The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lots of sumptuous writing here, but the operative word is lots.

I felt sure there would be an intricate plot twist somewhere along the line, with clues hidden in the endless descriptive passages, and I even convinved myself I'd worked it out (a rather Shakespearean identity-swap malarkey) but I was wrong.

Full credit to Maggie O'Farrell for what seems to be diligent research, less so for the showy-offy legion of Renaissance Italian vocabulary, especially regarding clothing. Having a book in one hand and a phone in the other, for continual translations, becomes a little tiring.

On the topic of clothing, O'Farrell seems to have something of a fetish for sleeves. Hardly a paragraph goes by without a mention of sleeves being donned or doffed, slash-cut sleeves, satin blah de blah. The author has learned, I suspect, that sleeves were not attached in those days and thinks it really important that we all. get. this. point.

It's a fairly long book, made longer by the chapters. These start off sensibly, at four, ten, twenty pages, but in the middle section suddenly they are eighty or ninety pages long. This is exhausting, unneccessary, and inconsiderate. Further, the storyline jumps back and forward through time; a device I feel should be used only sparingly - again out of respect to the poor, humble, burdened reader. I thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, stretching credibility.

Criticisms aside, it is a tour de force and I'm a bit jealous of Maggie O'Farrell's writing ability.






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