Following a length of Frayed Baler twine

Should these evaluations be true, then we must ask ourselves what makes numerous elements of farce, drama, throbbing adventure, historical and art digressions hold up together in the novel? And why does the reader find himself caught up in the spinning plot of the book following all the emotional pitfalls of Frayn's protagonist, all his whims and follies? Would that be possible if the narrator were a fool, a rogue, a gambler raising his stakes, or if he were possessed by an obsession and caught up in sudden fancies?

Headlong is written as a first person narration, thus following the contemporary tradition of many modern British writings, such as for example Waterland by Graham Swift, or An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel. What leaps to the eye from the very start is the unusual framing of the novel: the headings of its introductory and final chapters sound exactly like the preface and summary of a treatise. The introductory chapter called Aims and Approaches specifies neither, however: the narrator mentions no aims and outlines no approaches to 'the problem'. The very first sentence of the introduction, the declaration: 'I have a discovery to report' seems more like an avowal on the part of the narrator than an opening cliche for a regular preface to a research. If anything, the chapter reminds the reader of a personal record, a private diary serving as a prelude to the main story. But unlike many literary openings of this kind, it lacks an omnipotent narrator who usually knows ahead the finale of his story. Here on the contrary, Martin Clay, the narrator, though having the benefit of hindsight, shares his doubts with the reader because he is uncertain whether his discovery is going to be acknowledged and appreciated. Paradoxically, he is destined, as he himself puts it, either to be taken for a fool or to be an object of outrage and horror.

This is the first puzzling declaration in a series of hints dropped by the narrator in the prologue. Another confusing hint is his reference to 'a length of frayed twine', an unusual object which 'will bring the story to its end'. According to the author this is the clue to the story. The reader is left to rack his brain trying to surmise what it could imply. It might well be taken for a metaphor likened to an untwining knot, or unraveling tangle, leading to the denouement. The description of baler twine appears in the prologue to the main part of the narration (and then many times throughout the book), when Martin and Kate confront a length of fraying baler twine at the door of their small country cottage. Here the reader receives something like a vague support for his guess of the metaphorical meaning referred to the object when it is specified as 'kinking and unraveling'. But at the same time the narrator describes baler twine as a most common and plain object, part of a rural landscape. Perceiving it as such, we can't but reject the allegedly implied figurative meaning. As if to dispel our doubts about the possible symbolic meaning of the object emerging as an unexpected obstacle at the approach to his house, Martin sets out to explain its prosaic nature observing that there is a lot of baler twine in real country and that it is used to hold different things together, and not only bales. It is not until we come to the end of the story that the riddle will be resolved and we come to realize that this plain object, a tool of peaceful peasant labour, might once have served a hideous purpose of execution. According to iconology professed by Martin Clay, the meaning of things might be the opposite of what they appear to be, they are perceived in a wider concept of style and context. And this is how Martin Clay, the narrator and the central character of the novel, views both art and the world at large.

Martin is a philosopher coming to the country on sabbatical with his wife Kate and their baby daughter, and is expected to be writing a book on the impact of nominalism on Netherlandish art of the 15th century. Later, when the couple visit their rural neighbours, the Churts, Martin will explain the meaning of nominalism as a metaphysical view in philosophy which denies the existence of universals. 'Things are what they are because that's how we see them, because that's what we decide they are.' (Frayn 1999: 24) In fact, this is the basic concept on which everything else hinges in the book. Where is the pastoral idyll, the peaceful countryside which both Martin and Kate are seeking? The quiet, placid course of their happy family life will soon be abruptly interrupted. Actually Martin is worried to the extent that he is ready to turn round and drive back home, but he knows his wife would rebuke him for trying to evade the work on his research project. Martin's premonitions turned out to come true. There are to be many unpleasant surprises. It is the unexpected appearance of their neighbour Tony Churt. This encounter triggers the whirlpool of events that follow. At first Churt appears to be a common, bluff, vulgar and mud-spattered specimen of local gentry, the boorish Tony, as Martin calls him in his mind. The word ‘Churt’ is however Frayn’s allusion to the Russian word meaning ‘devil’ The name explains the sinister tricks which Tony Churt is going to play on Martin, turning up at the family's approach to their country cottage (a small old house) as if from nowhere as an omen of disaster, then playing his malicious tricks throughout the whole story up to its explosive conclusion.

