Love
is Blind: The Rapture of Brodie Moncur. William Boyd. Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group. October 2019. pb, 384
pp.; ISBN: 9780525655268.
Falling
in love is so much more than just physical lust. Brodie Moncur becomes a highly killed and
popular piano tuner. His past is fraught
with the unexplained hatred by his father who considers Brodie a blackguard and
many other curse words. But due to the
financial support of a beloved neighbor, Brodie is able to get a decent
education and a successful job with a company that produces Channon
pianos.
For
now, Brodie is tuning the piano of a performer Kilbarron and accompanying him
on his tour of performances. Kilbarron
is known as “the Irish Liszt.” His
partner is Lida or Lika Blum and Brodie falls completely in love with her on
their first meeting. This is a passion
that is beyond words and it’s not long before she responds in the same
way. So grows Brodie’s reliance on the
family for employment and on his soaring passion for Lika.
Brodie
in the middle of his soaring success suffers a frightening consumption attack
which will haunt him for the rest of his life and force him to take convalescent
breaks to restore his health to a semblance of normalcy. Eventually he is forced out of the Channon
company but finds another concert pianist to accompany on tours. During these years Brodie and Lika meet in
secret at hotels and elsewhere throughout Europe. So proceeds the path of “the cuckold, the
lover and the mistress” although there is a surprise later added about these
relationships.
The
title of the novel refers to Lika’s statement that Brodie’s idea of love is
blind, that he only sees the good in her and not the negative. But isn’t that frequently so in all love
relationships? They will eventually be
separated because of a secret fact unknown to Brodie but his reflections and
descriptions of their love and union are so realistic and the European scenes
so beautifully described that the reader feels a part of the whole story,
including the evils trying to destroy Brodie’s success.
The
life of Brodie Moncur is indeed a rapture despite all the conflicts that beset
him. This is a lovely historical work of
fiction that truly reveals the beauty of the late 19th and early 20th
Century Europe and two of its characters who parallel that beauty and passion!
Remarkable and realistic story!
