The Improbability of Love: A Novel

There are two books embedded in this single novel: one is excellent and the other so-so. The book begins with preparations for the auction of a highly-sough-after painting called "The Improbability of Love," which is about to set all kinds of records. We're introduced to the various key bidders who want to acquire this work of art -- the Russian tycoon, the rap singer, the aged American collector, agents for the governments of Britain and France etc etc. They are all described in broad strokes -- stereotypes if not caricatures. At this stage, my heart sank because I really thought reading the rest of the book would be a chore.Fortunately, the author knows a tremendous amount about the art world. The painting in question is revealed to be by the 18th century French artists Watteau (although it seems improbable in itself that a work from this not terribly popular era would command such attention). Parts of the novel are narrated by the picture itself. We learn how it came to be, inspired by a severe case of unrequited love. We learn how it passed through the hands of kings and popes and emperors. We learn about paints, canvases, marks on the backs of canvases, and the short, unhappy life of the artist whose work the author clearly adores.A young woman, Annie, has bought the picture, badly discolored by grease and dirt and the grime of centuries, from a junk shop. We learn much about the art of restoration and the forensic methods used to authenticate an old painting. All this is very interesting. Annie is a chef recovering from a failed love affair. An artist, Jesse, falls in love with her and helps on her somewhat half-hearted quest to discover the origins and provenance of the work. Annie is not interested in Jesse romantically but gradually discovers his real strengths.It previously belonged to a Jewish dealer, Memling Winkleman, who survived the Holocaust and established a giant auction house. He keeps discovering amazing Old Masters and other works of art that build his fortune. But of course there's more to his story than meets the eye. Here we inevitably get into the issue of the grand Nazi theft of art.There are many other characters, some more convincing than others, representing various aspects of the art business. We meet an impecunious British peer struggling to stay afloat. weird experts who devote their lives to studying one artist in immense depth, a fashion adviser who dictates taste and various others. Some of these emerge as real characters but others are very two-dimensions. Tension rises when Annie, a babe in the woods in a world of sharks, is targeted in a diabolical plot.I wish the author had stuck to what she knows because the book is fascinating and strong when it delves into the murky world of the international art business. But she tries to do a bit too much and dilutes the strength of the book with too many sub-plots that rely too much on cliches.

This was a delightful, delicious and most wonderful story. It grew on me with every page and every chapter, and the moment that the best character of all, the painting itself, was first introduced, I was in love.I should clarify. I was IN LOVE with the story of the painting, The Improbability of Love, not with the main character Annie McDee - a dull, uninteresting, foolish-on-many-levels 31-year old chef-but-more-of-a-loser.All in all, Annie remained as someone that I could care less about. And to be able to still LOVE and ADORE this book despite a boring main character (as well as her Jesse and her old beau) is saying a lot. The story of this painting is fascinating and I could so appreciate both the creativity and the depth of research and hard work that Rothschild has put into her labor of love.Speaking of the author, she is incredibly accomplished and it was her debut novel (well, she has another book but this is her first major work, methinks.) This was an extremely well-written book, pulling aspects of history and modern world and giving us the grand tour of the fascinating world of art and artists and art lovers. The characters were out of this world crazy rich, and yet, real. If you love art, and especially paintings, you will enjoy this book.My disappointments were again with Annie the main character and her boring fascination with food and her ex-boyfriend and her lack of interest in this amazing piece of art, as well as the very ending. I think I would have really loved more of a grand finale but alas, it all worked just fine.I'd read anything else by the author, especially if it's about a piece of art! She captures the world impeccably well.

I thought that Hannah Rothschild's book was in many ways a fascinating look at the London art world, very high end art auctions, and also dealing with WW2, and a lot of skanky dealings. Most of it very interesting, although the book was too long, and it could probably have used a good tweaking / editing to shorten it and have it more concise, but it was still very interesting, and despite the length I zipped through it. This is the 3rd. book I've read by Rothschild, I've found all of them very worthwhile and very interesting.

Cleverly plotted, well-written novel. A delight to read. I did not want it to end. The characters are well drawn (pun intended, as the mystery centers on art), and the reader learns a good bit about the dark corners of the international art scene, both historically and today. The one jarring note occurs when the painting at the center of events becomes a character--with a voice! But the author handles that artificial device quite well; and, after all, do not art lovers describe paintings as "speaking" to them? The Wallace Collection, where I spent a happy afternoon a few months ago, is given the prominence it deserves. After reading the book, I learned just how qualified the author is to write about art! Murder, mystery, history, romance--what more could one ask?I did not give the writing five stars ("great") only because I reserve that for what I (and many others) regard as master works. Had there been an option to judge the book "splendid," I would have picked that over the tepid "good" on offer.

I am an artist. So, the thought of learning more about an old master (Watteau) was enticing. I loved the way the painting's origin and inspiration intertwined with its creator and then with its many owners right up until modern times. It became the central character and, in some chapters, the story was narrated by the painting itself which I found very clever. You can't help but wonder about its past and the old adage "if the walls could speak" rang true. I found I rooted for the main character and hoped that everything would turn out well for her and that her antagonists would get what they deserved. An enjoyable read with some great insight into the art market.

