Book Group: Session 11 discussion - THEFT: A LOVE STORY by Peter Carey

** WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS BOOK THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD **

In my experience, reading anything by Peter Carey can be a bit of a hit or miss affair. There are certain books by him that I love (Jack Maggs, Oscar and Lucinda) and certain books I've struggled with and eventually abandoned (The Illywhacker, The True Story of the Kelly Gang). Fortunately, I found Theft: A Love Story to be immediately accessible and highly entertaining. I loved it's balance of humour and melancholy, and the twist at the end was a joy.

So what did you think of this book? To get your creative juices flowing, I have listed some questions, with the help of an online reading guide, that you may wish to consider, but there's no need to answer everything listed. Just pick and choose as you see fit, add your own and by all means respond to the comments left by others.

Alternatively, feel free to post about the book on your own blog, but please do leave a comment below with the relevant URL/permalink so we can drop on by to see what you wrote...

1. On a scale of one to five, with one being rubbish and five being excellent, how did you rate this book?

2. Did the dual narrative by the brothers, Michael and Hugh, work? Or did you find yourself attracted to one voice? Why do you think Peter Carey use two narrators ? Is one a more trustworthy narrator than the other?

3. The artist Milton Hesse tells Marlene that "the only secret in art is that there is no secret. Nor should she imagine that there is a hidden strategy. Forget about it. Real artists don't have strategy" [p.138]. Does this assertion contradict conventional views of the artist? Might this way of thinking about art apply to novels as well? Is Theft itself free of a "hidden strategy"?

4. Hugh says of his brother: "The artist is always for himself alone, allegedly a MONK, a PRIEST or KING, in spite of which assertion he was always seeking a woman who would let him lie with his BUG IRISH face between her breasts" [p. 89]. Is this a fair assessment of Michael? To what degree does he fit the type of the narcissistic, needy and self-inflated artist?

5. How does Michel's background, coming from a family of butchers from Bacchus Marsh, affect his relationship to his own painting and to the pretensions of the art world? How does his way of working, his attitude toward painting, his passion for paint and canvas, the materials of art, defy the conventional image of the artist?

6. What does Theft suggest about the ambitions and motives of artists, dealers, collectors, critics and curators? Does Theft present a cynical or merely realistic view of the art world?

7. In what ways does Marlene manipulate Michael in order to pull off her various crimes? Why does he allow himself to be manipulated?

8. Both Michael and Hugh address the reader directly. For example, Michael says: "I will not bore you with the surgical operation needed to remove those threads" [p. 115]. Who is the presumed reader of this book? In what ways are Michael and Hugh trying to persuade the reader, and of what?

9. In what ways does Carey explore the themes of deception, dishonesty, fakery and forgery in Theft?

10. Theft is subtitled "A Love Story." What does the novel suggest about love –- romantic love, self-love and brotherly love?

Comments

[Isabel]

1&8 - The book is 4.5. I enjoyed reading it. The voices of the two brothers is interesting, although I liked Hugh better. He has a better sense of the world. It's sad that he can't tell Michael how badly he messes up his own life with his selfishness.

Hugh has a better sense of humor, also.

I'll write more later. I have to run errands before the heat sets in.

[suki]

Had a hard time with the first half of this book. Hugh's chapters drove me crazy at first and I skipped some of them. As a painter myself and having once been married to a cynical sculptor, I clicked with Michael and his complex life problems with his ex-wife. And his brother to whom he seems pretty devoted to. And his passion for what's her name---Marlene?

The idea that his artworks are worth money but that none of that money is accessible to him rings true to my image of the under appreciated artist living among the more famous artists.

Once I hit about the halfway mark in the book however, things changed for me. It read quickly. By then I was used to Hugh's speech patterns and even though the capital letters still irritated me (shades of the hillbillies in Carolyn Chute's first novel)I really came to love Hugh and his lawnchair. And the tensions between the characters and in the situation became clearer and more intense, making me want to read on quickly whereas in the first half I read, put down for a week, read, put down for a week. More later.

[suki]

Oh I forgot--I'd give it a 3.

[Isabel]

5. Is class still such a thing people deal with in the UK and recent colonies?

Since I grew up in America, I don't have those issues. You are who you are, not what your family was.

However, if you want to be in certain cirles, family background does matter. But, since that doesn't interest me, I am OK with who I am and where I come from.

[Isabel]

9.Deception

I like the way Hugh relates how he and Michael got their nickname.

Hugh is called Slow, because he walked quickly. But, to the outside world, he is slow (mentally) and is treated with little respect.

Michael is called Butcher, because his being an artist is so opposite from what the rest of the men in the family do for a living. However, Michael ends up destroying everything that comes in his path: relationships, art, homes, furniture, etc. He does act like someone who doesn't like things whole.

[kimbofo]

Isabel, re: 9 welcome to the world of Australian nicknames! How people acquire them is very funny -- it usually works on the theory of opposites. For instance, if you have red hair you'll be called "Blue", if you have straight hair you'll be called "Curly" and if you're exceptionally tall you'll be called "Shorty".

[Isabel]

6. I am not involved in this world, except for I know that galleries take 50% to 60% of a sale to cover marketing charges.

Are gallery owners so greedy? Are critics frustrated artists? I don't know.

[suki]

I have reread the first half of the book just now and found it a much easier and funnier read this time. Michael's irreverence for artistics pretense is so beautifully portrayed in the first chapter where he redoes the entire uselessly set up art studio and makes it a workable space. There ARE artist who have pristine studios with nary a drop of paint on the floor but I can't imagine it myself. My sense of the art world nowadays is very much of art as a business venture. You buy a painting not because you love it but because you hope it will bring you a good financial return.

[suki]

I know the discussion such as it was has ended, but must just add that I discovered today that "The Magic Pudding" is a real book. I have ordered it from the library and look forward to reading!!!! I discovered this by accident. The younger type A me would have checked it out immediately when reading the book.

[suki]

Finished reading the delightful book: "The Magic Pudding." NOW I know what they were talking about in "THEFT." Although I don't think it's necessary to read "Pudding" to understand "Theft" I do think it adds a dimension and also parallels. Such as "Pudding" is very much about two rascals stealing a pudding, reminiscent of the painting theft. There are numerous other parallels including I think some prose rhythms, but me brain is fried right now from the heat and this is about all I can say.

[kimbofo]

Suki, how interesting to draw the parallels between Carey's book and the "Magic Pudding". Pretty much every Aussie kid grows up with the Magic Pudding -- I always found the illustrations too scarey, and much prefered the likes of "Blinky Bill" (about a koala), Ruth Park's "Muddle-headed Wombat" and May Gibbs' "Gumnut Babies".