So. Usually I open a book with a completely open mind. But not this book. This book, I was bound and determined to like. And I did like it - good story concept, and it kept me reading until the very end (even during period breaks of an NHL game, it held my interest). But it has some flaws, too.The concept is great - an assistant curator and art restorer at the Met finds a portrait that he knows is something special and as he spends hours restoring it, he falls in love with the subject of the portrait. It turns out, the portrait is a previously undiscovered Leonardo da Vinci and Matt - the art restorer - is somehow spun across the centuries until he arrives in quattrocento Italy, free to pursue Anna, the countess in the portrait. I loved the concept - two people altering reality to be with each other - and in the hands of a more experienced writer, it would have been fantastic. And the segments where Matt discusses art theory and music with various knowledgable people are very interesting - those were my favorite parts of the book. But McKean is a master violinmaker, not a master novelist (yet). So the novel had some flaws.The major flaw, in my opinion, was that I was never sure how the story got from one point to another. First, Matt is in his office, then he's suddenly at a party. He passes out - whether from too many martinis or from some kind of wonky wrinkle in the time-space continuum is unclear - and when he wakes up, his girlfriend is mad at him. Apparently he did something that upset her while he was out of it. That must not be important to the story, though, because it's never mentioned again. Turn page, and Matt is in love with Anna, who just a paragraph ago was buried under layers of dust and soot and oil and all kinds of goop. How he restored the painting and his actually falling in love with her is never explained. Just - my girlfriend is mad at me - and then boom! I love a painting. It didn't make sense. Then the painting is suddenly revealed to the world, poor Matt can't handle it, he goes into a room in the Met to collect his thoughts, and poof! he's in Renaissance Italy. How he got there? No clue. It had something to do with vanishing points, and vibrations, and light refraction - that's all I could figure out. Of course, he doesn't really know how he got there either, but he seems to function just fine in five-centuries-ago. The love story between Matt and Anna also seems rushed. First, she barely notices him, then he stalks her a little, then suddenly they are painting buddies and then he gets booted back to the twentieth century and she's inscribing "love conquers all" in Latin on the back of her paintings. Okaaaaay. The story definitely would have benefited from more development.But in the end, I guess all that matters is I kept reading because I wanted to see how things turned out. It was a fun story. That makes a debut novel a success, right? I have to say though, at the end of the day, the one thought that's really sticking in my mind from this book is this one: how do I get my hands on a McKean cello?
I don't really know how to properly rate this book. The idea is good, really good, but the execution didn't seem to gel. It has so many points that should have hooked me, but instead, I was more interested in figuring out when I would finish it. Time travel is a widely used story line, and it's sometimes hard to find one that stands out and feels original. McKean really tried to do so with his version of time travel, but it came across as over-researched and a little too confusing. I think it would have worked better without the scientific explanation and mini physics lecture. The main character, Matt, and his historical love interest, Anna, didn't feel real; they were rather flat, and not explored well. Perhaps this is due to the relative shortness of the story, and maybe in a longer novel the characters would have been fleshed out more and become believable and sympathetic characters. But instead, Matt felt a little heartless, and Anna was just existing. Also, there was some parts of the story that were rather disjointed; I assume that these were meant to be parts of the butterfly effect, but were never really expanded and just mentioned in passing. For example, Matt's present girlfriend denying a conversation that just happened. But then, never mentioned again in the story, or fully explained. Sadly, this could have been great, but it fell flat.
Do You like book Quattrocento (2002)?
For the most part I enjoyed this book. The writing was rich, with descriptions that were vivid and detailed as though seen through the eyes of a painter, which is appropriated since the main theme of the book is art. I found out a lot about the development of painting techniques during the course of reading this novel. It's the story of an art restorer who becomes obsessed with the painting of a woman and somehow manages to travel back to her time, where he becomes involved in her life. I sometimes got lost when the writing turned to physics or philosophy, and I found it odd that Michael, the art restorer, wasn't at least a little disturbed or anxious about being sent back to the 1400s. Not even surprised. I can't imagine a 20th century man fitting so easily in the life and times 6 centuries past.
—Roz
The idea behind this novel is excellent- an art restorator falls in love with a woman in a Renaissance painting, then finds himself transported back to her time. However, as much as I enjoyed the premise of the story, I was dissatisfied with how the author developed it. Something about his writing style didn't click with me, and I couldn't get past the knowledge that this was a fictional story. Somehow, I just didn't feel like I was in the Renaissance with flesh-and-blood characters. I also didn't really understand how it was that the protagonist actually traveled through time. There just wasn't enough character and plot development to make me believe that, somehow, this could have happened.
—Beth
In general, I enjoyed this tale of time-travel and art history set in modern-day New York City and fifteenth-century Tuscany. The glimpses behind the scenes of the art world are interesting, the story of Matt's obsession with a woman depicted in an old painting is very romantic and intriguing, and there's just enough danger thrown in to keep everything mysterious and exciting. But I sometimes had trouble with the time-warp elements of the story – the main character would just suddenly fade out of one setting and appear in the other. There seemed to be a suggestion that the time displacement had to do with vanishing points and certain sounds or vibrations, but I would have welcomed a little more explanation of why or how it all occurred. Also, Matt seems to fit into that Renaissance world a little too easily, even for someone who's spent most of his career studying its art and culture. Things happen very quickly and without much explanation in that past world – one minute Matt is just encountering Anna for the first time, they have a brief conversation about a painting, and suddenly they're soul mates sharing rather intimate moments in her private studio. Would a woman from an aristocratic Italian family have behaved so freely with a stranger in fifteenth century Italy? I think it's doubtful.The book is a pretty fast read, although I found the prose style a little hard to wade through at times. McKean has obviously done a huge amount of research on art and the history and culture of Renaissance Italy, and it shows – but sometimes not in a good way. A lot of the discussions about art begin to sound like study notes, after a while. McKean is actually a musician and instrument-maker, and the book includes some discussions of music which are probably fascinating to other musicians, but seemed a little dry to me.But as I said, even with these reservations I still enjoyed the book. It was McKean's first novel, so I'm hoping for better things in the future. He's definitely a writer worth a second try.
—Joy
