My Life as a Fake

Rating:
Summary: "And there he lay, the thing that I brought to life"
Review: MY LIFE AS A FAKE is Peter Carey's latest literary spin through history which is based loosely on the 1940's hoax of forged and plagiarized poetry in Australia by James McAuley and Howard Stewart. The public and literary arena was deceived during that notorious incident, and presently Carey has developed a marvelous story that leaves the reader scratching its own head in bewilderment and confusion.

Set primarily in Australia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, this novel follows poetry editor Sarah Wode-Douglass as she travels to Kuala Lumpar with John Slater, an old family friend who she doesn't trust or particularly like. Upon arriving Sarah encounters Christopher Chubb, an exiled Australian who possesses a wildly fantastic past of his own in creating literary hoaxes, in a dark and grimy bicycle repair shop. Sarah's true journey begins when Slater first denies knowing Chubb, and then is persistent in warning Sarah from the dangers of associating herself with the crazed Australian without a satisfactory explanation. As her friendship with Chubb intensifies Sarah learns of Bob McCorkle, the invention of Chubb, and is lured by his spectacular poetry that may indeed rescue her career if she can bring it back to London and publish it in her magazine. But does McCorkle exist at all as insisted by Chubb?

As the story unfolds the reader is led through many plot twists and turns and frankly doesn't know which character to believe. Even Sarah has a couple lies up her sleeve. Each character shares in the storytelling of this amazing hoax and the digressions become riskier and less believable than the previous. MY LIFE AS A FAKE is a wonderful novel and a genuine page-tuner. My heart thumped in my chest as I raced to uncover the truth as I neared the end of the book. Carey succeeds in highlighting a less known historical event while simultaneously creating a memorable plot and interesting characters. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant use of real events for an imaginative novel
Review: My Life as a Fake springs from a real life event. After World War II, two conservative poets in Australia who disliked contemporary poetry (Eliot, Pound) decided to pull a stunt on a literary magazine -- named Angry Penguins (what a great name). They wrote poetry in the modern style (in one case transcribing an army pamphlet on mosquito control into verse, an example that is repeated here) and submitted it under a false name to the literary magazine, whose editor became convinced that he had found an Australian genius, and published the poetry. They came forward, everyone laughed at the editor, and he was prosecuted for publishing obscenity.

Peter Carey takes this episode and uses it to write a novel that is funny, grotesque, and tragic. Set decades after the hoax was exposed, the novel is narrated by a middle-aged editor of another literary magazine who meets the originator of the hoax, and becomes convinced he has in his possesion great poetry. But who wrote it? The hoaxer, Chubb, seems incapable of such great work. Complicating things are that somehow the person he invented as the author of false poems, Bob McCorkle, has come to life as a real person who haunts his creator in the manner of Frankenstein's monster. The narrator hangs around Chubb trying to get the poetry, and having to listen to his life story -- never knowing what's true or not. Thus, he has done far more than take the real events and make minor changes to produce a work of fiction.

The book works both on the level of the story it tells, and on the level of the issues it raises. Perhaps the most important is the relation of art to its creator. Could great poetry be created by someone who had the intention of writing bad verse? Certainly that is what some think happened in real life. The two poets who pulled of the hoax on which this book is based never wrote anything as good as the "false" poems they wrote as a joke.

This book was a finalist for the Booker prize. The judges for this prize (they change each year) have shown consistent ability to pick books that are both readable and intelligent. If you like this book, you might try Carey's book on Ned Kelly, which won the Booker prize.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant use of real events for an imaginative novel
Review: My Life as a Fake springs from a real life event. After World War II, two conservative poets in Australia who disliked contemporary poetry (Eliot, Pound) decided to pull a stunt on a literary magazine -- named Angry Penguins (what a great name). They wrote poetry in the modern style (in one case transcribing an army pamphlet on mosquito control into verse, an example that is repeated here) and submitted it under a false name to the literary magazine, whose editor became convinced that he had found an Australian genius, and published the poetry. They came forward, everyone laughed at the editor, and he was prosecuted for publishing obscenity.

