we do not take his view as a point of absolute truth (a lovely trick, that. Pears did the same thing in "Instance of the Fingerpost", leaving an unsettling notion that the last narrator was the "real" truth, but careful reading reveals that it is all just... points of view, self-deceptions, however true the narrator attempts to be). Perhaps, then, we are not so ludicrous, and perhaps we transcend the forces of nature. Iain Pears's palette-rich writing shows such a balance of line and colour in the careful choice of words, phrases, flow of written thoughts. I can almost smell the texture - it is like "reading" a painting. The book glows with colour, the subtle highlights of the artist's brush. Some reviewers have not taken to the monologue style used in this book - I found it extremely effective, and also such a delicious irony in that the critic, wordy and pompous as he clearly was, has absolutely no say here. He is drawn to MacAlpine's retreat in what seems at first his own choice, but right from the start, I sensed that this was not exactly the case. Iain Pears leads the reader through an extraordinary thread of narrative that is remembrance through the eyes of one man. We learn of MacAlpine's fascination with the image of death, the futility of man in the grip of forces greater than he is, an image of decaying f

Wonderfully wicked little gem from a great storyteller

Having read and been a great fan of Pears' two previous novels "An Instance of the Fingerpost" and "The Dream of Scipio", both much more voluminous than his latest novel. I thought picking up the much shorter book for a quick read was worth the time and money and most assuredly it was. "The Portrait" is an intriguingly intimate yarn centering around a reclusive painter's decision to accept a commission to paint a portrait of an art critic and former acquaintance. The writer interjects the reader into the artist's small studio on a remote and rugged island off the coast of France and begins to unveil a tale which keeps the reader's attention by becoming evermore dark and suspenseful. I must confess, I did find the plot to be a wee bit transparent by the middle of the novella, but didn't find that that diminished the book in the slightest as I felt as a reader that the plot is almost not as important as the dynamic of artist versus critic which is so expertly written and most certainly applies not only to the characters in the book, but also in a broader and more general sense as a debate between art versus criticism in general, and I might add not a bad little novella of suspense to boot, peppered with wry wit and some of the most well written and quotable lines I have read in any novel as of late. In short I would definitely highly recommend "The Portrait", and would add that any reader who likes this novel and hasn't read any other of the author's works might find it well worth the time to dig into Pears' lengthier tomes.

Smaller in scope but beautifully written as always

Iain Pears writes two completely different types of novels, a series of entertaining art mysteries, and the serious, erudite "Instance of the Fingerpost" and "Dream of Scipio." For the first time he's blended the two in "The Portrait," a monologue by an artist in exile from the London art scene who invites his friend and well-known critic William Naysmith to his remote island to have his portrait painted. The entire book is a monologue, the artist McAlpine forcing Naysmith to listen as he paints. Through McAlpine alone, Pears tells the story of the lives of both of these men, from McAlpine's struggles as a young, naive Scotsman trying to escape from the bleak highlands, to Paris and art school in the late 19th century, to London and success for both. We are left to imagine Naysmith's side of the conversation only from McAlpine's comments on the critic's reactions as McAlpine for the first time reveals how much he knows of Naysmith's real life. But as the story unfolds, we're also treated to two insiders' views of the art world at the turn of the century, the effect of the French Impressionists when introduced to London, the emergence of Picasso and Matisse who so quickly eclipsed them. The role of the critic as the true power in the art world is deftly portrayed by Pears in Naysmith, and we soon suspect that Naysmith has done more than just destroy careers with his biting criticism. And McAlpine has been far from an innocent bystander. I didn't anticipate the ending, but was delighted to realize that Pears had deftly set it up without my ever realizing it. This little novel owes much to "Embers," a novel employing the same monologue device to an encounter between two friends estranged for many years, who come together for a last time over dinner and the revelation of a secret. Pears writes as beautifully as ever, and his story is as riveting as his other two serious novels, although far less grand in scope. The novel is well worth your time; I only wish Pears were more prolific.