Addicted TO LOVE
LOVE COMES WITH A DANGEROUS DOSE OF OBSESSION IN WILLIAM BOYD’S LATEST NOVEL
Alove that is so powerful and obsessive it entirely shapes one man’s life is at the heart of this fascinating historical novel.
Love Is Blind takes us to late 19th-century Scotland, where a young man called Brodie Moncur is intent on escaping the influence of his domineering father. Brodie has great talent as a piano tuner and when he’s offered a job in a Parisian piano maker’s store it’s his chance for a fresh start and a more exciting future.
In Paris he meets beautiful young opera singer Lika Blum. She seems to be out of his reach, as she is the lover of a renowned pianist, John Kilbarron. But Brodie embarks on a business arrangement with the pianist and an illicit and dangerous love affair with the intriguing Lika, and they lead him into adventure and disaster.
Brilliant but drunkenly vicious, John takes Brodie around Europe and all the way to
Russia, bringing him success, but then steals something artistically important from him.
Meanwhile, the lovely Lika gives him passion but never fully gives herself.
Fuelled by his devotion to her, Brodie takes terrible risks and makes unwise choices. With his health always a problem, his future starts to seem uncertain.
This story sweeps you into its world. It is witty and sad, filled with painstaking detail – I learnt more about piano tuning than I ever expected to know! – and has a constantly simmering sense of foreboding.
William Boyd is quite a literary writer but he is also very much a storyteller, so the pace isn’t too slow nor the prose overly fussy or dense. There are a few bumpy places in the plot – events that seem to lead nowhere and characters that don’t need to be there.
It is littered with literary references if you are interested in looking for them.
Music, love, revenge and betrayal power this tale. It’s a touching and enjoyable novel to get lost in.