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Circles of Deceit
Circles of Deceit is narrated by a painter who specializes as a copyist. Major figures on the canvas are Clio, his child-bride; Helen, his first wife; and his mother Maisie. They confound lies and the truth in a subtle weave, while the silent agony of the painter's son is a poignant reflection on the busy web of deception. And as the copyist transcribes his modern versions of Old Masters, so the past keeps breaking through the surface of the present, until fact and fiction, like art and life, meet in a remarkable conclusion.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Nina Bawden
65 books96 followersNina Bawden was a popular British novelist and children's writer. Her mother was a teacher and her father a marine.
When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.
A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.
Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.
When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.
A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.
Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 10, 2023
I was quite disappointed in this novel. I had just the previous day read ‘Carrie’s War’ and loved it (I gave it 5 stars). That was a Young Adult book, and I was aware this was a ‘normal’ adult book. I was also aware it was on the Booker Prize short list (for 1987). I almost did a DNF on this one. Because this was a book that I only wanted to get to the end of it so I could be done with it - forever. I tend to want to see books that I choose through to their end (so I can write a review), as opposed to doing a DNF. 😐
Why did I not like the book? There were no likeable characters... it was boring... perhaps because it was boring, I was having trouble remembering connections between people in the book... and the author’s repeated use of the word ‘giggled’ (one character was constantly giggling.... I know that shouldn’t be a criticism, but I was tired of seeing that word).
I guess I am through with my griping. I have looked at some of her other novel’s reviews on GoodReads and will not abandon her. But I am surprised that this was Booker Prize-nominated — perhaps I am the odd person out on this one.
Note:
• Nina Bawden got her Bachelor of Arts degree from Somerville College, Oxford. Other notable writers who attended there include Dorothy L. Sayers, Vera Brittain, Penelope Fitzgerald, Iris Murdoch, Rose Macaulay, Margaret Kennedy, and A. S. Byatt. Wow! 😮
Review:
• At least to me, this review gives too much away, so if you think you are going to read this book, best read this review after you read the book... https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
• Same concern about giving too much away, but, as with above, a good review ... https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/bo...
Synopsis (from back cover of the Virago Modern Classics re-issue I read from):
• This is a story about lies and truths and about a painter, a copyist, who paints modern versions of Old Masters and is ‘bothered by bills and artistic conscience in about equal measure ... susceptible to, bullied and badgered by women.’ Major figures on the foreground of his crowded life canvas are Clio, his child-bride and her young boy; Helen, his first wife who left him, badly, but never really separates; and his mother who observes it all with a splendidly caustic humor. In the background, always is his own silent son. Nina Bawden is at her best in this novel about the bumbling yet heroic ways we try to defeat the impossibility of protecting another human being with love.
Why did I not like the book? There were no likeable characters... it was boring... perhaps because it was boring, I was having trouble remembering connections between people in the book... and the author’s repeated use of the word ‘giggled’ (one character was constantly giggling.... I know that shouldn’t be a criticism, but I was tired of seeing that word).
I guess I am through with my griping. I have looked at some of her other novel’s reviews on GoodReads and will not abandon her. But I am surprised that this was Booker Prize-nominated — perhaps I am the odd person out on this one.
Note:
• Nina Bawden got her Bachelor of Arts degree from Somerville College, Oxford. Other notable writers who attended there include Dorothy L. Sayers, Vera Brittain, Penelope Fitzgerald, Iris Murdoch, Rose Macaulay, Margaret Kennedy, and A. S. Byatt. Wow! 😮
Review:
• At least to me, this review gives too much away, so if you think you are going to read this book, best read this review after you read the book... https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
• Same concern about giving too much away, but, as with above, a good review ... https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/bo...
Synopsis (from back cover of the Virago Modern Classics re-issue I read from):
• This is a story about lies and truths and about a painter, a copyist, who paints modern versions of Old Masters and is ‘bothered by bills and artistic conscience in about equal measure ... susceptible to, bullied and badgered by women.’ Major figures on the foreground of his crowded life canvas are Clio, his child-bride and her young boy; Helen, his first wife who left him, badly, but never really separates; and his mother who observes it all with a splendidly caustic humor. In the background, always is his own silent son. Nina Bawden is at her best in this novel about the bumbling yet heroic ways we try to defeat the impossibility of protecting another human being with love.