"The Improbability of Love" by Hannah Rothschild. Interesting idea oh so poorly executed IMHO. And how I longed to read this book! Art! Intrigues! Conspiracies! Love! Alas... what a never-ending bore (okay, it got slightly better towards the end).Hannah Rothschild, the chair of the National Gallery and a trustee of the Tate Gallery, amongst many other things, believes that Cupid is a she ("goddess of love") and that Dagestan is a republic requiring its own ambassador. She also doesn't shy away of improbability of a guy named Vlad having a brother Leonard in the city of Smlinsk, Siberia... Do I need to continue?Imagination runs wild. Actually, strike that. Ms Rothschild's imagination barely moves the narrative forward, heavy of unnecessary details, billion of one-dimensional characters and heavy-laid "humour" (she calls it sarcasm, I want to see people who find it slightly ironic... I did not)."The Improbability of Love" majorly failed for me as a satire. This supposed satire of what the art world is nowadays felt to me like a never-ending dinner conversation with a 50-something entitled art character in a wig (with a dog named Tiziano... not even Titian) which might look funny on the outside but in reality is just tedious.The power of love - sorry ART - though.Bottom line: not recommended.

I don't know how to describe this book. It's the story of a single painting 'The Improbability of Love' which is a lost masterpiece. The story of the painting touches many characters and their stories weave through each other's. There's head hopping (nicely done, and probably called moving psychic distance, but it still bothers me) reams of information in chunks and various digressions, but it's so beautifully done and the characters are so compelling that it doesn't matter.Annie is a wannabe chef who buys a picture from a junk shop on a whim. Jesse is a museum guide and artist who falls in love with Annie. Rebecca is the second in command at one of the biggest art dealers in the country. There are are scores of characters and I felt for every one of them. Every time we moved from one character to the other, I missed the character I'd just left... until I got sucked back into the life of the character I was reading about now. They're not all nice people, but they are, all of them, interesting and compelling.The story itself is a mystery, with commentary on the world of art and the worlds of the super rich. I must admit, it's not a world I know anything about, so it was fun to read about it. If you know about art, there are probably extra layers of interest in this book.It's the sort of book that I read and wish I could write like that.

After the House of Trewlaneys, I was expecting much from this first novel of the author, which was substantiallly critically acclaimed. What a disappointment! Cardboard characters, weak storyline, wooden dialogues and oh so many cliches... the worst of all is the most stereotypical character of a Russian oligarch as if copied from a bad Hollywood production. Author pays little respect to her work with so little research done, even in georgaphical terms!

Whereas the prologue to a novel is usually a short, sharp dramatic incident to “hook” the reader,  this starts with an indigestible litany of the caricatured stereotypes of super-rich clients converging on the Monachorum auction house, and the staff baited to lure them into bidding up the price of “The Improbability of Love”,  a painting hyped as likely to sell for a record sum. The storyline then switches back six months to the lovelorn Annie buying the painting for only £75 on an impulse, thus rescuing the masterpiece in its neglected and unrecognised state from half a century spent in a rundown antique shop.The author is undeniably articulate with a vivid imagination,  her professional knowledge of how paintings may be cleaned, dated, attributed and interpreted is quite interesting, and the book seems to have delighted many reviewers, but I found it almost unreadable, a frothy confection with a hollow centre.Part farce, part Mills and Boon romance, past crime thriller, it falls short for me by reason of its ramshackle plot, with implausible twists and many niggling inconsistencies in the basic telling. It is too long, by reason of the continual wordy digressions. Even the painting, which adopts the irritating habit of addressing us, has to remind us in a gimmicky seven line Chapter 11: “Hello. I am still here…….Moi”. Arch and snobbish after spending centuries in gilded salons, it cannot identify modern cars by name but has somehow acquired some knowledge of modern life despite being stuck in a shop for fifty years.  I would rather have had a thread about the painter’s creator Antoine Watteau running through the book.Was this written as a ludicrous parody of the art world to amuse friends “in the know”?  I was struck by the chapter which, instead of creating an exaggerated stereotype, dissects a real-life artist in the form of Damien Hirst.  When boorish exiled Russian oligarch Vlad visits the Tate Modern retrospective, he encounters sharks in formaldehyde in glass tanks, rooms full of medical equipment and a piece made of dead flies and diamonds. “Suddenly he got Hirst: the man was a brilliant comedian making a joke out of life and the art world and all those who took it seriously……you can encase anything, add jewels and precious metals, but it’s still the same old s***.”  (This is a quotation from the book). Presumably, Hirst is happy about this representation, as a form of free  publicity.In contrast to the turgid detail of earlier chapters, the ending feels quite condensed and rushed, as if the author has bored herself and grown anxious to finish it.Truth seems stranger and more entertaining than fiction, also provoking a real debate over the value we put on works of art.A recent example is the purchase at the record price of $450.3 million dollars of  the long lost “Salvator Mundi” which may well be, though possibly only in part, the work of Leonardo da Vinci but claimed to have been so heavily restored that the Louvre Abu Dhabi postponed its initial plan to display it.I am also  reminded of the excellent and highly recommended “The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez” by Laura Cumming,  who  demonstrates some of the problems of attributing paintings correctly to their creators. It is also disturbing to read about the dealer who, having cleaned up a “Velasquez” to make it more attractive to a buyer, had it darkened and aged to fetch a better price.

The Improbability of Love is a low key heist novel about the displacement of an expensive piece of art: The Improbability of love. Within the multi-narrative novel we see crooked art dealers, we see relationships blooming, and we also see the difficulty between families.It is an interesting story, a bit tongue in cheek, but for me it was a bit of a slow burner. Things get more interesting later on in the novel when the origin of the artwork begins to unfold but it did take over half of the book to get there.The most interesting chapters were the ones told by the painting itself. It sounds strange but the unique voice of The Improbability of Love was witty, entertaining and a little pompous so it is worth a read just for this character alone.The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild is available now.