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the complete review - fiction

Perspective(s)

by
Laurent Binet

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : an entertaining epistolary trip to sixteenth century Florence

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "The action moves so fast we find ourselves in a Dashiell Hammett novel, albeit one with over-flowery language. The result is somewhat funny and very gripping." - Magdalena Miecznicka, Financial Times
  
  
• "The novel was originally published in France with the title Perspective(s), which makes more obvious the fact that, as well as its crowd of characters with their own points of view, it is also about the artistic technique of foreshortening. (...) But this is not primarily a postmodern treatise on the philosophy of art (.....) Perhaps those first readers were simply miffed that Binet had taken time out to write an entertainment (...), but fans of the early Arturo Pérez-Reverte or Gilbert Adair should experience no such disappointments. Primarily, Perspectives aims, modestly and with thorough success, to be a dazzling romp." - Steven Poole, The Guardian
  
  
• "It’s otherwise a conventional detective thriller, albeit a very well-done one, with surprising twists, exciting action and a satisfying denouement. Binet hasn’t short-changed us on the fun, and it doesn’t matter that some of the events are fudged or wholly invented. Binet projects such mastery of the period, his correspondents ranging from proletarian plotters to Catherine de’ Medici, queen of France, that you swallow it all. (...) Historical fiction doesn’t get much better than this." - George Cochrane, The Telegraph
  
  
• "Perspective(s) is an epistolary novel, but, rather than a subtle work of manners, as we might expect from the period and genre, it is essentially a tight, fast-paced, well-managed whodunnit. The story gets very complex very quickly, with subplots blossoming (.....) The swiftness of epistolary exchange largely suits the investigative mood, propelling the narrative yet keeping a reader at an intriguing distance from the action. As the title suggests, Perspective(s) is concerned with different points of view, complementary and conflicting (...) But none of these strands ever really takes root. Ultimately it is hard to see what powers Perspective(s) beyond the murder-mystery plot." - Russell Williams, Times Literary Supplement

