Few readers who enjoyed Freya, Anthony Quinn’s last novel, will be surprised to discover that Nat Fane is back. Quinn builds his historical novels from the ground up, plundering the contemporary records for real-life characters from which to draw his fictions. Powered by a satisfactorily pacy plot and oiled by Quinn’s effortless prose, this is a book that slips down as easily as a gin-and-it, but larger questions lurk beneath its polished surface. Must a work of art be understood to be appreciated, Quinn asks, or does its power lie in its ambiguities and secrets? “You’re sure,” he asks, “this film isn’t in black and white?” Eureka, on the other hand, is in glorious Technicolor.

Source: The Guardian August 05, 2017 08:48 UTC