Peter Carey takes this episode and uses it to write a novel that is funny, grotesque, and tragic. Set decades after the hoax was exposed, the novel is narrated by a middle-aged editor of another literary magazine who meets the originator of the hoax, and becomes convinced he has in his possesion great poetry. But who wrote it? The hoaxer, Chubb, seems incapable of such great work. Complicating things are that somehow the person he invented as the author of false poems, Bob McCorkle, has come to life as a real person who haunts his creator in the manner of Frankenstein's monster. The narrator hangs around Chubb trying to get the poetry, and having to listen to his life story -- never knowing what's true or not. Thus, he has done far more than take the real events and make minor changes to produce a work of fiction.

The book works both on the level of the story it tells, and on the level of the issues it raises. Perhaps the most important is the relation of art to its creator. Could great poetry be created by someone who had the intention of writing bad verse? Certainly that is what some think happened in real life. The two poets who pulled of the hoax on which this book is based never wrote anything as good as the "false" poems they wrote as a joke.

This book was a finalist for the Booker prize. The judges for this prize (they change each year) have shown consistent ability to pick books that are both readable and intelligent. If you like this book, you might try Carey's book on Ned Kelly, which won the Booker prize.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling novel
Review: Sarah Elizabeth Jane is an editor with "The Modern Review". When her friend the novelist John Slater suggests that she joins him on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, Sarah does not know the maze she is about to enter, "from which, thirteen years later, I haven't yet escaped" as she puts it.
Shortly after their arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Sarah makes the acquaintance of an Australian in a shabby bicycle repair shop in Jalan Campbell, a man called Christopher Chubb. She soon finds out that he is the villain in the McCorkle Hoax dating back to 1946. Chubb gave birth to a phantom poet called "Bob McCorkle" who never existed but whom the Australian gave a life, a death and a biography. He then delivered a collection of poems called "Personae" to editor David Weiss, a man profoundly detested by Chubb since their common schooldays at Forest Street.
Sarah is speechless as Chubb mockingly recites a passage from a poem called "Swamps": "Areas of stagnant water serve / As breeding grounds...", a passage Chubb had copied from an army manual of mosquito eradication! When Weiss published "Personae", he was arrested and prosecuted for "obscenity".
As Sarah listens to the beginning of Chubb's account of his life, she is drawn into his harrowing narration. Chubb has a kind of magnetic effect on her and she can't resist wanting to learn more about Chubb's past, a maze of events on the verge of credibility.
A beautifully crafted piece of storytelling, a powerful work of fiction, Mr Carey's narrative is fast, furious and haunting.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling novel
Review: Sarah Elizabeth Jane is an editor with "The Modern Review". When her friend the novelist John Slater suggests that she joins him on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, Sarah does not know the maze she is about to enter, "from which, thirteen years later, I haven't yet escaped" as she puts it. Shortly after their arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Sarah makes the acquaintance of an Australian in a shabby bicycle repair shop in Jalan Campbell, a man called Christopher Chubb. She soon finds out that he is the villain in the McCorkle Hoax dating back to 1946. Chubb gave birth to a phantom poet called "Bob McCorkle" who never existed but whom the Australian gave a life, a death and a biography. He then delivered a collection of poems called "Personae" to editor David Weiss, a man profoundly detested by Chubb since their common schooldays at Forest Street. Sarah is speechless as Chubb mockingly recites a passage from a poem called "Swamps": "Areas of stagnant water serve / As breeding grounds...", a passage Chubb had copied from an army manual of mosquito eradication! When Weiss published "Personae", he was arrested and prosecuted for "obscenity". As Sarah listens to the beginning of Chubb's account of his life, she is drawn into his harrowing narration. Chubb has a kind of magnetic effect on her and she can't resist wanting to learn more about Chubb's past, a maze of events on the verge of credibility. A beautifully crafted piece of storytelling, a powerful work of fiction, Mr Carey's narrative is fast, furious and haunting.

