“The Improbability of Love,” the new novel by Hannah Rothschild, is an insider’s look and perception at the international art market. The book looks at and talks about the international art market in a satire of consumption and corruption in the London art world.
Rothschild is an author who belonged to the banking dynast. Her first non-fiction book, “The Baroness,” was about the life of her great-aunt Pannonica. The story was about her journey. She was a rebel who abandoned her notorious family to become a passionate patron of jazz. The story is highly gripping and equally complex and unpredictable. The book was enriched by a serious consideration of the human impact of vast wealth.
Hannah Rothschild’s captivating fictional plot
“The Improbability of Love” is the first novel by Rothschild. It is well sewn and is an exuberant, uneven satire, great for the people who find “Downtown Abbey” too bleakly realistic. The book has an intriguing plot, and the characters are also named highly absurdly. The weird names range from the likes of Liora van Cuttersman to M. Power Dub-Box.
The book talks about the value of art in a market that has become a species of commodities trading and a convenient way for unsavory billionaires to bury their wealth and burnish their reputations. It raises some serious questions. There is a cutthroat game that rules the governments and public museums. The game is difficult for them to play, and due to this, there does not remain any such thing with inherent value. The book concludes that the paintings are only worth the price someone is willing to pay. “The Improbability of Love” is not cynical like its characters, though.
Interesting characters and intriguing story-lines
The book highlights one exception in the struggling heroine, Annie. She buys an entrancing painting from a junk shop and ends up buying it as a gift for a man she has been dating. The man ends up dumping her, leaving her stuck with what turns out to be a lost masterpiece by an 18th-century rococo painter. The painting eventually plays a very important role in the book. At several points, the paintings end up addressing the reader and expanding the story’s historical reach.
Annie is quite an unconventional character painted by Rothschild. She is new to the art world and its machinations. She has a troubled past and an alcoholic mother, and she meets a sweet-natured guide at London’s Wallace Collection who helps her sleuth out her painting’s provenance while falling in love with her.
Rothschild enjoys mixing up her colorful characters. The plot grows and keeps the reader intrigued. With interesting characters and unanticipated plot twists, the novel keeps the reader enthralled. “The Improbability of Love” is beautifully written and is enlivened by insider knowledge that’s too juicy to be entirely fictional.
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