July 2, 2015
Circles of Deceit Nina Bawden’s 1987 novel about lies, deception and family fragilities, was short listed for the Booker prize in that year.
“All art is full of deception. Nature, too and human behaviour…”
There is an awful lot to admire in this later Bawden novel – which I seem to remember somewhere being described as among her greatest. Unusually for Bawden it is written from a male perspective, although this isn’t the only novel Bawden writes with a male narrator – and she does it well. Bawden portrays young people and children deftly; their hurts and frailties exposed with great understanding, although I find all her characters here are real, complicated beings
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
“All art is full of deception. Nature, too and human behaviour…”
There is an awful lot to admire in this later Bawden novel – which I seem to remember somewhere being described as among her greatest. Unusually for Bawden it is written from a male perspective, although this isn’t the only novel Bawden writes with a male narrator – and she does it well. Bawden portrays young people and children deftly; their hurts and frailties exposed with great understanding, although I find all her characters here are real, complicated beings
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2015/...
May 21, 2019
The narrator is a painter and honest copier, and as he reproduces narrative scenes of Old Masters, so he recounts the dramas and tragedies of four women who dominate his life.
There’s his mother Maisie, the 1940s ‘Glamour puss’ abandoned by his conman father and her plain, intellectually successful sister Maud left on the shelf by the man she adored.
His marriage breaks down because he is unwilling or unable fully to commit himself. “I cannot bear pain in people I love,” he confesses and continues to treat his wife Helen as a sparring partner instead of giving the comfort she needs.
But despite divorce he is never really free of her, creating further problems with the much younger Clio, the young and inadequate woman to whom he has turned partly out of revenge.
There are other dramas in the background: his mother’s friend who learns her fiancé is a rapist and a murderer; his not overly scrupulous dealer using contacts for advantage; his doomed, schizophrenic son and Clio’s own boy for whom he eventually is able to develop feelings of real tenderness.
Bawden has acute sensitivity for her characters’ motivations and there are several interesting diversions on painterly techniques and on the differences and ethics of copies and reproductions, before her narrator is drawn into complicity in an unintentional deception.
He takes no action to remedy this, just as in life he has retreated into his uncertain art, in which the real and imitation are hard to distinguish, the world in which he feels most comfortable.
It’s significant that he remains unnamed. That seems consistent with Bawden’s clever portrait of a remote, kindly, flawed individual, but his neutral character does leave a dramatic deficit at the heart of the novel. Like the ploughman in Breughel’s painting of Icarus falling from the sky, he just carries on with his work in the background, regardless.
There’s his mother Maisie, the 1940s ‘Glamour puss’ abandoned by his conman father and her plain, intellectually successful sister Maud left on the shelf by the man she adored.
His marriage breaks down because he is unwilling or unable fully to commit himself. “I cannot bear pain in people I love,” he confesses and continues to treat his wife Helen as a sparring partner instead of giving the comfort she needs.
But despite divorce he is never really free of her, creating further problems with the much younger Clio, the young and inadequate woman to whom he has turned partly out of revenge.
There are other dramas in the background: his mother’s friend who learns her fiancé is a rapist and a murderer; his not overly scrupulous dealer using contacts for advantage; his doomed, schizophrenic son and Clio’s own boy for whom he eventually is able to develop feelings of real tenderness.
Bawden has acute sensitivity for her characters’ motivations and there are several interesting diversions on painterly techniques and on the differences and ethics of copies and reproductions, before her narrator is drawn into complicity in an unintentional deception.
He takes no action to remedy this, just as in life he has retreated into his uncertain art, in which the real and imitation are hard to distinguish, the world in which he feels most comfortable.
It’s significant that he remains unnamed. That seems consistent with Bawden’s clever portrait of a remote, kindly, flawed individual, but his neutral character does leave a dramatic deficit at the heart of the novel. Like the ploughman in Breughel’s painting of Icarus falling from the sky, he just carries on with his work in the background, regardless.
July 5, 2015
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 1987. Deception is the main theme of this novel (no surprise there). A wife cheats on her husband, he marries a younger woman to save her son, everyone else is having affairs and in the middle of it a mistake means a fake masterpiece is loose on the open market. Confused? Don't worry, you'll be bored and depressed before you're confused.
