Well, no maybe not that life, but that was his choice. And while he may not have felt he gave what he should have, he did give Ellie her life back, and in my book that counts for a lot. And I’d like to think that he knows that when he sees her. I loved the scene in the lecture hall where he stands up for her and then slips out the door, because it echoed the way he slipped out of her life before, but then he comes back and actually makes things really right.
Marty and Ellie meet each other at low points in their lives - neither of them comfortable with who they are at the time. Is Ellie a forger? At that moment in her life, yes. Is Marty cruel? At that moment in his life, yes. I like how Smith allows them to move beyond those low points - a redemption of sorts. I like the Marty of year 2000 and Ellie also - both ready to take responsibility for their wrongdoings. The ending allows a bittersweetness to a relationship that changed both lives yet keeps that relationship grounded (no flights of fancy on the author’s part allowing love among the ruins.) Sometimes I get to the end of a book like this and think sarcastically “yeah, right” but not here.
Any thoughts as to why year 2000 rather than 2016? I assume it has to do with technology (i.e. internet, google, etc.).
^ Marty would be long dead by 2016. So if you roll it back a step, why 1958 instead of 1974? I would guess that both a heist and a forgery would have been a little easier to pull off in in 1958 – no elaborate alarm system to prevent a theft, no high-tech devices to detect a forgery, and so on.
I thought the chapter where Marty takes Ellie to the art auction was interesting — all very new to me. The dealers vs. collectors face-off seemed to be an intricate and tense game. @nottelling wondered (in post #23) if the scene was accurately depicted (for the 1950s). Any art auction experts out there?
As to the question of whether art forgery is a form of art, I would say of course it is. It requires great skill and creativity, and in Ellie’s case, almost a sixth sense. In the link above in post #19 ( “A Painterly Playlist”), Dominic Smith includes the painting Woman Reading Music. He writes:
Smith elaborates further on the forgery process (and how it affected his novel) here: http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2016/02/forgeries-and-figments/
And he makes another comment about “the power of imitation”:
He says that both forgery and plagiarism raise the ire in people as “nobody, after all, wants to fall in love with an imposter.” But personally, I can’t really equate the two crimes. I am indignant about plagiarism, but my reaction to forgery is more like…“Cool.”
I hated when Ellie burned her copy of At the Edge of a Wood. That seemed like a greater crime than the forgery itself. She destroyed something beautiful that wasn’t easy to create. It bothered me.
That reminds me. I need clarification: How does burning the forgery save Ellie in any way? Too many people at the museum already know it exists. What if Helen asks her when she returns (as she certainly would), “What did Hendrik say when you gave him the bad news?” Ellie would be right back to weaving a web of lies.
My sister is a director of contemporary art at a major auction house, so I should ask her specifically, but what I thought was so unrealistic about the scene is that he just sauntered in off the street and bid, apparently anonymously or under a false identity.
First of all, to get a paddle you have to be registered for the auction and you have to have established credit at the house.
Second of all, since the auction house specialized in Old Masters and he had a major collection of old masters, I believe they would have known him there. I’ve been to previews for my sister’s sales and she knows who every big collector who walks in the door is – even if they haven’t done business with her. It’s her job to know who these people are.
To a lesser extent, she knows the well-known restorers in town, too; they are cultivating her.
So I just thought it was very unrealistic that he could walk in off the street and buy stuff under a fake identity. (You can, of course, arrange for others to bid on your behalf, etc., so that the room doesn’t know who is bidding, but the auction house has to have set up the financial stuff before you can bid.)
^^^ And that, in my opinion, is the weak point in the book … the point where I stopped and thought “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (my apologies to Yeats).
By the way, I didn’t consider Marty’s age factoring into the decision to make the year 2000 and should have.
I kept waiting for Smith to tell us that Rachel stole the painting. She wasn’t a happy person at the time it was stolen. Marty was a little obsessed with the painting. He watched while they were making love…yikes! I’m sure Rachel noticed. The photo Ellie painted from had the top part of Rachel and Marty’s bed in it, so it was probably taken early in the day before the bed was made. The unmade bed points to Rachel or one of the house staff. When would the caterers or the beatniks have had access to the bedroom at a time the bed wasn’t made? Smith planted that seed of wonder purposefully, but then never told us who took the painting.
I too thought that it was likely that Marty would have been recognized at the auction house.
Yeah, I thought the resolution was the weakest part of the book. It required a major suspension of disbelief. That sale of the painting with Ellie’s knowledge could never, ever happened like that. If she hadn’t been the forger, she immediately would have said, “It’s a forgery.” She was completely implicating herself by letting things unfold that way, and of course it would have gotten back to Max, etc.
