THE BELLINI MADONNA
By Elizabeth Lowry
Quercus, Paperback, 2009, pp.390, ISBN 978-1-84724-953-1
Price £7.99

Mardi Stewart

Elizabeth Lowry’s first novel, The Bellini Madonna, is a curious work that delights, shocks, puzzles and, at times, irritates. It appears to be a version of the familiar quest novel recounting the search for an unlisted painting by the famous Italian painter, Giovanni Bellini.  There is little in the narrative to settle the reader into an intriguing unfolding of this search.

The central character and first person narrator is Thomas Lynch, an American art historian, recently dismissed from his teaching post for sexual deviance and misdemeanours. Lynch’s character is well rounded but unattractive. He drinks heavily and appears grubby and lubricious, which is at odds with his professed obsession with beauty in his search for the hidden Madonna.  It is difficult to empathise with him and, indeed, his drunken ramblings are soon echoed in the rather half-hearted search for the painting, which he hopes will restore his status.

The location of the search is Mawle, a dilapidated and crumbling country house in the south of England, which Lynch describes thus:

Above me the papery sky was brushed by the tall rear windows of Mawle, rough but rosy in its green petticoat. It overlooked the long runner of velvet grass that stretched from the raised terrace with its curved flight of descending steps, past parallel beds of foxgloves, lips sleepily incensing the warm air, down to a high beech hedge screening a decayed tennis court. The hypnotic hum of insects rubbing their glassy wings together rose from a nearby azalea bush. The upholstered afternoon rounded out its silences, each hour a plump cushion of peace

The novel is full of similar descriptive passages so vivid that they could be painted rather than written, deftly linking literature and art

The inhabitants of Mawle turn the quest into a complex mixture of mystery, eccentricity, sexuality and beauty. Anna Roper the great granddaughter of James Roper, the nineteenth-century owner of Mawle is a strange and unconvincing character. She carries her high class ancestry awkwardly, wearing deliberately unattractive clothes, which mask her underlying and undeniable beauty. Her ten year old daughter, Vicky, is precocious, but likeable and disarmingly frank. Harry, the gardener, who appears to be having some kind of relationship with Anna, introduces the theme of class difference and is reminiscent of a Thomas Hardy character.

Thomas Lynch dominates the novel with his increasingly dubious behaviour.  The cat-and-mouse liaison, which develops between Lynch and Anna, moves the focus from a search for beauty through the painting, to sexual conquest. His excessive drinking also appears to dissipate his interest in the original quest. As Lynch’s interest fades, the plot of the novel loses momentum.

A further strand is provided by the discovery of James Roper’s nineteenth century diary. Perhaps this will rejuvenate the quest? Instead, the diary, interesting in its way, simply provides an opportunity to introduce Robert Browning who was, apparently, an acquaintance of Roper’s. Browning’s poem ‘My Last Duchess’ is both mentioned and reprinted in full, which adds a further ingredient to this mystery as it wearily and inconsequentially unfolds.

The entire plot becomes an enigma hinting at several strands of possible dénouement: desire, fulfilment, sexual attraction and jealous possession.  Does the reader want to uncover the enigma or does the plot simply collapse and crumble like Mawle, where the object of the quest is allegedly hidden? This book is beautifully and skilfully written but disappoints because it lacks cohesion and is in danger of losing the interest of its readers as Lynch loses interest in his quest.