Rating:
Summary: Heartlessly left in the dark.
Review: The novel's premise is that Australian poet Christopher Chubb perpetrates a literary hoax; he invents a new persona, Robert McCorkle, and submits pretentious poetry to a novice editor. The editor, who Chubb resents, publishes the work and is humiliated when the hoax is revealed. The reader is in for a bizarre twist when Robert McCorkle appears in the flesh and is a gifted poet.
How is this possible? Who is lying, who is insane? Years later, this enigma confronts the narrator, editor of a poetry magazine. The editor has no empathy for the pathetic Chubb or the monstrous McCorkle; she only wants to read McCorkle's damn poetry. Well, good luck! The narrator and reader are both ready for a nervous breakdown at the book's conlusion. We are left to our own conclusions in this strange and unfulfilling story.

Rating:
Summary: The novel as marauding monster
Review: The process of creation is the forte of all authors. Spinning yarns from thin air, constructing entire personalities with ink and wood pulp, they are linguistic mad scientists, alchemists of life through their use of symbols and patterns.

Peter Carey is one of the finest mad scientists working today. The acclaimed Australian author has accolades to spare, twice receiving the Booker Prize for his novels Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang.

Now, in the intriguing yet ultimately disappointing My Life as a Fake, Carey departs from his forays into realistic historical literature for a fantastical realm more akin to his brilliant satire The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith. Employing a amalgam of fact, fancy, and Mary Shelley's horror classic Frankenstein, Carey probes the existence of the artist and art, and the quest for immortality.

Using a famous Australian incident as a launching point, Carey relates the story of Christopher Chubb, a poet who concocts an elaborate scheme. He submits several poems to a literary magazine under the alias Bob McCorkle, hoping to expose the editor as a hack. However, he soon discovers, like Victor Frankenstein before him, that his work has developed a life of its own, and he finds himself pursuing the "creature" from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur, all the while losing his grip on reality.

Carey, closely following the Frankenstein blueprint, places Chubb's story within the framework of another, that of an editor seeking reconciliation with a family friend. In this way, the narrative resembles the marvellous works of Canadian author Eric McCormack, weaving stories within stories within stories.

The theme of art as an entity unto itself is not new. Ray Bradbury reminded readers that books contain whole lives in Fahrenheit 451. Stephen King provided an author with a murderous pseudonym to battle in The Dark Half.

Carey has deeper motives. Being in a rarified position for an author, he is acutely aware of the likelihood of his work living well beyond his own lifetime. Carey's latest functions both as straight-ahead fiction, and as sly parody of an author afraid to be judged solely by his product after his death.

It is also an ode to the joys of finding fresh voices in a world of retreads and unoriginality. True happiness exists in the editor's tone as she tells of her discovery of T.S. Eliot; "I first opened 'The Waste Land' and found the laws all broken, and in those dazzling eruptions and disconcerting schisms I saw a world whose dreadful harmonies I never guessed existed."

Yet for all its virtues, there remains an inherent clumsiness to the piece. The editor remains a narrative device, dull and pedantic, interrupting the principal thrust of the story. She enhances the mystery, but her personal story is uninteresting to the point of irritation.

Carey begins with a direct quote from Frankenstein, purposely parallelling Shelley's caution on the whims of science with Carey's own warning of the power of art. While the correlation is accurate, it is unlikely My Life as a Fake will outlast Carey's reputation

Rating:
Summary: Poetry and Monsters
Review: The spirit of Mary Shelleys "Frankenstein" hovers over this story of poets, poetry, and deceit, all set in the sweating cities and jungles of southeast Asia. "My Life as a Fake" is the story of a hoaxer whose prank gives birth to a monstrous truth. Like Victor Frankenstein, the perpetrator of the fraud is then hounded relentlessly by his own creation. Along the way, Carey flirts at times with penetration; at others, far more superficially with questions of genius, intention, and the elusive search for authenticity. Very entertaining and a teriffic read.

