As I neared the end of Heather Rose’s Stella Prize-winning novel The museum of modern love, I slowed down. I wanted, of course, to know how it was going to resolve, but I wanted to savour it too. It doesn’t seem right to rush the end of thoughtful books like this.
But, I have to admit that I was initially hesitant about reading the book, as I am about any book inspired by a person or work I don’t know. I fear missing something important. However, I did want to read it and my reading group scheduled it. The die was cast. Then, as I was about to start reading, Brother Gums sent me a link to the documentary Marina Abramović: The artist is present about her and the performance piece which inspired this novel. I was set! As it turned out, I think Rose’s writing is evocative enough that it wasn’t necessary to have seen the film, but it did add a layer to the experience.
So, what is The museum of modern love about – besides love, that is? Its centre is performance artist Marina Abramović’s 75-day piece, The Artist is Present, which she performed at MoMA in the spring of 2010, to accompany a large retrospective exhibition of her work. The piece involved her sitting, still, quiet, at a table all day, 6 days a week (MoMA is closed Tuesdays), with gallery attendees invited to take turns to sit opposite her and share a gaze. It was an astonishing success, with, by the end, people camping out overnight to get the chance to sit. Many attended for days just to watch, creating, as Rose describes it, quite a community of spectators. In the end, over 850,000 people attended, with 1,545 people sitting (including Rose). (All are recorded at flickr.)
Anyhow, from this premise, Rose weaves an engaging, thoughtful story about art and love. It has two main narrative strands, telling the real Marina Abramović’s story and that of an attendee, the fictional musician Arky Levin, whose life is stalling, partly due to a restraining order made by his now-unresponsive terminally-ill wife that he not visit her. Interspersed with these, enriching the exploration of the themes, are smaller stories of other attendees, and family and/or friends of the protagonists. It’s narrated by a mysterious third person voice, who starts the novel with
He was not my first musician, Arky Levin. Nor my least successful. Mostly by his age potential is squandered or realised. But this is not a story of potential. It is a story of convergence.
This is a very particular omniscient narrator, some sort of artist’s muse who self-describes late in the novel as a “good spirit, whim … House elf to the artists of paint, music, body, voice, form, word”, one whose job is sometimes just “to wake things up”. This could be cutesy or forced, but it isn’t because Rose doesn’t overdo it. Mostly the story progresses without the intrusion of this narrator, so that when s/he appears we pay attention.
The moral conundrum at the novel’s heart is – is art enough or is love more important? It’s explored primarily through Levin, whose friends suggest he should appeal Lydia’s court order.
I know you’re going to say that she wanted you to do this; she wanted you to make music. But is that enough?
Music, it sounded feeble suddenly in the face of the yawning gap between life before Christmas and life these past four months. (p. 158)
So what does Levin do? Continue to live his increasingly lonely life making music, or follow his heart?
Levin’s story is off-set against other stories, notably that of Jane Miller, a friendly, recently widowed art teacher visiting New York from Georgia. She is lonely, like Levin, missing her husband “achingly, gapingly, excruciatingly. Her body hadn’t regulated itself to solitude.” She becomes one of the mesmerised watchers, but she also connects with others in the crowd, including Levin and Brittika, a PhD student from the Netherlands who is writing her thesis on Marina. Jane forms a natural link between the two themes of love and art.
What, then, is art?
The first time Jane attends the performance, she overhears people in the crowd questioning what the show is about, asking what is art, in fact. There are, of course, the naysayers, the ones who say that “art is irrelevant. If everything goes to crap, it won’t be art that saves us”. But Jane thinks differently, and turns to the man next to her who is, you guessed it, Levin, and says
I think art saves people all the time … I know art has saved me on several occasions.
As the novel progresses, various claims are made for art. Our muse, speaking particularly for artists, believes that “pain is the stone that art sharpens itself on time after time” and that “artists run their fingers over the fabric of eternity”. Marina’s art teacher says to her 16-year-old self that “Art will wake you up. Art will break your heart”, which causes Marina to consider that “Art … could be something unimaginable”. At one point Marina is reported as saying “I am only interested in art that can change the ideology of society”.
Jane, the viewer, though, has her own epiphany:
And maybe this was art, she thought, having spent years trying to define it and pin it to the line like a shirt on a windy day. There you are, art! You capture moments at the heart of life.
But, I think it is art critic Healayas who makes the clearest, simplest point when she says during a discussion about Marina’s performance:
She simply invites us to participate … It may be therapeutic and spiritual, but it is also social and political. It is multi-layered. It is why we love art, why we study art, why we invest ourselves in art.
… and what has love got to do with it?
Everything, if art, as all this suggests, is about humanity.
Let’s look specifically at Levin. It would be easy to criticise him, as his friends and daughter gently do, for being passive. But, we do get the sense that Lydia encouraged his passivity in their life together, that she liked to be in control, not in a control-freak way but in that way that super-competent people can do. Moreover, Lydia made her order out of love for him, to let him continue creating his art, rather than look after her which she didn’t believe was in him. So, what’s Levin to do? How does he reconcile his love against hers?
The resolution when it comes is triggered by art, by Marina’s performance. And this, as Jane believes art can do, probably saves him. I say probably because Rose, clever writer that she is, leaves the ending uncertain. As she and Levin realise,
the best ideas come from a place with a sign on the door saying I don’t know.
This is an inspired and inspiring book that leaves you pondering. I’ve only touched the surface.
Lisa (ANZLitLovers) also liked the novel.
Heather Rose
The museum of modern love
Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2016
284pp.
ISBN: 9781760291860
Whispering Gums 
I too enjoyed this novel. Very good review, I enjoyed your thoughts and the way you broke the themes down.
Thanks Theresa. It’s a hard one to review isn’t it? There are so many angles to discuss.
