Yes, yes, I know. The mystery is predictable. And yes, I guessed the mysterious character’s identity pretty early on. But so what? I feel it’s wrong to think of this book as a mystery. It’s not about solving the puzzle; it’s about so much else. The author, Jessie Burton, has a brilliant ability to put fancy words together in sophisticated forms and I respect her for it. Her prose game is very decent and shows the potentials and capabilities of an illustrious writer, but still not in a mind-blowing way if you get what I mean. That said, the story didn't live up to her beautified writing style although it had so many attractive elements. Whether it takes the form of music or a painting or a sculpture or the written word, nothing speaks to our souls like art. This gives artists a power over their fellow men and women. But no one doubts art so much as its creator, and so an artist’s audience holds within themselves the approval and praise that said artist craves, and thus artists rely on their audiences for the affirmation and reassurance needed to create their next work of art. However, if an artist isn’t careful they begin producing cheap imitations of the art that first garnered them attention, and so artists must be careful regarding how heavily they rely upon and value the opinions of others. They need something else to feed that need and fuel their creativity.

The truth about 'Rufina and the Lion' lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of renowned art dealer Harold Schloss and his beautiful but fragile wife Sarah, is harbouring artistic ambitions of her own. When artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa come into their lives, passion, art, and politics collide, with explosive and devastating consequences for them all.The Muse by Jessie Burton nicely flips the stereotypes with a female artist and male source of inspiration. Burton chooses two unusual cultures for her settings: 1960’s London, from the viewpoint of a Caribbean immigrant, and pre-Civil War Spain in 1936, also seen from an outsider’s point of view. Burton’s research is impressive, particularly with the Spanish part of the story. It adds a lot of color to the story, though it does occasionally bog down the pace. The Muse touches on social issues in both eras: the divisions in Spain that led to the civil war, as well as the more subtle racism that limits Odelle’s opportunities in London and make her grateful to get a job as a typist. I really liked Olive's story too, but I didn't like Olive as much as I wanted. Which is also the main reason why I preferred The Miniaturist to The Muse, even though I really liked the latter. I appreciated that Olive was a strong woman herself and that she wanted to prove something, but she came across as a bit naive and sometimes as someone who was too self-centered. I completely understood her need to be seen, but she didn't think about the consequences of her actions most of the time, and that definitely irked me. The author expertly and quite beautifully weaves the two stories together, seemingly only connected by a work of art, as the novel progresses, the two stories are knitted tighter and tighter together until each and every character has their own place in both parts. Burton engages in a fair bit of parallelism. Odelle is an immigrant to London. Olive is a foreigner in Spain. Both are creatives, Odelle with writing, Olive with painting. Both Olive and Odelle hide their work from most people. Both find inspiration in a love interest, and feel unable to create in the absence of that other. Both have their work exposed to the world without their consent. Both Odelle and Olive imagine paradise in a place that is anything but. Olive sees Spain as Eden-ic and uses that in one very lush painting. But she does not see the turmoil that underlies the country until it is almost upon her. Odelle sees London as a sort of literary nirvana, but has had to endure years of racism and limited opportunity. She does, however, experience a Shangri-La moment in the lush growth of a London garden. Other items to keep an eye out for are characters projecting their expectations, good and bad, onto others. There are several parent/child, mentor/acolyte connections at play. Seeing people or things in terms of fairy tales, religious and secular, pops up a few times as well.

A fateful night in Spain sees fireworks mirror the civil unrest, exploding in the sky “red and green and orange, gigantic sea urchins, falling fountains”. When all is lost and those who are left flee Spain for the safety of England, the sea is “mud and milk, slate and leaf, and bronze when the light caught the crest of a wave.”

The Muse

Tidily if dully concluded, this second novel fails to hit the same sweet, wholly integrated spot as its predecessor, but Burton fans will be happy to reunite with her committed storytelling. Olive Schloss, the teenage daughter of a wealthy art dealer, is a skilled painter who has turned down the offer of a place at the Slade. In Spain, she meets another artist, Isaac Robles – passionate, attractive and politically active – and soon becomes close to him and his half-sister, Teresa.