COLLECTOR’S ITEM
Sounds presumptuous saying it, but The Connoisseur must have been a cinch to write. Which all means: wish I’d thought of it first. Evan S. Connell Jr. doesn’t mind appropriating, with due acknowledgment, maybe 25 pages of text from archaeological mavens to pad out his own less than two hundred large print pages. Formally or informally the absorbing data on Pre-Columbian forgeries, smuggling strategy, auctions, must have been researched: that adds up to another fifty pages, could be more. Work, but journalistic work. Indeed, The Connoisseur, which eschews quotation marks of any kind, might have been bracketed in just two big ones. It fascinates, it has authority, and it is at heart a nonfiction article with some fictional premises porched on—in fact, it’s one of those occupational faction books like Airport or Hotel, but much refined. Connell stands to Arthur Hailey as a Tikal bowl stands to a c. 1960-1970 Hilton bellhop. The Connoisseur has considerable magic, but a lot ofitison loan from private collections.
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