It's tricky writing about art.
It must be difficult to convey each coloured shape or brushstroke clearly enough for the reader to see them. But in his debut novel, Herald Arts Correspondent Phil Miller attempts to do just that. The title refers to a real-life painting, The Blue Horse by Dutch master Pieter Van Doelenstraat, which disappeared from the Palazzo Vedovo, Venice in 2009. This imaginative work spins off the painting's disappearance and gives it a new storyline, while exploring the grief associated with losing a partner.
Miller's creation, George Newhouse, is going through a hard time. We know this because of the opening two lines: "George Newhouse was in love with his wife. But his wife was dead." But Newhouse (as Miller refers to him, in a disconcertingly detached way) is trying to move on. In keeping with his name, he has recently relocated to Edinburgh, a city of "wide boulevards and silent crescents". Newhouse is a talented young curator specialising in the Dutch masters, hired to boost the make-believe Public Gallery's profile. Like the artist he is devoted to studying, Newhouse has moved from his own Golden Age to the Empty Years. His life is like Van Doelenstraat's later work: "dark paintings of empty rooms, abandoned kitchens. Empty beds and solemn, silent instruments."
There's a spinning, disorientating sense to the opening chapters. Nothing in Newhouse's rented flat works. His colleagues at his new place of work are rather objectionable, especially Rudi, a chubby Dutch womaniser who lives in the city's bars. Despite Newhouse's new responsibilities at the gallery, his priority remains locating The Blue Horse. His strongest lead is a note that fell out of a Rembrandt painting, indicating its existence: "That damned painting vexes my mind's eye". The curiously-coloured horse seems to be a metaphor for locating an inner strength.
The storyline is narrated in a terse and worried style. The writing feels anxious, as Newhouse always plots his next move, however ordinary: "He would sleep all night and have a proper breakfast. He would call his boss, find a bank, check he had been paid, and go home." There are no quotation marks and this allows speech and thought to merge in an attractive and unfettered way.
Much of the narrative is itemised description, as if Miller is describing a painting. Some passages have a clear, fragmented beauty: "He sat on a cold bench, colder in the dark, and looked out at the chains of streetlamps, the silhouette of the old town against the night sky, the flickering of cold lights in hotels and monuments, the glitter of distant cars."
This dense style suits the novel's exploration of grief. There is a romantic flashback to when Newhouse and his wife Ruth are holidaying in British Columbia's Beacon Hill Park or when they are in Amsterdam, picnicking in the Vondelpark. And then the narrative touches upon the tragic moment of Ruth's death: "I wanted to protect you, she had said. And then he had held her hand until she was dead." Here the short lines allow for each remembered moment to be felt keenly and painfully. It's really when Newhouse revisits his Golden Age, the past life that suited his domestic and safe personality, that the novel feels right.
It is the colourful and elaborate thriller moves ¬- academics found mysteriously dead, disappearing friends, ghostly apparitions - that seem a bit shoehorned and contrived. For instance, Newhouse keeps seeing the horse whenever he is out on the street: "the powerful animal was moving through the shadows of the dock". Miller layers the text with a malevolent fantasy element that doesn't quite fit. This may be where his austere and rigid style lets the story down. A freer, first-person narrative would have helped to get further into the demons in Newhouse's head.
Towards the end, the novel takes the reader to Venice for the world's biggest contemporary art festival, the Biennial. Up until that point, Newhouse has been on a destructive path: taking drugs, sleeping with strangers, drinking continuously - actions that are difficult to picture, given his usually cautious personality. Tension builds and readers are promised a grand, destructive ending which mirrors Newhouse's own breakdown.
Does Newhouse ever catch The Blue Horse? To answer that here would be a spoiler. We do see perplexing works of art, intricate landscapes and a sensitive portrait of a man who is trying to turn his life around. This is more than enough.
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