Apart from some incredulity at a few contrivances in the plot, club members generally found themselves intrigued with Jessie Burton’s second novel, The Muse. We liked the well drawn characters and were interested enough to find out if the true history of a mysterious painting ever comes fully to light.
The complex plot, which from chapter to chapter details the life and loves of Odelle Bastien from Trinidad, working as a secretary in an art gallery in 1967 London, and Olive Schloss, living with her well- to-do self absorbed parents 30 years earlier in dangerous pre-civil war Spain.
The women’s creative flair in different artistic endeavours forms a common motif but they live in dramatically different circumstances. Their lives turn out to be linked by the enigmatic Marjorie Quick who, as Odelle’s Manager at the gallery, takes Odelle under her wing as something of a protege. What Quick sees in Odelle is slowly revealed and the pace picks up a notch after Miss Quick is visibly shocked at seeing a painting brought to the gallery by Odelle’s boyfriend, Laurie.
Club members enjoyed the variety of relationships explored in the book and the different motivations people have for acting the way they do. The book also presents a view on what it means to be a genius; the lot of female artists in different time periods - it reminded some of us of Stravinsky’s Table by Drusilla Modjeska and of Malcom Gladwell’s The Lady Vanishes in his podcast Revisionist History (Season 1, Episode 1). The author pokes a bit of fun at art reviewers and the cynical marketing of art and the book is enlivened by the mention of real artists, collectors and celebrities in both time periods. Some of us felt the story was resolved rather too conveniently, but this was admittedly after a lot of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. We all agreed the book would make a good movie and spent some time deciding who would play the difference roles. We also considered who the muse of the title was, and it is indicative of the complexity of the plot that we all had different ideas.
We all agreed that Jessie Burton wrote beautifully of the landscapes of rural Spain and of the houses and gardens of England. Here is an example from pages 282/283:
July was a good month in Arazuelo. The smell of sage fields and rosemary, lizards making their way like small secrets out of the walls, jerky and neurotic in motion, ever wary of predators in the sky. But when they stilled themselves to bask, how poised they were, such pragmatists of nature, soaking up the heat of the sun.
It was a time of long evening shadows, the raw rasp of crickets filling the hot night. The fields were now shades of parsley, lime and apple. Wildflowers; spattered reds and royal purples, canary- yellow petals moving in the breeze. And when the wind got up, salt tasted on the air. No sound of the sea - but listen, and you could hear the articulated joints of a beetle, trundling through the corn root.
From the hills came the full music of bells as the goats overtook these smaller sounds descending the scree through the gauze of heat. Bees, drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from trees. A summer’s day will make so many sounds, when you yourself remain completely silent.
But if you are not into descriptive passages and prefer action, particularly the bodice-ripping kind, there’s enough of that, too, to meet your taste.
Who is Jessie Burton?
An English author and actress, Jessie Burton, 35, has published two best selling novels, The Miniaturist and The Muse. She has also written short stories for Harpers Bazaar US and Stylist and non-fiction for The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, Vogue, Elle, Red, Grazie, Lonely Planet Traveller and The Spectator.
She will publish her first novel for children, The Restless Girls, based on the Brothers Grimm tale, The 12 Dancing Princesses, in September this year. She is also working on a third novel for adults.
She won three awards for The Miniaturist in 2014 including Waterstones’ Book of the Year.
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