There is, however, something else suggested by the name Churt, which is perhaps easier perceived by the English reader. Churt is the name of a village in the borough of Waverley in Surrey. In the vicinity there are high woods known as Churt Common with sudden hills, or knolls called the Devil's Jumps that are described as curiously conical sand hills. Thus, the name Churt also alludes to the insane headlong rush in the hilly countryside described at the end of the book when Martin and Laura 'soar, almost airborne, over the crest of a hili' (Frayn 1999: 386) trying to escape from Churt's pursuit. Like a real devil Tony Churt transforms from a dopey philistine into a crude, ruthless husband treating his young wife in a most brutal and sadistic way. Whenever Martin Clay deals with Tony Churt, he finds himself standing on a shaky ground making false deductions about Tony's seeming simplicity, but at the same time feeling ironic understatement in what he says. Thus, when Martin and Kate come to visit the Churts in their house, they had to 'squeeze past a lunging, tangled, slavering, amiable mass of dog... and shaking hands with its roaring master. 'Oh, what bloody fools you are!' He shouts at either the dogs or us.' (Frayn 1999: 18) Martin instantly realizes the absurdity and buffoonery of the situation, and reflects on the ludicrous ambiguity of Tony's ejaculations. At the same time, Martin does not fail to notice that Tony Churt was closely watching them, and that his former estimation of the man was probably wrong. There are, of course, many more metamorphoses in regard to other characters and phenomena which bewildered Martin.

On the other hand, the novel is a first person narration with Martin, the narrator, taking the reader into his full confidence from the very first page. The reader shares all his emotions, his secret plans and hesitations. At times Martin is quite self-critical, calling himself a fool and his venture a folly; he can also be quite disheartened and driven to despair at failing to pick up the clue to the enigma. One may wonder what instigates the reader to be drawn into Martin's world of speculations and unexpected reflections when the protagonist is often utterly confused or thrown into one reckless situation after another? It appears, however, that it is just because we entirely trust Martin and believe his account of events that the story keeps us so much in suspense and affects us emotionally. In fact the reader gets right under the narrator's skin following all the exciting twists and turns of the storyline..,.

Still, while we absolutely trust Martin as a narrator, we can certainly criticize him as a character. That is what some of the critics do when they maintain that Martin allows his speculative fantasies to run too far away, that he is a selfdeluding hero, an enthusiast easily caught up in sudden fancies, the one who seems to be about to tear his family apart over his extra-curricular obsession (Lelard). Some reviewers are apt to be even more critical of Frayn's protagonist when they accuse him of betraying his family, of scheming a theft, of greed in following his obsessive pursuit. Thus, Michael Wood writes: '... Martin seems too clownish to carry any great consequence as a man ... He is just a foolish young scholar who should have stayed home with his pretty wife and child'. (Wood)

But if all these critical evaluations of Martin were true, then Frayn's novel would have been nothing but a snowball of comic, farcical situations piled one upon another, something like a comedy of errors which some critics believe it to be. True, the narration abounds in funny and grotesque situations. There are also a lot of sensational turns when Martin suddenly shifts his ideas. But at the same time one should not fail to notice that the grotesqueness and ridicule of the situations with Martin's unexpectedly amusing and witty remarks proceed from his peculiar observations, from his aptitude as a philosopher for unconventional assessment. Alongside the comic scenes reminding us of high farce, the author of Headlong manages to incorporate and combine a variety of literary styles. No wonder that Frayn never fails to perplex his critics, who reproach him for uncertainty of tone. Thus, Michael Wood in the same review on Headlong inquires: 'Is this a comedy or a tragedy?' 2

It is obvious that the book actually throbs with adventure and abounds in comic elements, but at the same time we can't but see that it also includes a lot of instances of dramatic tension, landmarks helping the reader to grope his way through the novel's ingenious labyrinth. The dramatic digressions in the novel mark crucial turning points in the life of the central character. Thus, even before he sets eyes on Bruegel's picture, Martin describes the approaching moment in the most solemn and impressive way:

So, it's there, in the freezing breakfast-room, among the indifferent chairs, with Laura still holding the filthy newspaper she's just been scrubbing away with, and Tony looking over my shoulder, still hoping for a valuation, and Kate in the doorway, still patiently rocking the carry-cot back and forth, that I first set eyes on it. On my fate. On my triumph, and torment and downfall. I recognize it instantly. (Frayn 1999:41)

Quite often such dramatic revelations on the part of the narrator resemble confidential statements spoken in undertones. Whenever we find the description of Bruegel's painting, the tone of the narration changes from ironical to highly dramatic and sublime:

There are some paintings in the history of art that break free, just as some human beings do, from the confines of the particular little world into which they were born. They leave home - they escape from the tradition in which they were formed, and which seemed at first to give them significance. They step out of their own time and place, and find some kind of universal and enduring fame. They become part of the common currency of names and images and stories that a whole culture takes for granted. (Frayn 1999:57)

I believe that in such instances the author manages to reveal the idea he endeavours to communicate to the reader in

Headlong. Martin Clay muses on Bruegel's paintings and their predestination. Great achievements are made when one dares to disrupt the conventional concepts, escape from standard ideas, accepted once and for all. This was exactly what Bruegel did and this is what Frayn's protagonist does by launching his research. In my view, Headlong is a brilliant attempt to depict an exciting and stressful process of scientific research. A great discovery or a great artistic accomplishment always require a life full of risk, torment and self-sacrifice. If we take this view of the narrator's story, then the exploration in which Martin immerses himself would no longer look like his whim, or folly, or a desire to impose his own obsessive ideas and preoccupations on the world at large. It will present itself as the only way which can lead to the discovery of truth, for there seems to be no other way than 'wandering off into great unpathed Landes', 'getting close to the edge of the dizzy precipice' (Frayn 1999: 178), feeling revived at times by flashes of hope, and giving oneself up again to endless despair.

