[REVIEW] James King - Old Masters

Without a doubt, McMaster English majors will have already had the pleasure of taking a class taught by James King and be familiar with his wry sense of humour and wisdom, while those outside of the program looking for a stimulating elective quickly become acquaintances with it.

Having taught at McMaster since 1971, King has become a fixture in the department for his amicable lecturing style and the bevy of influential works he has published. Since obtaining his PhD from Princeton, King has written a slew of well-received biographies on subjects ranging from English poet William Cowper to celebrated Canadian writers like Margaret Laurence and Farley Mowat.

Of late, King has been focussing his creative energy on polishing his prose through the release of five novels between 1999 and 2011. King’s latest work, Old Masters, was published Oct. 2014 and finds him toying with a different method of telling what might seem like a fairly conventional story.

As indicated by its title, the novel is concerned with the artworks of the celebrated Old Masters, European painters who worked before 1800. For those immediately turned off by the prospects of reading a poorly disguised textbook, fear not. The book does not concern itself with critical appraisals of said Masters’ works and shares none of the heft of a stuffy art history course-pack.

Instead, Old Masters boasts a compelling, tightly-wound plot that still leaves room for ample introspection over the span of its 202 pages. The novel’s protagonist — or anti-hero, depending on your own pessimism — is Guy Boyd, a struggling writer who is surprised to find himself appointed to the task of writing a biography, but is nevertheless encouraged by the hefty advance thrown his way.

Ever the cynic, one of the first thoughts that Boyd entertains after coming down from the high of being given a shot at redemption is that he must keep his newfound finances a secret, lest his ex-wife demand more in the ways of child support for their thirteen year-old son Jacob.

In the wake of the death of Gabriel Brown, a famous art dealer who was renowned for his ability to find previously undiscovered work by the Old Masters, Boyd is tasked with writing a slim volume concerned with the man’s life. Not much is expected of Boyd — a hundred pages would suffice given that the book would be accompanied with full-colour reproductions of Brown’s most famous discoveries — but he immediately becomes frustrated by the lack of any apparent juicy personal details that normally grace the pages of biographies.

Fearful of producing a work with nothing to say about Brown that everyone does not already know, Boyd eagerly takes up the offer of Brown’s secretary to move into the late Canadian expat’s London estate. Aside from aiding him in his task of writing the biography, the house also notably succeeds in winning the favour of Boyd’s son Jacob, who begins to look forward to the weekends spent with his father, if only to cavort through the halls with his friends.

While now a different man in the eyes of his son, Boyd is frustrated by the fact that there are no loose ends to follow in his project of fashioning Brown into a more three-dimensional figure. Rendered anxious by the comfortable interviews with Brown’s colleagues that break no new ground and financially bolstered by the generous advance, Boyd revolves to travel to Canada where both he and Brown hail from in the hopes of unearthing new material.

Boyd immediately unearths a thrilling development, whether he welcomes it or not. An unsuccessful probe into the University of Toronto archives leads to a chat with one of Brown’s cousins who drops a bomb on Boyd’s biography; the Gabriel Brown seen in obituary photos is not in fact Gabriel Brown.

Through further research, Boyd learns that the man in the photographs and who built his reputation as one of the world’s foremost dealers is named John Martin, and he was as honest in his dealings as he was about his name.

In his search as to how Martin made such a name for himself, Boyd discovers an unpleasant truth that would shatter the lives of those who thought themselves close to Brown, as well as blow the entire art world into shambles. Equally disgusted with Martin as he is amazed, Boyd now finds himself in a moral quandary: deliver the safe biography his publisher wants, or reveal the truth about Martin’s rise to fame. The struggle to choose becomes an all-consuming one that threatens to break apart Boyd’s carefully forged relationship with his son, and one that highlights the complicated relationship between artist and subject.

No doubt aided in the writing of the novel by his own experience as a biographer, King proves to be up to the task of turning this dual character study into an entrancing page-turner. King’s prose deftly skirts away from being too flowery while still leaving you with no doubts about the extent of his own education. Taking up a familiar topic in the middle-age crisis, King weaves an interesting metanarrative that is well worth picking up in the event that you have any spare time this semester.