Rating:
Summary: A scarier Frankenstein
Review: This is a gorgeous novel, Carey's best in a while, though not quite up to the exalted standard set by _Oscar and Lucinda_ and _The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith_. It contains the usual gallery of tall-tale-tellers, sentimentalists and wildly irrational antiheroes, but the fact that it's mostly told via indirect speech adds a welcome touch of detachment and orderliness that I thought was missing from both _Jack Maggs_ and _The Kelly Gang_. Carey evokes Malaysia in a way that makes me want to pack my bags, and his ability to get into the mind of a reserved spinster who's simultaneously both a literary perfectionist and a virtuoso of self-deception is an absolute triumph of imagination.

Pace some reviewers on this site, I don't think his aim is really to deflate the "pretensions" of literary critics or lovers of poetry - when I see remarks like this they always tell me more about the shortcomings of the US educational system (assuming that's where most of the readers here are coming from) than about the books that are under discussion. Throughout, the sense is that the preservation of great works of poetry is one of the noblest and most worthwhile goals imaginable. The novel doesn't really take sides on the whole modernist/anti-modernist debate that occasioned the real-life hoax upon which it's based, though. Carey just uses the story of Ern Malley as a catalyst to summon up a host of wonderful characters and set them off and running.

Rating:
Summary: Cleverly conceived, powerfully brought-to-life!
Review: Using a notorious Australian literary hoax of the 1940's and Mary Shelley's gothic novel "Frankenstein" as a springboard, Peter Carey turns on the power of his creative imagination to produce an extraordinary modern literary horror story. Stylishly written, with a wildly inventive, fantastical plot and wide-ranging settings across continents from London to Australia to Malaysia, "My Life As A Fake" is a distinctive addition to the fictional world of Peter Carey.

Scene: Australia 1940's. Recasting the characters of the famous Ern Malley hoax, the plot revolves around run-of-the-mill poet and hoaxer, Christopher Chubb, who cons his friend, literary magazine editor David Weiss into believing that the poetry of Bob McCorkle, an imaginary figure dreamed up by Chubb - and made more credible by pasting together a faked montage picture of McCorkle - is a work of genius. Chubb has simply cobbled together some literary scraps from various sources. Weiss's gullibility in publishing McCorkle's poetry is publicly exposed and Weiss is then prosecuted as the poetry is deemed obscene. At Weiss's trial, proceedings are dramatically disrupted when a mysterious, wild-looking figure about seven foot tall who bears a strong resemblance to the faked-up picture of McCorkle, explosively springs to his feet claiming he is Bob McCorkle. Is it possible that Chubb's poetry could have brought the Frankenstein monster-like figure of McCorkle to life?

Cut to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 1972. London literary editor, nickname "Micks", on a trip to Malaysia with John Slater, a poet, happens on Chubb living in poverty in a bicycle repair shop in Kuala Lumpur's sticky, steamy Jalan Campbell. Slater knows Chubb as the perpetrator of the McCorkle hoax on Weiss all those years before and brings "Micks" up-to-date with the details, telling her that Chubb is mad and to be avoided at all costs. Chubb shows "Micks" one of McCorkle's poems, the price of persuading "Micks" to write down his account of the Bob McCorkle story. Seeing in it an unmistakeable masterpiece, "Micks" sets her mind on getting hold of Chubb's volume of McCorkle's poems. As Chubb relates his fantastical recollections of Bob McCorkle, the narrative spirals into the realms of a bizarre, picaresque tale of pursuit (where McCorkle tracks down Chubb across Australia, kidnapping his baby daughter and vamoosing to Malaysia to settle the score with his creator who had given him no childhood) and counter-pursuit by Chubb of McCorkle (in an extravaganza of abductions, imprisonments, cruel punishments and machete battles with bandits) following a trail of clues from Bali to Sumatra to Penang and thereafter into the Malaysian jungle. A clever concept, powerfully brought to life, "My Life As A Fake" comes to a bitter end.

There are lots of good things to enjoy in this inventive adventure story: Carey acknowledges the value of entertainment, piling one wacky adventure on another, including an ingenius story-within-a-story of Japanese war-time atrocities: Carey also excels in his atmospheric description of muggy Kuala Lumpur; humour too, as Carey pokes fun at the literary establishment of the day, debunking its pretentiousness.