Cache Health

Art Waves commentaries, 2004-2009: A Selection<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 Helen A. Harrison. No reproduction without permission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

$\"\"$ <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Theft: A Love Story<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Broadcast 8\/31\/06<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ In Peter Carey\u2019s new novel, everyone is a crook. The primary narrator, a washed-up Australian painter named Michael Boone, alias Butcher Bones, steals from his patron, who has stolen Michael\u2019s wife. The ex-wife, Michael believes, has stolen his paintings, as well as their son, in the divorce settlement. Michael, in turn, steals someone else\u2019s wife, Marlene Liebowitz, who steals anything that isn\u2019t nailed down–and more. Even the detective who pursues her reveals himself as a petty thief. Dealers steal from artists, collectors steal from dealers, and so it goes, right down to the New York taxi drivers who rob Butcher of his equilibrium–or at least give him someone else to blame for his agitation and clouded judgment.<\/div>\n

Michael\u2019s mentally retarded brother Hugh–or Slow, as his nickname has it–steals more benignly, almost by default. His is the other narrative voice, a dark, distorted echo of his brother\u2019s. He reminds me of John Steinbeck\u2019s Lenny in \u201cOf Mice and Men,\u201d large, strong and volatile, a protector and an avenger.\u00a0 His real crime is to witness the fraud and deception all around him, which makes him potentially even more dangerous. In a sense, you might say that he steals the truth and stores it away in his poor, addled brain. Occasionally it comes spilling out, and that\u2019s always messy.<\/p>\n

This larcenous tale is set in the art world of the early 1980s, when Michael\u2019s star is most definitely on the wane. Now in his late 30s, he\u2019s already a has-been in the insular Australian art market, where he was cock of the walk–pun intended–ten years earlier. Oh, the fickle finger of fate. We might muse that this son of a provincial butcher had a phenomenal run of luck, first to escape the family business, which his rough-hewn father was grooming him to inherit–hence his nickname. Then actually to achieve some measure of success as an artist, even if only in his homeland. But no, Michael is mordantly bitter, self-flagellating and comically hapless, a cross between Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s Rabo Karabekian and Joyce Carey\u2019s Gully Jimson–which made me wonder whether Peter Carey is related to the author of \u201cThe Horse\u2019s Mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plot hinges on the theft of a very valuable painting by Marlene\u2019s long-dead father-in-law–a cubist ranked right up there with Picasso and Braque–and the disappearance of another of his masterpieces. It has a couple of unlikely twists, which I won\u2019t give away, although I will say that the ending is a bit too pat for my taste. The book\u2019s real rewards are in the reading itself, in Carey\u2019s use of language, although it\u2019s very hard to find a suitable passage to quote on the air.\u00a0 The text is heavily larded with vulgarity and profanity, which gives it an earthy tone that suits the characters perfectly. It also cleverly masks the quicksilver turns of phrase and the dead-on aper\u00e7us that give Carey\u2019s writing its punch.<\/p>\n

Here is Hugh reflecting on his brother\u2019s reaction to Marlene\u2019s promise to get him a solo show in Tokyo:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a big bloody mystery to me that a man so set against Queen Elizabeth of England could get himself so rigid about the crown princess of Japan, but soon he has a great stiffy, throbbing like a sock full of grasshoppers. And who am I to understand his secret squirming brain?\u201d<\/p>\n

No mystery at all, Slow Bones. You got the simile just right, and you nailed your brother\u2019s hypocracy in that about-face on royalty. Principles be damned. This is his chance for a comeback. And he\u2019s about to grab it by the you-know-whats.<\/p>\n

In fact, this is not so much his comeback as his payback for the enormous favor he\u2019s about to do Marlene, who has a vested interest in, shall we say, his success. In the end, the artist is nothing more than a hired gun, producing to order what he thinks, or knows, will please his client. That he happens to be in love with his client is a minor complication. In their odyssey from Sydney to SoHo, Michael discovers the true extent of Marlene\u2019s thievery, but along the way he accumulates a raft of insights–none of which are of any use to him, of course.<\/p>\n

Time, the greatest thief of all, teaches him nothing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For \u201cIn the Morning,\u201d I\u2019m Helen Harrison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"