Ah it’s one of your posts, Teresa, that I can’t comment on. I love that you also felt you wanted to linger. I also enjoyed the muse’s statement that you shared.
I really enjoyed the muse. It was a great form of narration.
I just revisited my review to read that quote again. It’s a wonderful piece of insight from the muse. While I was there I opened the comments to the post. I don’t seem to be getting as much spam sneaking through anymore which is a relief!
OK, I’ll go comment there, but aren’t blogs wonderful! You can go back and remind yourself/refresh your memory of books you’ve read. (BTW You might also like to ensure that when you comment on blogs, like here, your name links back to your blog? Currently it doesn’t, but it means if people like what you say they might be interested to go check you out – if you’d like them to, that is.)
Once again you have enlightened me about something I had no idea about! Thank you, I will look into doing that!
Great Theresa. I hoped I wasn’t sounding interfering but I know most people like to link their names to their blog.
You know I never think that about the things you tell me! I think I’ve done it in the settings so hopefully my name will link back now.
Thanks Theresa – and woo hoo, yes it has!
WG you’ve saved me from my current despair at the quality and purpose of so many book reviews. Your writing added to my own thoughts about this novel. It has so much to think about in it and your selection of points for discussion draws out the essence of it in a really illuminating way. Thank you very much. You’ve stopped my mental rants about the endless number of reviews that regurgitate the plot.
Why thanks Anne! You won’t ever find plot regurgitation here, and if you ever do tell me! I’m glad you enjoyed what I did write. There’s so much to say about this book, so many angles to explore, aren’t there?
A wonderful review, Sue. Museum of Modern Love is definitely one of my favourite books this year. Heather Rose has incredible talent. Two years ago I attended a performance piece at the Koorie Heritage Trust (in Melbourne) called The Aborigine is Present, an initiative by Robyne Latham who with permission from Marina Abromovic conducted a similar performance piece allowing the audience to sit with an Aboriginal person (https://vimeo.com/117459441). Interestingly I don’t recall noticing the noisy background, for when I was seated all else disappeared. And while admittedly there was a whole other dimension of displacement present, it was also the power of ‘being seen and seeing’ that helped make this experience so powerful. Within minutes, my tears where streaming.
Oh thanks very much Julie. And I hadn’t heard of that piece. I’ll check out your link. I love Abramović’s generosity … But that’s being a true artist I’d say.
I’ve looked at it now, Julie. My, just looking at that five minutes was intense, partly because of the added politics of our relationship. I can imagine crying, too.
Yes, it undid me! You’re spot on about Abramovic’s genorosity – Heather Rose also sought Marina’s permission to fictionalise her story, didn’t she? She’s the real-deal performance artist.
Yes, she did. She is the “real-deal” artist full-stop I’d say.
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Thanks for the link, Sue… I’m still impressed by this novel, because it still makes me think. And *that* is what I like a book to make me do!
Yes, agree… And it tackles questions we love to ponder, art and love!
Wonderful review, Sue. I would be daunted at the prospect of reviewing this novel, but you have really caught so much about its themes. I think it was in her Stella prize speech that Heather said she had written more than 70 drafts, and I can well understand that.
Thanks Robyn. I heard a Books and Arts interview where she said she worked on it for 11 years! That is before The artist is present so it clearly went through many phases. Shows how passionate about and how inspired she was by Abramović’s doesn’t it?
Am reading it now, WG, so was hesitant about reading your review. But everything you’ve said resonates with what I’m taking from the book now. I’ve always admired Rose’s talent as a writer, so long overlooked, and this book is indeed a wonder.
I understand your hesitation Sara so appreciate that you overcame it. I often come back after I’ve read a book, but I have to remember to do that, i.e. remember which blogger it was!
I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t read her before, but now realise I really should.
This keeps getting to the top of my TBR then slipping back. Meanwhile I’ll ponder whether my discussion of plot amounts to regurgitation.
Haha Bill, I don’t think you regurgitate plot but tease out plots and characters against the points you want to make.
But, do try to get to the book. It has plenty of independent women in it. And there’s a minor female character who puts in a plug for another woman and talks about enjoying extending “little pools of influence for other women” because they need it!
Thankyou for the reassurance! Unfortunately I have a couple of interesting projects underway taking up my reading time. And then a couple of newbies and then Heather Rose, I hope.
A pleasure – I just went and checked a couple to make sure I was remembering correctly, and I stand by my assessment.
I know about reading projects piling up … it can be overwhelming at times, can’t it. Like being a kid in a lolly-shop.
This sounds really good! I looked at some of the photos you provided a link for. I was surprised how many people were crying. It must have been a really powerful experience. I am going to have to see if I can get that documentary. And now going to check if the book is available at the library 🙂
It is very good, Stefanie. I didn’t provide a link to the documentary because I think the free view is only available in Australia, and it times out on Sunday. You can pay to see it though at other sites.
It just sounds amazing. I especially like the comment you’ve made about the ending suiting the story. That matters to me so much more than the “happiness” of it, the “rightness” of it.
Yes, agree totally, Buried. I have no expectations of endings except that they make sense for the story, and hopefully reveal or confirm the author’s intention.
I really like the suggestion (from EM Forster, I think) that endings should be completely unexpected and absolutely inevitable. Lovely thought for a reader, very daunting for a writer! Though it does suggest that the ending should emerge from the story and not be just ‘happy’, as you say, Buried.
Oh me too, Robyn. Didn’t he say something like he wished authors could just stop when they get to their end as and not have to wrap up?
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OKOK ! – now that I’ve read your review, I shall no longer procrastinate. But only because you make me ..
Oh no, that’s a bit of pressure M-R! Do tell me, though, whether or not you like it.
Unlikely I shan’t: I love her writing.
Phew! That’s good.