River of Fire

by Mary Jo Putney

Signet (Penguin Group), 1996 379pp.

Perfect or nearly so novels (I find, anyway) are difficult to review because there isn't much to do besides sing their praises; and for similar reasons, one hardly knows where to begin with really bad books. Well written stories with some flaws are perhaps the most interesting category for the reviewer, for at that point the essay transcends review to become critique---at any rate, stories of this sort certainly seem to demand the most work, as for River for Fire. Despite my best efforts the following is probably going to come off as a hatchet job, even though I've probably spent as much time writing, rethinking my problems with the story and rewriting the review as I have reading the novel.

But first, another confession: I was prepared to enjoy this book more than the Shattered Rainbows, which I bought at the same time, because it was full of painters, and I did. It's always fun to have read about characters who share your interests. I liked Dick Francis' Straight, which featured a gem and bead wholesaler, for the same reason.

Kenneth Wilding, Lord Kimball, is flat broke because his father's second wife, whom he loathed, went through the entire family fortune. However, Lord Bowdon is willing to forgive 50 000 pounds in debts, setting Kimball up with enough funds to launch his sweet, but club footed, sister upon society and save their ancient home, if he will employ his skills as a spy, honed while fighting Napoleon, to infiltrate Bowden's brother's household. Bowden believes his artistic brother, Sir Anthony Seaton, has murdered his wife, to whom Bowden was affianced before she ran away with Seaton. Kimball is unhappy about the deception, but because he can draw, Bowden thinks his brother will be willing to hire him as a secretary, as indeed he does.

Kimball, though he knows he can draw---after all, any English schoolgirl can sketch---is very much more dubious about his ability to paint in oils, so he's thrilled when Seaton's daughter, Rebecca, also a gifted painter (in oils) offers him a studio and painting lessons in exchange for posing for her. Rebecca's varying approaches---some successful, others not---in her efforts to teach him were very sympathetic and believable.

Rebecca, equally attracted to his piratish good looks and knowledge of art, finds the household very much more lively with his presence. Kimball and Rebecca Seaton are both likable characters, and I actually found their erotically charged painting sessions more romantic than the sex scenes, which typical of Putney's I find to be considerably less annoying than most. Their emotional problems, though not quite as accessible (especially in Rebecca's case) as are those of Reggie and Alys (The Rake), nevertheless provide considerable insight.

Much of the tension of the story comes from Kimball's efforts to discover the cause of Lady Seaton's death, (and the guilt attached to the deception in doing so) and to learn how to paint. He doesn't feel, because he has a terrible time mastering oils, that he can ever be a real artist. I thought the author captured his struggle to master the new medium very well---I've felt very much the same way, trying learn how to make glass beads, after years of stringing and weaving beads, and the techniques just ain't the same---and I didn't at all find his self doubts difficult to accept. Artists suffer from doubts all the time. It was his reasons for them I couldn't believe.

I had problems with her, too. (Sigh). One of the really appealing facets of this story is that the reader is privy to Kimball's self doubts, which, however improbable I may found their origins, nevertheless come across very clearly and sincerely. Much of Rebecca's pain comes from her discomfort with what she perceives to be her circle's and especially her parents' unconventional lives, and the probably suicidal death of her mother.

Her problems come across more as told rather than shown; I didn't feel I had the same access. Though the lack of her parents' propriety bothers her, she doesn't express this longing in an obvious way, such as the depiction of families, or mothers and children. Her pictures do not have symbols of loss and darkness, as might be expected from a woman intensely affected by her mother's death under mysterious circumstances. Nor does she seem to reflect as carefully as she might about the potential costs to a female artist of convention (e.g. marriage), or the possible friction that might develop between Kimball as his rapidly burgeoning talent is already showing strong promise of outstripping hers by the end of the book. The hidden shoals---demands of family life, even for a woman as wealthy as she, and in love with a man as liberal as Kimball---and unequal talent, which may not have been the author's intention, but seemed pretty obvious to me---while not unnavigable, did appear completely unnoticed, and they made me tense, as I simply could not put them out of my mind. I wanted a little more assurance that the characters had some ideas for dealing with these problems.

Another underlying assumption that bothered me had to do with Rebecca's parents' romantic entanglements (both took lovers). I admit to being (unfairly, perhaps) annoyed with Rebecca's discomfort over her parents' unconventional lifestyle, because it struck me as ungrateful, since it's extremely unlikely that had she been reared in that so-desirable proper household she would have had the excellent training or exposure to art (and other artists) essential to her artistic development. Kimball's initial impression, a little more understandable in light of his background, is that the artists who compose Seaton's circle (and who constantly drop in on his studio) are a bunch of hedonistic spouse swappers. As the book progresses Kimball realizes that their relationships are neither as promiscious nor simplistic as he thought. That part I liked very much: conservative, disapproving attitude becomes slowly more educated and sympathetic, if not wholely approving.

The problem was towards the end I could not (again try as I would) escape the feeling that the author was faintly ashamed of her bohemian characters' bedroom antics, and was trying to whitewash them a bit, when, for example, Seaton and Lady Claxton admit having secretly loved each other from their first meeting, and had affairs for 30 years because they couldn't have each other. Fondness I'll grant, but true love? Pul-leaze! Having accepted them, warts and all, I didn't care to have it implied they weren't worthy of my regard. But maybe the whitewash is just my imagination, or a requirement of the publisher. (For after reading comments by other romance readers, I concluded they're a surprisingly intolerant lot, in some ways---imaginative sex is fine, but unusual types of relationships---imaginatively and sensitively explored in such sf classics as The Solarians, Courtship Rites, or Outcasts of Heaven's Belt, for example---are absolutely not)

Perhaps the most irritating lacuna, however, is the secondary character who spouts off about `Painting in the Grand Manner' but never details its precepts very thoroughly. It's as if the author read a one paragraph summary (the movement is so discredited---or maybe called something else---it sounds a little like classicism, but without any passion---I'd be surprised to find more than that in my Gardener) and then ran out of things for this character to say. But since that character felt so very strongly about it, I expected him to go into long monologs, or at least try to---and he never did. He was a dreadfully flat piece of cardboard as a result. And as he was important to the plot rather than just a throwaway, I felt the character deserved the effort.

There was also a bit of overly easy psychoanalysis at the end to resolve some of the long term emotional problems, but like the artspeak at the beginning of the book, easily and quickly finished. Despite all the ranting, which frankly is more a condemnation of the dreadful state of American appreciation for cultural arts in general and public school art education in particular---one of my favorite soapboxes, in fact---I enjoyed the book. (I even liked the cover, sort of a blotchy purple and red, with a graphic (ie 2 dimensional) fan and cat---and though they have nothing to do with the story---Putney often puts cats in her stories, but not in this one---at least the effect is relatively attractive and doesn't scream `lurid romance!' For all of you who sigh over the often sad state of paperback cover art, were there a higher standard demanded by a better educated public for good graphic design, the advertising industry probably wouldn't churn out as much ugly dreck as it does.)

Anyway. While I have to admit that I feel The Rake is still her best effort, this story is very fine indeed. Three stars.

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Sylvus Tarn

Last modified: Sat Jul 14 22:16:00 EDT 2001