Literary Portraiture

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

I planned on starting this post with a little self-celebration. I’m writing about a recently published book this week, which always feels like a victory of relevancy. Then I realized that just because I own this book in hardcover doesn’t necessarily mean it’s new. Yep, I bought this book last year and let the poor thing sit on my shelf until it was no longer hot off the presses. Classic.

That being said, in the grand scheme of literature, what is sixish months? I could argue that our society is churning out books at an alarming rate, and we should all just slow down a little bit. There’s so much out there to read already. You don’t always have to be reading the most recently published thing. Successful novels are timeless anyway. In fact, I am arguing that. So congratulations to MEEE for reading something that was published so recently.

As is often the case with the newer novels I end up reading, I picked this one up because I knew the author, Maggie O’Farrell. I read Hamnet (also by her) back in 2020 and overall enjoyed it, with a grain of salt. Her characterizations were a bit over the top, feeling almost anachronistic at times, and knowing a bit about Shakespeare as I do, her liberties with the details of his life were noticeable. BUT, overall, and especially when thinking of the story as a true piece of fiction, just one with recognizable names and only loosely historical framework, I did appreciate it.

I was excited to read The Marriage Portrait because I know next to nothing about the Renaissance period in Italy. I know there was art. I know that the Medici family ruled Florence for large chunks of time, and I know about their magnificent palazzo from the snippets of architectural history class that remain in my psyche. That’s about it. This limited knowledge meant I didn’t have to worry about feeling frustrated with large historical inaccuracies, which boded well.

The Marriage Portrait tells the story of Lucrezia de’Medici, the fifth of grand duke Cosimo de’Medici and duchess Eleanora’s eight children and their youngest daughter. Eight living children, that is. Eleanora, knows as “la fecundissima,” in reference to her fertility, birthed eleven total. Of the bunch, Lucrezia is the oddball. Her mother shuns her to the care of a nursemaid shortly after her birth because she howls like a little animal non-stop. Thus begins the life of this little black sheep. Even after being brought back upstairs from the kitchens in toddlerhood, everyone in the family continues to feel that she’s a bit off.

And she is — at least a bit. Lucrezia is incredibly smart and strong willed, though outwardly quiet. She is portrayed as a bit of a wild thing, but she remains largely invisible to her family. Until she is needed, that is. When Lucrezia is only 12 or 13, her older sister Maria dies, leaving a betrothed husband, Alfonso d’Este, future Duke of Ferrara, behind. Lucrezia is proposed as a substitute, and after a couple years, bought by Sofia, the kindly nursemaid who lies about Lucrezia’s childbearing status, a marriage takes place. Just like that, Lucrezia is sent off with a man she barely knows. The man is enigmatic - seemingly loving and attentive, but something sinister lies beneath the shiny muscled exterior (to put it lightly).

O’Farrell reveals this, and much more to her reader through a dual timeline. When the novel begins, Lucrezia and Alfonso have just arrived at his family’s old Fortezza, and they are sitting down to dinner. Thinking it strange that her husband has brought her here but nervous to ask any questions, Lucrezia is struck by the sudden certainty that he is going to kill her. From there, we flip back to the start of Lucrezia’s life - the story of her conception and birth. As the novel progresses, we alternate between these timelines until the two converge.

This structural choice serves as an excellent plot driver. The glimpses of present day are quite short, while the chapters describing Lucrezia’s childhood, adolescence, and eventually, first year of marriage are longer (up to 50 pages, and quite dense). This means that while much more happens in the longer chapters, the actual action of the novel is taking place in the shorter ‘present-day’ chapters. As the reader, you want to get there — to where the action is.

I will say, I’ve read some reviews that describe this book as un-put-down-able, and that wasn’t my experience. I enjoyed reading it, and I enjoyed putting it down before picking it up again. This sounds like it might be a negative because “I couldn’t put it down” reviews are all the rave, but it’s actually a complement. I thought that O’Farrell’s pacing was very good. After the initial chapters at the Fortezza, I was happy to be swept into the past and to learn about all the characters in Lucrezia’s world. To glimpse the various vignettes that led her to this place where she is potentially about to get murdered by her husband.

