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| Larkspur, August 1914, Charles Rennie Mackintosh |
Esther Freud has a house in Walberswick, which was once the pub where Mackintosh lodged. She fancied she saw the ghost of a young boy there and imagined he was the landlord's son, who developed an unlikely friendship with the artist. And this became the basis for her novel Mr Mac and Me ... which unfortunately turned out to be quite a tedious read. Sorry. (But that's the bookgroup 'homework' done for another month.)
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| The White Rose and the Red Rose |
CRM thought that his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh was the genius, but she's far too fey and fanciful for my taste.
7 comments:
Thank goodness, another reader who didn't think much of Mr Mac and Me.
It was full of anachronisms and totally unbelievable. Nice cover!
It did have a nice cover, didn't it? Best thing about it, unfortunately.
I agree with you both!
But you cannot deny his talent can you?
I have just spotted the birds!
Toffeeapple, there's supposed to be birds in all of the flower paintings from that time - but some are quite hard to spot, and some defeated me entirely. And, no, of course I wouldn't deny his talent - so sad about School of Art fire, and I was so glad I once had the chance to visit.
It's a disappointing book which sadly did not live up to my expectations - Ann Patchett says it is "A compelling tale beautifully told...As close to a perfect novel as anything I've read in a long time. I loved every page of it'
I, on the other hand am finding the last 10 pages a struggle to finish!
I am pleased that you showed one of the paintings with the hidden birds, I wondered if that was a bit more of Esther Freud's vivid imagination.
Compelling was not the word I'd have used, Rosemary - I could have happily abandoned it very early on.
I can see birds in some of the paintings - but you'd go crosseyed trying to find them in others.
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