I read The Witch's Daughter by the same author as a young teenager and loved it. Such a serious book dealing with huge issues aimed at children, it fascinated me. I'd totally forgotten about it until I saw this book in my local library, I didn't know she also wrote for adults.
Nina Bawden was a prolific writer (she died in 2012), she wrote 45 novels over 50 years including 18 children's books, most notably Carrie's War in 1973 which is a modern classic.
So with all this pedigree going for it, I had high hopes for this little novel. Unfortunately I didn't feel it. I found the story really depressing and the characters were unremarkable, I kept forgetting who they were (not just their names, but their reason for being in the novel to begin with).
I think the main issue was I disliked the main character, an artist, never named (unless I missed that) is the narrator and he's just so dull. All the characters were flawed, OK, maybe that's true to life, no one's perfect, but usually characters are likeable as well.
I reached the end and just felt a bit sad, the story didn't touch me, I don't miss the characters, all in all an unremarkable story.
I read The Witch's Daughter by the same author as a young teenager and loved it. Such a serious book dealing with huge issues aimed at children, it fascinated me. I'd totally forgotten about it until I saw this book in my local library, I didn't know she also wrote for adults.
Nina Bawden was a prolific writer (she died in 2012), she wrote 45 novels over 50 years including 18 children's books, most notably Carrie's War in 1973 which is a modern classic.
So with all this pedigree going for it, I had high hopes for this little novel. Unfortunately I didn't feel it. I found the story really depressing and the characters were unremarkable, I kept forgetting who they were (not just their names, but their reason for being in the novel to begin with).
I think the main issue was I disliked the main character, an artist, never named (unless I missed that) is the narrator and he's just so dull. All the characters were flawed, OK, maybe that's true to life, no one's perfect, but usually characters are likeable as well.
I reached the end and just felt a bit sad, the story didn't touch me, I don't miss the characters, all in all an unremarkable story.
July 22, 2021
Judging by the little orange sticker on the front cover, I paid $3.99 at one of those pre-Amazon Book Sale stores that used to be everywhere, but which I haven’t seen in a long time. It was probably the one in Stone Mountain or maybe even one in Tallahassee, on the way to St George Island. Anyway, this volume was literally at the back of my to-be-read bookshelf. And, it turns out, I have several other Nina Bawden adult novels on the bookshelf, all bought on the strength of her excellent children’s classic Carrie’s War. I read that to at least one class of 4th graders, back in the day.
This novel concerns an unnamed, middle-aged painter whose contribution to the Art world is making legitimate copies of famous paintings. When an original has to be sold for whatever reason, the owner commissions a copy to hang in its place. The painter’s personal life is very complicated and lies on a foundation of lies and untruths. His family and his friends are all as bad as each other. Of course, it all comes crashing down.
I especially enjoyed all the Art History references and the contrast between this artist and the photographer in Self Portrait with Boy. Two ends of the spectrum.There were a couple of storylines that left the reader just hanging, but not everything in a novel has to be neat and tidy, so that’s a minor complaint.
This novel concerns an unnamed, middle-aged painter whose contribution to the Art world is making legitimate copies of famous paintings. When an original has to be sold for whatever reason, the owner commissions a copy to hang in its place. The painter’s personal life is very complicated and lies on a foundation of lies and untruths. His family and his friends are all as bad as each other. Of course, it all comes crashing down.
I especially enjoyed all the Art History references and the contrast between this artist and the photographer in Self Portrait with Boy. Two ends of the spectrum.There were a couple of storylines that left the reader just hanging, but not everything in a novel has to be neat and tidy, so that’s a minor complaint.
November 1, 2012
A new edition of this book came out in 2006, but I'm fairly certain I read it in the late 80s ~ Circles of Deceit is narrated by a painter who specialises as a copyist, this is his story: 'bothered by bills and artistic conscience in about equal measure. . .susceptible to, bullied and badgered by women.' Major figures on the canvas are Clio, his child-bride; Helen, his first wife; his mother Maisie. They confound lies and the truth in a subtle weave, while the silent agony of the painter's son is a poignant reflection on the busy web of deception... fact and fiction like art and life, meet in a remarkable conclusion.
