El hallazgo de un manuscrito del siglo XVIII reaviva la intriga sobre la vida y la muerte de Thomas Chatterton, uno de los fundadores del romanticismo inglés.

Among other things, the jaunty eccentricities of certain characters were too much to bear. ( )

Chatterton was a rising young poet, with everything to live for. However, it comes to light that the medieval poems that he had "discovered", he had , in fact, written himself. there's an echo here of the "Ossian" scandal. I think PA tried to walk into the later painting, and looking at the body from another angle, tried the greater experiment of asking himself, "If I was where Chatterton was, would I deal with the fear of further life the same way he did?" Another level is revealed that the painting was of a novelist named George Meredith, and it is not even of an imagined Chatterton. So we try to deal with what is deliberate, and what unconscious, art? this book requires rereads. ( )

"I am here, listen to me!" is what Peter Ackroyd, the author, seems to say. He says it rather well mind you and he's quite talented in his technical and emotional writing skills. Nevertheless we have here a book about the author himself, cleverly veiled as a treatise about what is real and what isn't, what is genuine and what is fake, and most of all: how important is suffering for one's craft and convictions?

We meet down and out Charles, a poet suffering from terrible headaches. He lives with his wife and son a very meager existence. We also meet Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) a poet of similar ilk who did obtain fame, or rather notoriety after it was discovered he forged many medieval poems. Finally we meet Henry Wallis (21 February 1830 – 20 December 1916), a painter who depicted Chatterton suicide some 80 years after the poet's death.

This work of magical realism, since that is truly what it is, weaves in and out of the main characters lives and draws parallels between various forms of art, be it poetry, prose, painting and even living. Charles discovers clues that Chatterton might have faked his own death. Chatterton himself struggles with his talent when he finds out his own creations are more welcome when given the pedigree of someone else. Various other characters in the novel struggle with the more traditional questions of what makes a painting real or genuine.

Peter Ackroyd serves up the question: what is genuine and what is not, and does the question even matter? The question is not new but is presented well in this novel. Quite frankly we're beaten over the head with it. That's quite alright since Ackroyd's writing style provides plenty of detail and intrigue to keep you reading.

Ackroyd's writing is also infuriating. Not being an initiate into British literature and art I felt like I shouldn't be reading the text. Unless you get every alliteration, every reference and every quip the author throws around you will most likely feel you haven't studied hard enough to be worthy of this novel. In a way the book reminded me of The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, which is another novel where the author gets too carried away with his own cleverness and literary prowess. It makes me wonder if this was the reason the novel was so well received by the critics, it was almost as if they were thinking: we have no idea what he's talking about either but it sounds all so clever it must be good.

Admittedly the novel is a work of magical realism, but let's say that we take all the mysterious imagery and hallucinations away, would we have a deeply emotional work of art here? I'm hesitant to say yes for one particular reason. There is no objection against using bizarre behavior if it serves a purpose. But some of the events and acts the characters perform clash so much with the reality the book creates that you wonder sometimes if you've read the words correctly.

If it weren't for the literary stunts and incomprehensible character behavior I would have given this novel 5 stars. ( )

I believe I have read this book once before many years ago, but I honestly couldn't remember anything about it. In one strand of the story, we follow young Thomas Chatterton with his literary ambititions, in another we are in the modern day with two writers, a painting from a junk shop, and different forms of forgery, and the end result was interesting enough. ( )