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Perspective(s) (published in the UK, ridiculously enough, as: Perspectives), is basically an epistolary novel -- 176 letters, the bulk of them sent in the first half of 1557, dealing mainly with events in the Florence of those times.
       A brief Preface -- signed 'B.' -- explains how the would-be presenter of this collection came across the documents in an antique shop, already a neat, ordered pile; 'B.' presents himself as the translator (into French, from the original Tuscan) of the collection, and notes that, for example, "I have altered the years in favour of our Gregorian calendar" (as the Florentine new year at the time did not start until 25 March). Noteworthy, too, is that 'B.' explains he endeavoured to make this correspondence: "accessible to the French reader from our own nineteenth century" -- so Binet also situates this 'translation' in the nineteenth- (rather than twenty-first-)century, making it a doubly not-modern novel.
       There are many correspondents -- the dizzying back and forth going in many directions --, with a 'List of Correspondents' helpfully provided at the beginning. They include some of the leading artists of the time -- Michelangelo; Benvenuto Cellini; Giorgio Vasari -- as well as notable nobility -- Cosimo de' Medici, the Duke of Florence -- and even royalty Queen of France Catherine de' Medici.
       The dominant -- though hardly only -- storyline is that of a murder investigation. Painter Jacopo da Pontormo, who did indeed die on New Year's Eve, 1556, is here presented as the victim of a murder -- "a chisel embedded in his heart, just below his strenum". For eleven years he had been working on frescoes in the chapel of San Lorenzo, and that is where he is found. Also then discovered in his home is a copy of his Venus and Cupid, based on a Michelangelo sketch, -- but one where: "in place of Venus's face, Jacopo had substituted that of the duke's eldest daughter, Miss Maria de' Medici".
       Giorgio Vasari (who devoted a chapter to Pontormo in the later (1568) edition of his The Lives of the Artists) is tasked by Cosimo de' Medici -- who is sure the frescoes and the 'Venus and Cupid' "are concealing a secret" -- to get to the bottom of things. Cosimo de' Medici had arranged for daughter Maria to be married off to Alfonso d'Este, the son of the Duke of Ferrara -- though she hasn't even been informed of her luck when Vasari first speaks to her ... --, and the 'Venus and Cupid' painting could prove a stumbling block to those plans, while Catherine de' Medici (who Maria, with no one else to turn to, writes to, as a trusted confidante) spies a great opportunity for her cousin Piero Strozzi, "the great enemy and rival of Cosimo in the struggle for control of Tuscany", encouraging him to get his hands on it and then: "have copies printed, and distribute them all over Italy, all over Europe" to really throw a spanner in the works. The trail of the whereabouts of the painting (and then a copy of it), make for some of the amusing action in the story then -- while Maria, desperate to avoid marriage to Alfonso, who everyone agrees is a real creep -- remains a pawn who is variously played.
       (Readers with some familiarity with the history of these times will know, at least in rough outlines, how many of these things play out: the characters' lives follow the same basics (deaths, marriages, the completion of Pontormo's frescoes, etc.) as their historical counterparts, but Binet does take quite a few liberties regarding the actual circumstances -- beginning with Pontormo's death, which was not actually a murder.)
       Among the mysteries is also that when Pontormo is found, someone appears to have retouched one of the panels he was working on (the Flood, as it happens -- with flooding also then playing a significant role in the resolution of much of the story). That it is the work of a different painter only becomes apparent weeks later, when the paint has properly dried, revealing itself to be different in quality from Pontormo's preparations -- and so, presumably, is the work of the murderer. Since the imitation of Pontormo's style is so expert -- it: "could only be the feat of an extraordinarily skilful and gifted painter" -- it seems likely the murderer is a highly talented painter, narrowing down the pool of suspects to a very small number ....
       Also in the mix is Marco Moro, Pontormo's colour-grinder -- and a proto-Marxist, who is trying to organize the workers of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali. Also involved in parts of the story are some feisty nuns .....
       While it's perhaps a bit hard to believe that some of these figures would have committed to paper some of the things presented here, it does make for an amusing glimpse behind the scenes of the power-politics of some of sixteenth-century Europe. The Florence of the times has already become more reactionary -- Pontormo's nudes, even beyond 'Venus and Cupid', are already considered problematic, and Michelangelo has avoided the city for almost a quarter of a century --, but the goings-on remain variously (and entertainingly) outrageous. Conflicts abound -- not least among the artists jostling to follow in Pontormo's footsteps -- to be named his heir in one way or another, landing his estate and/or being charged with completing the frescoes (while also trying to avoid coming under suspicion of offing the old master).
       The fast back and forth of the letters -- almost all relatively short -- and their variety as they criss-cross one another in the sometimes dense timeframe makes for an often breakneck narrative. The different tones taken -- from the obsequious, trying to toady up to those in power, to the desperate to the baffled -- are entertaining -- often all the more so because the reader, privy to the other letters and hence other correspondents' thinking and actions, is often aware of things specific letter-writers are not. Vasari is good detective, and the resolution of the murder satisfying enough -- complete with Pontormo having the last say, as the final letter that is presented is one that he wrote a few days before his death. The broader comedy of the 'Venus and Cupid'-storyline is also enjoyably amusing, even if its progression and details are rather more farfetched.
       Perspective(s) is good fun, with a fascinating cast of characters and events and only slightly twisted history. (Pontormo, by the way, seems to have been quite the character himself, deserving of a novel in which his life and work are even more at the forefront than is possible here.) Binet is playing games here, but he plays them well and entertainingly enough, making for a decent read.

- M.A.Orthofer, 17 February 2025

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Links:

• Farrar, Straus and Giroux publicity page
• Harvill Secker publicity page
• Grasset publicity page
• Le Livre de Poche publicity page
• Rowohlt publicity page
• La nave di Teseo publicity page
• Seix Barral publicity page

• ara (Spanish)
• Contorni di Noir (Italian)
• franceinfo (French)
• The Guardian
• El Imparcial (Spanish)
• Infinite Books
• LuciaLibri (Italian)
• MademoiselleLit (French)
• El Placer de la Lectura (Spanish)
• Il Riformista (Italian)
• South of Paris books
• totalnoir (Spanish)
• Vogue France (French)

• Pontormo: The Neglected Mannerist Painter at Daily Art Magazine
• Jacopo da Pontormo at The Art Story

• HHhH
• The Seventh Function of Language

• See Index of French literature
• See Index of Real People in Works of Fiction

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About the Author:

       French author Laurent Binet was born in 1972.

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© 2025 the complete review

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