A novel with detours

Michael Frayn's Headlong (1999) turns alternately from comic novel to lively art history and back again. The novel is terrific, except for those repeated interruptions, and perhaps the same could be said for the art history, if art history were one's purpose for reading a novel.

The story concerns a British philosopher, Martin Clay, who with his wife, Kate, flees to the country to work on his book. She has her own project to work on, plus a new baby to occupy her. No sooner do they arrive at their county house than they are invited to dinner by Tony and Laura Churt, who have a motive other than pure neighborliness. Tony wants a free appraisal of some art he claims was given to  him by his deceased mother. He also wants help selling the art for maximum profit without having to pay the commission to someone like Sotheby's.

The Clays don't want to get involved, that is until Martin glimpses what he becomes convinced is a missing Bruegel masterpiece. Never mind that his wife is the art expert, Martin wants to do this on his own. He concocts a plan to acquire the painting for a fraction of its worth and sell it for a fortune. He convinces himself this would not be cheating Tony Churt but rather a public service.

Of course, things get complicated. For one thing, Laura Churt mistakes Martin's interest in the painting for an interest in her. Why else would he keep coming to the house while Tony was away?

Yet the biggest complication turns out to be all that art history that Frayn inserts into the novel. Although this is a work of fiction, the history appears to be true. If so, it is good stuff, at least for anyone with an interest in art history. For those of us just interested in the story about the Clays and the Churts, it proves an annoying detour.

With less history this could have been a first rate comic novel. With less plot it could have been a first rate art history.