Product Description

Auberon, the brilliant but troubled Director of the Museum of British History (known as BRIT) is preparing one Midsummer's Day for the opening of the most spectacular exhibition the Museum has ever staged.  The centrepiece of the exhibition is Gainsborough's portrait of the beautiful but intriguing Lady St John; not shown in London for a hundred years, the painting shows its subject strikingly attired as Puck.  As the day passes the portrait arouses in the minds of the museum staff disquieting questions, rivalries, and strangely deep affections.  Tension mounts: will the gala dinner be a success? Can the Museum's Chairman be kept under control?  And just what is it that's so peculiar about the portrait?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #248149 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

The Sunday Times
'Waterfield's comic novel, always urbanely light-hearted, hides a meaner satirical punch beneath its entertaining surface'

Review
'Not just a sparkling farce, one disaster following hard on the heels of another, but a blistering satire on the museum world and its many parasites. There are some memorably ghastly minor characters' (Sunday Telegraph )

'Waterfield's comic novel, always urbanely light-hearted, hides a meaner satirical punch beneath its entertaining surface' (The Sunday Times )

'Waterfield's uproarious portrait of museum life is daubed with flashes of silver-tongued satire, and he delights in puncturing the pomposity of its senior hierarchy. Amid the frivolity, he manages to insert some apt digs at New Labour obsessions with modernity' (The Times )

Woman and Home
'Intrigue and passion seethe beneath the surface in this wonderful comic delight'

Customer Reviews

Midsummer follies.
In his delightful send-up of the art world, museums, their trustees, and conservators, author Giles Waterfield recreates one tumultuous day in the life of the BRIT, the Museum of British History, as it prepares for a major exhibition, the centerpiece of which is an almost unknown painting by Gainsborough, owned by the Chairman of the BRIT Board of Trustees. The painting, "Lady St. John Impersonating Puck," sets the tone for the novel, loosely based on Shakespeare's comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of Fairies, become Auberon Booth, the Director of the museum, and his girlfriend, Tanya. Helena and Hermia in Shakespeare's play are loosely represented here by Helen Lawless, the Asst. Curator of Art, and Hermia Bianchini, the Exhibitions Assistant. Bottom, the leader of the "rude mechanicals," is echoed in John Winterbotham, the Head of Security, who is trying to protect the Gainsborough.

The novel opens "on the morning of Midsummer's Day of 2001," as Helen Lawless, in charge of the exhibition, manages to sneak a peak at the Gainsborough, previously kept hidden, and leaves with some questions about the dog in the left-hand corner. Jane Vaughn, the Chief Curator, also develops questions. She has discovered a significant difference in the appearance of the dog between the current painting and an early photograph. Eventually, Diana, Jane, and the head of the Conservation Department plot to view the painting without Security present so they can shine a UV light on it to examine the surface.

As other characters become involved in the action, the reader soon realizes that this is a study of egos and ambition as reflected in the clash between the trustees of the museum and the "worker bees" who run it. Several "thwarted in love" scenarios add intrigue and color to the narrative, with the plot coming to a climax at the banquet celebrating the exhibition, when the Trustees' far too ambitious menu creates havoc among the catering staff (which has no kitchen in which to prepare four hundred meals), and a slapstick scene, worthy of Monty Python, results.

Beautifully executed and great fun to read, the novel does not require any familiarity with Shakespeare or with museums to appreciate the broad comedy, the farce-like disasters which befall the prideful trustees and administrators, and the author's gentle satire of pretension. Wakefield, who has experience in the art world, chooses to walk the fine line between trenchant observation and biting satire. Ultimately, he presents a warm and rather gentle spoof of a world usually hidden from the public. Mary Whipple

A great romp and a witty revelation
I enjoyed this book from start to finish. On the surface it's the story behind a particular Gainsborough painting and the mystery behind the hound in the left hand corner of the painting which does look quite right. On another level it is a spoof very loosely based on Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream - all frame by the Gainsborough which portrays an 18th century Lady St John dressed as Puck! There are multiple layers of deception both within the painting and the plot. The action takes place over the course of a single day, giving the book a very satisifying roundness. It's a light and easy read but full of black humour, wry and witty asides and ascerbic commentary on one particular aspect of the musuem world. At times, even, there are elements of slapstick humour - waiters and cheese come to mind. The characterisation is superb; a little stereotypical, but I'm sure that's intentional: for such a short book, the reader gets to know a remarkable number of characters very well and very quickly. Highly recommended.

Political correctness exposed with wit and verve.
I'm grateful to Mary Whipple's analysis (above) for exposing the Shakesperian depths that will add to my enjoyment of this book when I reread it. I admit my own reading was far more superficial and I enjoyed it none the less for that. I found it simply ravishing on its simplest level and revelled in its unmasking of the pretensions of so many varieties of political correctness. Most of the characters could be subscribers to the GUARDIAN ("You have to hand it to him. He took his wife's name on marrying. Very effective.") The book is replete with gambits like this, oozing in pc-one upmanship, but these are shown to be affectations. For all their fashionable utterances of making musuems more nitwit, more accessible, less elitist, less historical, less scholarship-and-research oriented, the big musuem banquet at the book's climax is as snobbish and haughty as any of its prior manifestations in the 18th century (the theme of of the banquet is "elegance"). The politically correct staff are positively reeking with status envy and the chapter on these people getting dressed for the royal bash shows them trying to alleviate their status-anxiety by designer gowns, lavish jewellry and order of precedence to the extent they are almost literally sick at the thought of being humiliated by the absence of some bauble or the lack of a trendy remark. To me, these insecurities and hypocritical maneuveurings were THE deliciously major, wicked theme of the book and I had one whale of a ride, demanding of it no more than that. The treatment was wonderfully multi-faceted and witty, and readers will engage it on many levels, with no single monolithic interpretation of the book possible. Definitely the product of a wicked and perceptive intelligence.