Publisher: Bloomsbury
Rating: ★★★★
The Improbability of Love is not always a well-written book; Rothschild's prose detracts from the rest of the novel as much as it adds. At times, the imagery creates a vibrant and multi-faceted world, full of colourful characters. At others, however, the novel is bogged down with exhaustive description, slowing down the pace and making the sentences awkward and clunky. There are parts where the novel becomes 'she does this, and then this and then that and then she did this' and I had to fight to stay interested. This is one of the reasons the novel took me so long to finish – a week for a 400 page book, which is at least twice as long as my average. Because of this writing style, I never really felt drawn in to the novel; it was easy to put down and forget about, and I was never completely rooting for any character.
Having said all of this, TIoL is an enchanting novel, full of vividly imagined characters, with the stories of these characters intricately woven together. However much Rothschild's narration could frustrate me, it also delighted me, and I admired a lot of the aspects. The third person narrative jumps from person to person, and I think that Rothschild balances this very well. Though Annie is the protag, we see into the lives of all of the characters, and we know them all so well by the end of the novel. What ties all of these characters together is TIoL, a painting by Watteau that has been missing for over a hundred years, and which Annie buys in a junk shop for £75.
This novel is not just an art novel; it is also a love story, a history, a novel about a mother-daughter relationship, a critique of the art world, a mystery-thriller and many other things I have forgotten to mention. The novel serenely passes from person to person, dunking us into all of their worlds and yet you never really lose the thread; thanks to prologue, you know how all of these characters finally come together, and the novel is merely showing you how they get there.
The low point in this novel has to be narrative from the point of view of the painting. The first time this happens, I was like 'oh this is different/interesting' but after that it becomes a bit caricaturesque; too over the top, too weird and out of place. The rest of the novel flirts with over abundance and excess and walks the line between weird-yet-believable and completely bonkers, but the talking painting, I think, tips it over the edge. I also felt that the way he narrated (as the only first person narration, also) was imagined strangely (though I guess it's a talking picture and so can't really abide by the rules of normal) and also embarrassing at some points (the use of moi made me cringe). Not only this, but it is the painting that fully tells us the history of where he has been and who has owned him; I felt that this was too much of an information dump. Though this was painted as a sort of 'sorry, I'm 300 years old, I can be tangential' and though I also did find some of it interesting, I would've preferred brief snippets than the random chapters devoted to this history, which could be interesting but mostly irrelevant.
Overall, then, it is Rothschild's attention to detail that ironically both makes and breaks this book. This novel is superbly stitched together, but I think that at least fifty pages of unnecessary detail could've been edited out, and it still would've made sense. The ride was enjoyable, though, and I think that this novel is unique. Given the amount of books I've read in my lifetime, it's usually very easy for me to say 'read this if you liked so-and-so' but this book reminds me of no one, and thus it won't fade into the blur of other novels but stand out clearly and separately in my mind. This does not necessarily mean I will want to read it again, but I certainly appreciate having read it this time.