I enjoy O’Farrell’s writing, but in this novel as in Hamnet, her descriptions (particularly in relation to her characters) can be a bit much at times. At the furthest end of the spectrum, it can feel overwrought to the point of being melodramatic. The dual timeline worked so well because every time I started to feel like O’Farrell’s prose was dipping toward that end of the spectrum, she would interject with a reminder that she was getting there. She was bringing us somewhere dangerous and unknown. I was more than happy to follow her.

Interestingly, I didn’t really realize how over the top certain moments were until I was reflecting after the fact. While I was reading, I was swept up in the story and very much along for the ride. I think this is owed to more than just O’Farrell’s employment of a dual timeline. I think that it can also be attributed to the fact that her characters are quite captivating. Even the ones not granted the same level of interiority as Lucrezia captured me as I read along. For the sake of time and because I feel like it, though, we will be talking about Lucrezia. She is the central…center of this story, after all.

From the very start, she is likable. When we are told the story of her conception, we are told that due to the circumstances of that moment, her mother believes her to be cursed. Who could not love and want the best for a little baby up against those odds? The reader MUST root for her. As Lucrezia grows, the hopes and fears revealed by our third person omniscient narrator, strengthen the sympathy of the reader. She suffers innumerable slights, and she is wounded. All the while, she maintains a secret core of wild, free, self-possession. There are no two ways around it - she’s compelling.

Her spirit is best captured by the moment when, at six year old, she sticks her hand through the bars in her father’s underground “Sala dei Leoni” to touch a wild tiger, and the tiger…lets her do it. From that moment on, the garden of free-will that she keeps safe in her mind is occupied by a stalking tigress. It’s a poignant moment, and one that my animal loving child-self read with envy. However, it’s also a moment that captures how O’Farrell’s characterizations can be super idealized. Lucrezia, with her abnormally good hearing and abnormally advanced painting skills, and abnormally intense connection with animals, starts to take on almost mythical qualities.

Ultimately, Lucrezia doesn’t easily or happily fit into the mold she’s expected to as the female child of nobility, but O’Farrell also doesn’t give her any real flaws. She spends a lot of time telling us that everyone else thinks Lucrezia is flawed, but according to the moral and ethical rules of the novel as presented by our narrator, she is not. Clever, talented, free-spirited, with good instincts and almost uncanny intuition to boot, she’s captivating in the same way that a masterful portrait can be — beautiful, with lots to look at, but flat when you go to touch it. And maybe that’s part of the point, but because of it, Lucrezia can feel like one of those frustrating female characters who is framed as an outcast, but it’s only because her hair is a beautiful fiery orange color instead of chestnut brown like all the normal girls. You know the one I mean - the one who gets made fun of for being too pretty.

I acknowledge that Lucrezia is a child. Maybe the central question is not whether or not she’s flawed like the rest of us, but whether or not she will ever be able to become flawed. Fair, but like painted portraits, all of O’Farrell’s characters lack a three-dimensionality that I think they could have benefitted from. The flawed ones are pure evil, and the good ones are basically unflawed. Maybe I’m projecting my modern sensibilities on the story too much, and the small things that were “wrong” with Lucrezia really would have been enough to make her a pariah in the 1500’s in Italy. The point still stands that, though she might not have been perfect in her world, she’s pretty damn close to a reader today. But what if she wasn’t damn near perfect? Wouldn’t she have been just as deserving of freedom and a life to live? That’s a question I would have liked O’Farrell to actually ask.

If you’ve read this book, I would love to hear your thoughts, particularly on the ending! Please do get in touch. And if you haven’t, please go read it, and then get in touch so we can talk about the ending. I’ll be waiting.