The Fatigue Artist by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Does the Guinness Book of World Records have an entry for “The Most Self-Indulgent Novel Ever” ? If so, I would like to nominate this abomination.
I actually read this a long time ago and only recently found it buried beneath some old bank statements. (Which immediately lets you know what I thought about it. Most of my books are lovingly dusted and organized on shelves or - since I’ve begun running out of shelf space again - piled in neat towering stacks around my study.)
Anyhow, I got this because I enjoyed an earlier, non-fiction book of hers: Ruined by Reading. Some people should not be allowed to write fiction. I’m not going to dwell on this because it will only make me angry. I’ll explain as quickly as I can then place this piece of rubbish in the “off to the second hand bookshop” pile.
Let’s just say the problem begins with the main character of this “novel” being a writer whose friends and lovers never stop telling her how beautiful, witty, intelligent, sexy and talented she is.
“That’s quite good,” Mona remarked, as if I had constructed a minor work of art, as certain conversational gambits are. A scaled-down version of performance art. “Very good, Laura.”
“Thank you.”
Just in case we still don’t get it, the “novel” includes three grainy, arty photos vaguely related to the text, one of which is a photo of the author in big sunglasses in a Tai Chi pose. Wait a minute! The protagonist spends half the novel doing Tai Chi… What a coincidence!!!
Ugh.
P.S. Okay, I’m back. I just can’t resist adding this one little excerpt:
…holding the thin manuscript on my lap like a mother in a famine-struck land with nothing to offer her baby, hoping it will grow from love alone.
What a martyr to her Art! Is she really comparing her rich, spoiled, egocentric self to a starving mother and baby? Is it just me, or is that not disgusting?
Tags: fiction