The English Masterpiece

By: Katherine Reay

Scott County Library paperback 277 pages plus author's notes, etc.

Published: 2025

Genre: historical fiction

Book club meets tomorrow and I've read the book! Now it's time to blog my notes . . . and there are lots of them. I've really enjoyed Reay's books in the past but this one wasn't a favorite for me. 

 

Lily is an aspiring artist working at the Tate Gallery in London in 1973. Her supervisor, Diana, has been her role model and a driving force in her life. In one fateful moment at an opening of a Picasso exhibit, Lily blurts out a statement that sends her life into a wild frenzy. Mixed in with all this is a fraught family dynamic and a little dash of romance.

 

Page 24: "Can't I just take it back?" . . . And no, whatever one says or does cannot be taken back. Some things can never be taken back.

 

As someone who often blurts without thinking, this made me cringe. One of my favorite (or at least oft-said) verses is "Set a guard over my mouth oh Lord;  keep watch over the door of my lips" from Psalm 141:3. Hurtful or stupid things cannot be unsaid.

Page 28: "Words are powerful things."

I liked the security guard Archie. He and Padraic the janitor at the school were wonderful characters. Here Lily is surprised that the gallery is empty and everyone has gone because of her comment.

Page 34: My sister is ten years older than I am, and we always seem to scrape against each other rather than slide along. She makes me feel juvenile, silly, and frivolous. She says I make her feel clumsy, irrelevant, and useless.

Ah, siblings. It can be difficult to find a good space to appreciate one another and enjoy one another's company. I'm thankful that I get along well with my siblings. So often, family members discount the youngest child because they are older and theoretically wiser. The friction between Lily and Daisy shouldn't have gone on so long! I like the author's word choice in describing scraping rather than sliding.

Page 36: Her words don't help, but they do broaden my perspective from the personal to the universal.

Sometimes we get so focused on our own situation that we forget to take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Here, Lily is thinking about the rest of the family and the economy because of Daisy's words. My strategy if I'm wrestling with something is to say, "In the grand scheme of eternity . . . " because most of the things I fuss about really don't matter in an eternal sense. Again, I like the author's use of "broaden my perspective from the personal to the universal."

Page 54: That day I wandered in and out of the empty classrooms, the half-full studios with stressed students deep into their term-end assignments, and I fell in love. It wasn't just being near art, like one can be when standing in a museum or a gallery; it was being close to the energy of its creation. The messiness, the intimacy, the grandeur, and the soul involved in making art. I sensed both the acumen and ability of those students as surely as I understood their vulnerability and desperation, their rawness and even their heartbreak. They were living Picassos - their souls splayed two-dimensionally across what they strove to create."

This didn't necessarily "speak" to me on a deep level, but I could imagine the intensity and love the idea of being "close to the energy." I think, too, of the passion of teenagers and young adults. There is something about youth that speaks of vibrancy.

Page 56: "You're hiding here in your painting. You've copied others long enough. Freedom takes courage."

Paddy is giving Lily advice and encouraging her to move forward. She grabs hold of that last comment and starts to process her life and her goals. It makes sense that she copied the masters to learn more about painting and different techniques, but that's all she's been doing.

Page 70: Here the memory grows technicolor vivid, but maybe that's because I've replayed it in my head so many times I've created it rather than actually recall it. Yet that's art - perception and reality merging in a new form.

Lily is thinking of the childhood incident that led to her choking, her mother driving her to emergency, the car accident, . . . I have a "memory" of leading my Grandpa Pahl to the pantry to get a cookie from the cookie jar. There's even a photo! But do I actually remember it, or has the story been told to me so many times that I recall a story instead of the actual event?

Page 132: When does growth end and mere copying, forging, and even dying begin?

Lily is contemplating her art and her life. Right after this, she runs into Conor (the American insurance investigator) and then they run into Pierce Brosnan. Later in the Author's Notes, Reay writes,

 ". . . I learned that Brosnan actually attended St. Martin's School and studied art around the same time I had my fictional Lily working there.

Well, that set off my imagination and I wonder if a moment within this story might not have led to that brilliant scene in his later movie - . . . . There you go - that is how Pierce Brosnan ended up in this novel. And if he ever reads it, I hope he thoroughly enjoys his brief shining role."

Page 136: I say art is love, but it's also risk. I don't see love in my work, and I definitely don't see any risk. I can't take risks. Financially or otherwise. Needs always outweigh wants.

Lily is right in that needs outweigh wants. But she isn't being a very creative problem solver, either. She spends a lot of time contemplating her art and her life in this story, but there's plenty of action to keep the story moving along.

Page 169: I have no control. I never did.

It takes her long enough to get here! 

Page 170: That's what I would chase - if I had the time, the ability, and the talent. Not expressionism or surrealism. I want to see without subterfuge and distortion. I want truth.

It's nice that she wants to paint truth. I've learned more about different art movements subbing in Sarah's art class than elsewhere . . . 

Page 180 holds the back story to her older siblings and their experience during WWII with Operation Pied Piper. It seemed as though the whole back story / family history was a bit disjointed. Fascinating, but not very clear.

Page 188: He nods to the teakettle, which begins to hiss. He waits as she takes it off the stove and pours water through the strainer into the cup. Tension builds within her. He is waiting for some purpose. She can feel it. His timing always plays to his advantage.

The relationship between Diana and her much older husband Heinrich was downright creepy. He groomed her and manipulated her. They were both quite twisted.

Page 225: Heinrich smiles, something long, slow, menacing. "Pride and greed are powerful vices. Ubiquitous too. Plenty of the disreputable and greedy are in New York."

Again, Heinrich was a creep and sneaky. I thought his observation about pride and greed were apropos.

Page 230: "When did you need to apologize for an accident that happened twenty-two years ago? You took that all on yourself. That's pride, my girl, not humility."

Lily's mom finally has the talk with her she ought to have had many years earlier! How did they let that much dysfunction foster?

In chapter 30, Lily goes to Diana's house to confront her. I was thinking, "Are you kidding me? That's the worst place you can go." I understand why the author had that happen. It's certainly an interesting part of the book. This book was interesting but not fantastic.