Michael Frayn succeeds in imparting Martin's deep emotional involvement in his research by drawing parallels between the world of his protagonist and the fictionalized world depicted in Bruegel's paintings. This is demonstrated when Martin and Kate are driving to the countryside, looking for the signs of the real country. In discerning these signs Martin tries not to be deceived by what opens to his eyes. The word 'real' as well as the word 'authentic' in the reference to the country will be repeated many times in the novel and not only in this context. This is the first subtle hint, the implication of the enigma that Martin is to solve. He is struck by cryptic hints in the pictures, trying to understand what they mean. And in exactly the same way he views things in real life, seeking to grasp their true purpose. He is so completely drawn into his reflections that both worlds, the real one and that in Bruegel's paintings, fully merge in his mind. In this respect the metaphor of light employed in the novel marks subtle parallels between life and art, revealing at the same time fluctuations in the emotional state of the protagonist:

The spring sunshine comes and goes as I drive down the hill, lighting our quiet valley with hope and plunging it into despair as bewilderingly often as my own moods change in the shifting circumstances of my quest. It fades as I make the turn into our track, and I bump along in gloom and anguish. But then, as I make the second turn beyond the elder, a flood of sunshine blesses our cottage with the glowing colours of a Book of Hours. The front door's green as the new season, the daffodils we planted around it last autumn as yellow as the sun, the blossom fallen from the crab-apple trees as white as the sun's innocent light. (Frayn 1999: 204)

This motion from darkness to light also means the advance from obscurity and confusion to the explorer's lucid insight into the matter. Thus, the author puts special emphasis on the darkness and gloom enveloping the Churts' house. Inside the house people and things are only exposed to a limited spot of light when they emerge from darkness as if from the mist enveloping them. What allows him to get at the final clue to the mystery is his ability to transform reality and adapt it to his ideas, his gift for assessment of what he observes.

The symbolic function of light can be probably best demonstrated in connection with the image of Saul introduced in the story. Martin identifies himself and his mission as a researcher with the image of Saul and his revelation. There are, however, other motifs of self-sacrificing fate, impending doom and loneliness which are also connected with references to Saul:

I'm as isolated as Saul, in the great Conversion on the left-hand wall of the Kunsthistorisches.3 . I'm lying at the side of the Damascus road, felled and blinded by the narrow laser beam from heaven that has sought out me and no one else. All around me the great army flows on, upwards and onwards into the mountains. That river of men is Kate and the rest of mankind, going about the settled business of their lives. I am the small, unnoticed anomaly, the prostrate drunk, the collapsed down and out, the minor embarrassment at the periphery of their vision. What none of them knows is that I shall arise as Paul, and my awkward little fit will have changed the world. (Frayn 1999: 129)

Martin is saying this about himself as well as about Saul/Paul and about Bruegel who encoded something very significant in his painting, some tiny detail, the key clue to his enigma, the truth about himself and his time. There is a close bond between the narrator and Bruegel. Martin directly points to that bond. He writes:

'I've spent my entire life up to this point hugging the shores of fact, paddling in the safe shallows of honesty. Now the moment has come when I have to launch out into the open sea of fiction. I have to cut free from the literal and start painting the picture, just as Bruegel did.' (Frayn 1999: 99)

The sense of predestination of an artist, of his tragic fate is expressed in the narrator's thoughts about Bruegel:

A heretic, yes. I think of that little figure in the background of so many of Bruegel's pictures, the ordinary-looking man no one's paying attention to, the Icarus, the Saul, the condemned Christ, the one whose view of the world is different, whose fate is against the grain of the everyday world around him, and whose unremarked presence changes everything. The unobserved observer with dissent hidden in his heart. (Frayn 1999: 174)

There is no reward other than making sure one has done his best to communicate his ideas. Martin has done what he could in reporting his sensational discovery to the world and is ready to take upon himself whatever shame and opprobrium may seem proper. Bruegel, in his daring attempt to tell the world of his time, encoded his message in the hope that one day the key to his enigma might be found, that someone would follow him into the obscure unpathed land of his world, gripped by the impulse to crack the mystery of his painting, casting a shrewd glance at a length of frayed baler twine.