Photography
is true—fiction is a lie.
Or
is it the reverse?
Photography
lies and fiction tells the truth.
In
this remarkable novel—remarkably deceptive in its complexity—Lance
Olsen juxtaposes photography and fiction—juxtaposes the truth
and the lie.
The
truth of photography denounces the lie of fiction.
Or
is it the reverse?
The
lie of photography ascertains the truth of fiction.
This
is a story about a lie.
Lie
is perhaps too strong a word.
Decision
is perhaps a better word.
The
unnamed narrator, You, and his lovely photographer wife, Andrea, have
decided that they do not want children.
Children
are noisy, messy, egomaniacal, cruel, combative, recalcitrant, naive,
needy, histrionic, uninformed, opinionated, untruthful, insecure,
moody, amoral, and physically and emotionally destructive.
But
grandma back East in New Jersey wants grandchildren.
So
You and Andrea invent (imagine) a child (a girl) and prove her existence
with photographs.
Fake
photographs showing Andrea pregnant—Andrea giving birth to Genia
(that's the name You and Andrea decide for the girl because the girl
will be very photogenic)—the infant girl being held by the arm
of the mother (only the arm is seen in that photo)—the little
four or five years old Genia dressed as a bunny—and so on—until
the final photographs become smudged and erased themselves making
the rest of the story unreadable (invisible).
These
photographs undermine the fictional representation and expose the
vulnerability of the narrative.
Or
is it the reverse?
The
fiction denounces the unreality of the photographs.
The
photographs (and the mini-essay about photography that runs through
the novel—with quotations from Diane Arbus, Susan Sontag, Roland
Barthes, and others) undermine the narrative in a double attestation
of the logic of the action and the effect it has on reality.
But
there is more here than just the lie about the imagined child.
This
is a profound novel about finding one's place in the world.
From
one sentence to the next (the narrative is made mostly of one-liners
that digress from one another) one travels from Idaho to Katmandu
to Venezuela to Ukraine to St-Petersburg, and so many other exotic
places in the world, in search of the right place.
Or
rather in search of the right aggregate of words to describe the unreality
of reality—because it feels like there is always somewhere else
to go.
In
the process past present future gather into one sentence as one becomes
aware of a certain liquid pulse of anticipation in one's decisions
and one's actions.
This
is a very intelligent, touching, sensitive novel.
And
there is more.
One
day you are you, supposedly, and one day you are not.
So
moving was as easy as changing your mind, or changing your mind was
as easy as moving.
A
novel then about making decisions.
About
being here and everywhere at the same time—in the past the present
and the future at the same time.
Being
in the world, in other words—in the unreality of the real world.
Reading
this novel is also having to make decisions about where, when, and
who.
Remembering
how Beckett's Unnamable put it at the beginning of his own narrative:
Where now? Who now? When now?
One
realizes how Lance Olsen had learned from the great master, and how
innovative his novel is.
But
there is more in this deceptive novel that juxtaposes photographs
with words.
Reading
a photo comes down to choices.
Reading
this novel comes down to choices too.
Do
we trust the narrator's words?
Or
do we trust the photographs?
The
point being, there is no context to privilege one reading over another.
Grandma
trusts the photos (and so do the friends back East in New Jersey who
learn that Andrea is pregnant) otherwise she would not send generous
gifts of money for the child who does not really exist.
A
photograph is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less
you know.
Then
the story of a lie then—depending on who you want to believe.
A
novel that masquerades as an album of photographs.
Or
an album of photographs that pretends to be a novel.
It's
like when you pat a dog and discover he is dead.
You
can never be sure of anything because things are not what they appear
to be—but they are.
Appear
may perhaps be too strong a word.
This
is a profound serious playful novel about decision making.
A
moving story (a love story) about a lie—a beautiful lie.
Here
the unreal is exactly like the real, only more sincere.
And
so the only thing remaining of her (little absent Genia) is a certain
fullness to the air.
Call
that poetry!
