Beware the Giant Goldfinch
Talk of Hieronymous Bosch has, as hinted in a post below, dominated my kitchen table of late, due in the main to a recent trip to Madrid, where many of the great Netherlandish painter’s works may be seen. It was there, indeed, that my wife decided she would turn away from her beautifully oblique verse and ape the efforts of the much maligned story-spinner, Dan Brown, whose trite art historical thrillers loom large, like elephant turds, in the cesspit of popular literary culture.
Surely, you scream, someone has already tried to pour Bosch’s rich imagination through the sad plastic funnel of a please-film-me page-turner? No doubt they have, but I’ve yet to hear about it. Nor has my wife, which explains her desire to do this dirty task herself.
Which is not to say that her book won’t have a handful of good ideas hidden within its lurid covers. Even the very worst books contain a sprinkling of originality, after all. And her theory that Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is all about syphilis has definite qualities. Definite qualities. This is more than I can say, unfortunately, for some of the subplots. Still, if I can get her to accept my own belief that the key to the painting lies in the relationship between Eve and the giraffe, contentment will be my cuddling-companion (even though we both know, at heart, that Hieronymous Bosch and the Holy Bottom Conspiracy will never actually be written).
Those who know the painting in question will know that one of its most interesting features is the presence of several oversized animals. These include, in the central panel: a mallard, a couple of types of fish, a green woodpecker, several types of owl, a kingfisher, a jay, a butterfly, a hoopoe and a goldfinch.
What these bring to your mind, I cannot say. Perhaps you’re already thinking back to that bird-themed fancy-dress party you went to in 1997. My mind, meanwhile, finds itself flying in a different direction – to the only modern European novel I know to feature an oversized goldfinch. I refer, of course, to Pierre Manniac’s Death: A Way of Life – not my favourite semi-fictional blood-splattered memoir of the last two decades, but a good stab at what is, all things considered, a tough genre in which to make a killing. You may read a review of the work here. I don’t think it mentions the goldfinch, but there’s plenty to hold the interest nonetheless.