I was particularly impressed by the way Bawden wrote this book from a male POV ~ well worth a read
I was particularly impressed by the way Bawden wrote this book from a male POV ~ well worth a read
September 15, 2020
Another book with skitzophrenia and domestic violence from Bawden.
Her male perspective is unique, and there is still so much untold of this story.
Okay, I let this marinate for a few hours and there were so may double blinds and I completely overthought it because she went for the most obvious twist.
I spent so much time worrying about these affairs and this guy's father and his wife's miscarriage and his mother and her best friend's fiance who was a serial rapait murderer, the aunt and her best friend's cancer and residual husband and his nanny abusing her - and then their - son, the other son going missing, the ex wife, the getting arrested...
I yelled at this book several times.
It was the painting.
I still want answers to a lot of questions but damn that was well done.
Her male perspective is unique, and there is still so much untold of this story.
Okay, I let this marinate for a few hours and there were so may double blinds and I completely overthought it because she went for the most obvious twist.
I spent so much time worrying about these affairs and this guy's father and his wife's miscarriage and his mother and her best friend's fiance who was a serial rapait murderer, the aunt and her best friend's cancer and residual husband and his nanny abusing her - and then their - son, the other son going missing, the ex wife, the getting arrested...
I yelled at this book several times.
It was the painting.
I still want answers to a lot of questions but damn that was well done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2011
No one does youth and mental illness as well as Nina Bawden. In this subtle, sad yet hopeful novel she explores the fissures in a family affected by their son's schizophrenia. Yet this is never an 'issue' book but as always in a Nina Bawden novel, a sensitive and insightful portrait of the way people come to terms with the losses and lacks in their lives. Highly recommended.
July 27, 2011
An all round good read, with believable, three-dimensional characters. I wish more had been made of Tim's illness, and Clio and Barnaby's backstory, but that would have been difficult with the first person narrative.
August 31, 2016
Rather slight novel to have made the Booker shortlist. The first person narrator, a copier of paintings, is more than a little pompous and self-regarding, especially when it comes to the women in his life. I would have wished for more about Tim, the schizophrenic son.
September 30, 2017
Nice little book to read for fun. I couldn't really get in to it, but the book was fine, although not very exciting. The painter is left by his wife, has a hard time dealing with his scizofrenic son and eventually dives into a new relationship and marriage with a woman who he can't really love.
Want to Read
July 29, 201187 shortlisted for booker prize
August 22, 2013
I found this book disappointing. It lost my interest many times and I found myself skipping some of the detail. If the book had been longer I wouldn't have finished it.
January 3, 2014
OK in the end, but pretty slow.
January 13, 2016
I liked the characters. There is beauty in failure. And the main character still manages to get a few things right. His art. Taking care of his son and his step son. Good one.
January 3, 2019
A story of an art copyist and his extended family. The author provides great characterization in a sad story leavened by humor. Overall good read.
January 7, 2025
3.5 stars. An engaging novel about a middle aged male painter who specializes as a copyist, his two wives, Helen, and the young Clio, (Helen being his ex wife), his adult schizophrenic son Tim, his mother Maisie and his aunt Maud. The narrator is the male painter.
A book about forgery, and fidelity in life and art, with interesting details about painting and being a copyist. The characters are well developed and there is a plot twist at the end!
This book was shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize.
A book about forgery, and fidelity in life and art, with interesting details about painting and being a copyist. The characters are well developed and there is a plot twist at the end!
This book was shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize.
October 28, 2023
This missed the mark for me, I'm afraid - rather too many characters and not totally credible.
October 11, 2024
This was a deeply engaging and satisfying book. Written in the 1980s it echoes an earlier time in London. Highly original, interesting a beautifully drawn characters, and a fascinating story.
May 30, 2025
Pretty fun!
February 6, 2026
Circles of Boredom
May 28, 2023
Bawden's 'The Birds in the Trees' wasn't my favourite on the 1970 Lost Man Booker list (nominated 2010), so my return to her in the 1987 shortlist wasn't fuelled by huge enthusiasm. Of the two, I did prefer 'Circles of Deceit'. It manages a mild humour sustained and warmed through by a readable but ultimately fairly forgettable plot. It was something to do with painting and people muddling along. I quite enjoyed turning the pages, but the imprint it leaves is blank canvas.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews