Jason Rice: The Great Man by Kate Christensen has just arrived in trade paperback from Anchor Books and along with it a landslide of praise, and its the winner of the Pen Faulkner Award. I know we’re a little behind the curve on this particular title but I thought it was an important book for us to talk about here on the blog. I’ve been an admirer of this authors work for some time, and was especially repulsed by her novel Jeremy Thrane, repulsed in a good way, sickened but I couldn’t look away. It’s always interesting to see how writers take on the art world, artists and the creative process. I’ve seen so many efforts on the subject; Patrick McGrath with the ill fated Port Mungo, and Jami Attenberg’s masterful Kept Man, both reveal a man and his craft, but fall back on a stereotype that is up to this point been beaten to death.
The Great Man focuses on a great painter’s inspiration, namely the women in his life. I thought this was a very interesting track to take especially since a story about a painter is nothing new. There isn’t a stone unturned in this story, and it’s subtlety and shades of emotional nuance wisely crafted by an author who makes it look and sound like she’s been an active participant in the art world for years. Right away we’re thrown into the discussion of what makes a great painting, where the artist gets his creative inspiration and what exactly that inspiration does all day while the famous artists works. Teddy St. Cloud dominates the first third of this story and where this woman came from, who she is, and how Ms. Christensen created her is a fantastic mystery. The great artist in question is none other than Oscar Feldman, who has just passed away. Teddy is just the first in a string of women to orbit Oscar’s world, the painter as a man, remains a thumbnail sketch and while we meet other women in his life you have a confirmed feeling that you may never know more about Oscar unless it’s refracted through the prism of the women in his life. It turns out Oscar has two wives, two sets of children, and a deep history that basically shows the women in his life to be nothing more than enablers to his irresponsible and selfish behavior, plus a sister who is in direct competition with Oscar in the art world. What’s most important about these women is that we get to see them in wonderful detail and all told through a frank and uncompromising point of view.
Dennis Haritou: Along the lines that JR suggests, pin down the relationships between three women in Kate Christensen’s The Great Man and you have gathered up this lapidary story as if it were a glittering wrap that you had forgot about but are delighted to discover you have. Teddy St Cloud the mistress, Maxine the sister and Abigail the wife of now legendary Great Man, Oscar Feldman: the most influential figurative painter of his time, now deceased, and the great gaping hole (intended) in the middle of this story. At first, I had no little anxiety about whether I could keep these three women straight. I also worried a bit as to whether Christensen herself could keep them straight and let them all talk with their own voices.
What helps is their associations: Teddy can be identified with the culinary excellence that she loves and with her best friend, Lila. Maxine is a famous abstract expressionist and you can associate her with her dog Frago and her loyal assistant, Katerina. When I think of Abigail, I remember her tragically impaired son, Ethan and her woman-betrayed status as Oscar’s wife. Further relationships, among them to daughters and to loves both won and lost, extend outward from these three women like tendrils of an elegant but greatly weathered vine. There are also at least two key male characters (not many guys in this story) rival biographers of the great Oscar, whose inquiries into Oscar’s art and predatory womanizing jump-start the story. All this by way of agreeing with JR about the outstanding detail. Great architecture. Great Man also reminded me very much of the George Cukor film classic, The Women, where a philandering husband, who never appears, serves as a focal point for turning an angle of vision on a group of interesting women.
Culinary excellence in this story, Teddy’s special talent, serves as a paradigm for civility. There is the most incredible gourmet meal served at a gallery reception that Maxine attends which replicates symbolically the history of evolution. It must be read to be believed and it’s hysterically funny. I must also affirm JR’s conviction that Christensen relaxed familiarity with the art world is a great asset in this story. Abigail also has an amusing foodie scene with one of Oscar’s biographers where what is chosen from a menu and who chooses it, seems to loom large with significance for at least a few moments. But the magical food recipes are an analogue, for me, for the the deep friendships, improved by age, and other close relationships whose display are the real point of this book and so very contrary to Oscar’s predatory exploitation of women.
Jason Chambers: Of course, it’s frequently been the case for novelists to use the creative process as a proxy for their own experience, and the practice is as common as it ever was. Note, too, the ever-growing set of “story behind the painting” type of novels which are largely, but not completely derivations of the hugely popular Girl with a Pearl Earring. Then, as well, there are the artist portraits, like the one’s JR mentions above, and tons of others.
I thought of an actual biography while reading The Great Man, however — Norman Mailer’s interesting but flawed Picasso. I thought it was an interesting comparison because, first, Mailer’s biographical work tends to say as much about himself as about his subjects, a subject which came to mind frequently in The Great Man. We have these two equally ambitious would-be biographers with different world views and different relationships to the women they interview about Oscar, and one wonders about the nature of biography and how accurate it can be with the multitudes of interests and motivations by different characters.
Next, Oscar is himself a Mailerean character — a larger than life braggadocio, roaring through the world brimming with drink and testosterone, leaving the art world and countless women reeling in his wake. But rather than following Oscar on his rampage through the art world, Christensen follows the wake – the ripples that turn the lives of these three women. So in contrast to the bare masculinity of Mailer, Christensen focuses on the women. As noted above, the relationships and stories unfurl expansively from these three characters as they interact with each other and the biographers, revealing unknown history and telling tales that they meant to keep private, but needed to tell to someone. The result is a rich story, filled with prescient details both amusing and sad, about the art world, academia, aging, and plenty of other subjects. A worthy read, I thought.
JR: I’m glad we all like this book. JC, I like your Mailer comparison, it’s true, more towards Mailer himself than anything or anyone he wrote about. Jackson Pollock is also someone who left women and the art world in shambles, and somehow he finds his way into this book, which makes me wonder how much influence he had on the author when she was trying to weave this story together. DH you make some great points about Teddy and her culinary tastes, which until you mentioned it really went over my head, being an anti-foodie myself, I looked back with great awe at the times Teddy spent preparing food for whomever came her way. Maxine was a
great foil for all the women involved, daughters, wives, lovers, even canine love interests, and certainly could have used more time in the story. Seeing as this book is already in paperback and has been received by the world with open arms I hope it’s not to late to interview the author. I’ve put in a request with her editor. Lets hope she can take a few minutes and answer our questions. Thanks again guys for a great discussion.
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