Review: My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
Tia
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Is pretend poetry still real poetry?
Reading ‘My Life as a Fake’ feels like being trapped next to an eccentric stranger on a bus. Weird, smelly, and at times scary.
It is the story of how Christopher Chubbs created a poetry hoax which took on a life of its own. Using a fake name, he writes poems intending to make a mockery of the style. But the poems are praised and get published. This is based on a real life hoax which occurred in Australia.
The novel’s story takes a new direction, however, when a mentally disturbed man takes on the fake identity of the poet.
The most impressive aspect of the novel was that the characters are truly alive. Chubbs was sitting right next to me, with a horrible sweaty stench, ropey strings of saliva hanging from his lips, fetid infections across his skin. Ugh. He was so repulsive that I found it off-putting.
Most of the book was slow-going. Eventually the story really did take off, and the characters became unhinged. The finale surprised me, but I found it unsettling. I can’t really say that I enjoyed this book.
Aspects of it have not aged well. Some characters are revealed to be gay, and for readers in 2003 this would have been an exciting twist. But for me reading the book now, mistaken sexualities don’t have the same taboo shock value.
Some moments I found comedic and insightful, regarding the everyday Australian’s suspicion of highbrow culture.
Overall, ‘My Life as a Fake’ doesn’t need to be over-analysed in order to see the main theme: That parodies can become their own piece of art.
RATING: 1 out of 5 smelly durians. I think Carey is genuinely a brilliant writer. But overall the topic of poetry was too dry for me.
I lowered the rating from 2 to 1 because of a scene where a character reveals they experienced child sexual abuse. The story was already disturbing enough without this. The scene also implies that the character’s scars are eerily beautiful, and the character was proud to receive abuse. This is a harmful glamorisation and misrepresentation of the realities of sexual abuse.
RECOMMENDATION: Whatever you are expecting this book to be about, you will find it totally different. It’s completely unpredictable.
FYI: A character reveals they experienced child sexual abuse.
