posted on 13 Dec 2023

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Award-winning Spanish author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte is probably best known in the UK for The Dumas Club – a biblio-thriller with more than a touch of the Gothic - that found its way onto the cinema screen as The Ninth Gate (with Johnny Depp as a highly unlikely antiquarian book dealer). His books are often a well-judged blend of action, historical detail and complex plotting and he doesn’t conceal his literary intensions. He’s also a massive fan of Alexander Dumas and his series of swashbuckling Musketeer-esque, Captain Alatriste adventures – which are less to my taste – have made him a best-seller in Spain.

His 2008 novel, The Painter of Battles, occupies very different territory. Gone are the mysterious plot-twists and the action driven storylines and in their place we have a very static, sombre and meditative slab of literary and moral philosophy. Andrés Faulques is a renowned war photographer who has turned his back on the camera and has taken up the life of a hermit in an old watchtower on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. He’s damaged both emotionally and physically – he has a mysterious abdominal pain (cancer?) that periodically gives him great physical anguish. But he’s more damaged psychologically by his time in the war zones and his life as a photographer of terrible hurt, death and anguish. He’s also haunted by the memory of his colleague and lover, Olvido who was killed in front of him when they were on a mission in the Balkans.

Faulques has turned back to painting to express his feelings about life, war and death and, like Goya, he’s trying to capture all of this by painting a huge panoramic mural directly onto the wall of the watchtower. Although he’s just about as anti-social as it’s possible to be, one day a mysterious stranger turns up, seemingly oblivious to Faulques’ fences. The visitor turns out to be Ivo Markovic, a Croatian whose image the photographer captured and who became a sort of symbol of the war. Once Faulques has been reminded just who Markovic is, the Croatian tells him that he’s taken years to track him down, that the photograph that was taken ruined his life and that he now planned to kill the artist.

But, Markovic tells him he will not carry out his plan until he’s satisfied that he can understand what motivated Faulques to take the photographs he does. What follows is a length philosophical dialogue between the two – over several days – in which they discus the role of art, photography, war and compassion. The tension – what little there is – comes from when, if at all, Markovic will make a move and whether the photographer/artist will reach any sense of understanding the issues that motivated him to try and paint the screaming nightmare in his mind.

The book is certainly hard going by comparison with Perez-Reverte’s other work. There are moments when the book lifts and takes flight but equally there are slabs of rather turgid and fraught philosophy that sit moribund on the page.

If you’re new to this author, this is definitely not the place to start. 

For those who do want to explore the book, you’ll find both paperback and hardback copies can be found cheaply on the second-hand market.

 

Terry Potter

December 2023