But I was swept up in the story enough that I willingly put aside my reservations. But it was because of stuff like that that I judge it more as a work of fun entertainment rather than a true literary work.
Why do folks think he left out who took the photographs of the painting, who made the switch and who was in on the forgery? (I.e all the questions raised upthread.) That would be the first question I would ask Smith – why did he leave it unresolved? I generally like some ambiguity and generally like when everything is not tied up in a bow, but I felt that plot point should have been resolved. I guess it wasn’t because it wouldn’t have been in the knowledge of any character whose point of view we inhabited. But still!
Another thing that made the book less than truly literary was a certain aspect of the writing style. I am undoubtedly overly picky, but did anyone else notice how the author often seemed to be straining to use words in an “original” way that was unintentionally awkward?
I intended to take notes, so that I could give examples of this, but I didn’t do it. I guess I could go back and look.
One thing I noticed was that Dominic Smith liked the word “brimming” and used it three or four times in ways that seemed a bit “off” to me. My reading of the book kept getting tripped up by little road bumps like that.
Thanks, @nottelling, all very good points. But how is it that we often hear that a million dollar masterpiece has been auctioned off to “an anonymous private collector”? How do these private collectors stay anonymous? Marty sort of falls into that category, because Meredith Hornsby, the expert on Dutch painters, has no idea of the whereabouts or ownership of At the Edge of a Wood and is amazed when Ellie tells her that she has “spent time with the painting” (p. 109).
@Mary13 – The buyers are not anonymous to the auction house, which will closely guard the secret if requested. I suppose the collector could provide funds to a third party who would register for the auction, establish credit and provide proof of funds, etc., and then the house would not know who is actually buying it. Or a dealer could be buying with the intent of reselling to a client.
Think about if anyone could just walk off the street and bid on a $1 million painting anonymously, without the auction house knowing who the bidder is. The integrity of the sale could be completely compromised. How would they know if the bidder had any money and could pay? How could they enforce the contract and force the buyer to follow through with the purchase.
Keep in mind, also, that the records of buyers and sellers at auction are incredibly important to the provenance to a work of art, which is a key component to how works are authenticated. Let’s say Jim has a painting that he wants to sell. The first question is, “where did you get it?” Jim wants to be able to say, “I bought it at auction at Christies.” And he wants there to be the sales records that back it up. There are very careful records of all buyers and sellers of works at the major houses going back centuries. The folks who work at the auction house or at an art dealer or at a museum will trace those sales and ownership records back to the artist if they can. Sales invoices and shipping receipts and auction and museum catalogs and ledgers going back centuries are all part of the provenance.
There’s a very active business of faking the provenance – the invoices and sales records and ledgers – as well as the actual forgery of paintings.
^ Goodness! Thanks, @nottelling. In a way, I think your response answers your own question in post #48 as to why Smith didn’t go into details – it would have required some complicated, and maybe convoluted, explanations. Lots of “who knew” and “how did they know” and “how could they possibly have pulled that off,” etc. I think Smith was aiming for character study and didn’t care about those details. Is that neglectful writing? Probably, but it didn’t bother me at all when I was reading. I was entertained.
@Caraid, I totally thought Rachel was going to be behind the theft. And I’m still not convinced she wasn’t involved. Great clue in the unmade bed. Maybe it was her brilliant way of getting back at Marty for his “almost-affairs.” The first chapter of the novel presented Rachel as if she were really going to have a role in the story, but then poof she was gone. Kind of ironic in that respect that Marty told Ellie that Rachel was dead. I feel like there’s a first draft of the novel stashed in a closet somewhere that tells Rachel’s story.
Yes! How great it would have been to have some later chapters from Rachel’s point of view. I bet you are right Mary – there probably is a chapter in a drawer when Rachel 'fesses up (at least to us the readers). I want to read that!
But then again one of the pleasures of this book was that it didn’t drag.
Ha! It never occurred to me, but I’ll bet you’re right. That unmade bed nagged at me and I didn’t know why.
Dominic Smith himself might share your view:
(I thought that was kind of an odd question for the interviewer to ask. Wouldn’t have been high on my list.)
I liked the way Smith wrote, but I’m aware that it’s partly because I went directly to him from a book where I really didn’t like the writing, so for me, at that moment, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos was a breath of fresh air.
Credit to @Caraid, not me!
I vaguely had the feeling he wasn’t always all that careful with language but I do think he has a real gift for conveying visual details in a way that makes a scene come alive. That was very pleasurable for me which may be why I’m willing to cut him so much slack.
I liked the way the author described the smell of things. Marty, the rich guy, smelled good and that enhanced his appeal.