What’s that Goethe quote, the one about art and life?
“Art and life are different; that is why one is called art and one is called life”. But what of art when it mirrors life or vice versa when life mirrors art? And what is one to make of a piece of performance art that is called Life?
This is the through line of Dan Rhodes’ hugely entertaining and surprising novel THIS IS LIFE, set in contemporary Paris. A must read for anyone interested in the performing arts, THIS IS LIFE is a veritable kaleidoscope of character, a smorgasbord of situation, and an amalgamation of amusement.
Think of Paris and you think of romance and art. This is the life of THIS IS LIFE.
It is the action of a young art student, Aurelie Renard, a simple throwing of a stone that starts this story in motion, and what a rolling stone roller coaster of a story it is, with mystery, intrigue, mistaken identity, misadventure, and mirth.
It is also a plea for art to be taken at heart’s content and not sieved through critic’s view or media interpretation. On the face of it, the performance piece that informs the narrative appears pretentious, but is indeed profound, what the media would reduce to sensationalism transcends that tag and elevates to the sublime.
The performance artist known as Le Machine pines for purity in art:“If the people who came were to find out why he was doing what he was doing they would bring so many preconceptions that it would come between them and the work. They wouldn’t have the opportunity to read the piece in their own way; they would instead see something else, their minds clouded with words, and he felt strongly that words were the enemy of art……there is nothing that angers the custodians of the art world more than simple feelings expressed in a straightforward manner.”
“Le Machine saw that the art world, just like any other tentacle of showbiz, was a playground for the wild and the weak; a gruesome tableau of grafters and chancers and rich folk at play; a grim pit of desperation, vanity and despair, where nothing was thought of the trampling on the lives of those who couldn’t keep up. If it hadn’t been for people like his manager, if it had been run solely by artists and borne wealthy dilettantes, the art world would never have been anything more than a hotbed of intrigue, failing livers, lost fortunes, unfulfilled potentials and herpes.”
Chock full of charm, this hugely hilarious book not only tickles the funny bone but tugs at the heart strings. Dan Rhodes is a Brit who has the arrogance of writing about Paris and populating it with a Parisians, although he does a nice line in Brit self-effacement and Japanese tourists.
And, golly, how he relishes lampooning the critics, with the creation of Jean Didier Delacroix, a manufactured monster mentored by his father, a pompous, pretentious arbiter of art.
“So, Delacroix” said Jean-Didier Delacroix’s father, “enough shop talk. I see you’re still with that young lady.”
“I am”
“You do know, don’t you, that she is absolutely vile?”
“Oh yes, very much so”
“You ought to think about sticking with that one, Delacroix. She’s my kind of girl”
“So tell me, how is Mother ?”
“Just as appalling as ever”
Delicious.
Dan Rhodes’s new book THIS IS YOUR LIFE is published by Canongate.
© Richard Cotter
Tags: Sydney Book Reviews- THIS IS LIFE, Canongate, Dan Rhodes, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter.