The Beauty of Psyche by Andrew Staniland
This is an unusual and unique work of fiction. It’s certainly not going
to suit everyone and I don’t for a minute think I’ll be able to do justice of
it in a review. But I do think it’s an important work, and an important work of
contemporary art. It’s a modern prose poem but such a description does
little to indicate its true depth. Staniland is in control of his medium
throughout and challenges the reader to go along with him. The overt stance of
the author is refreshing. He points out fairly early on ‘I am free to write
whatever I imagine’ and reading The Beauty of Psyche is like being allowed to
connect in a deeply personal way with another persons imagination. I both
respected that and enjoyed the experience. He sets up his stall early by
pointing out that he’s painting with his imagination but the whole impact of
that statement takes the entire work to fully comprehend.
He is
a poet, I can spot that straight away – I think only poets have the commitment
to and command of language in its pure form. In its entirey The Beauty of
Psyche is beautiful; throughout the work he draws pictures with words. You
roll the paragraphs round in your mouth like fine wine. You drink in the words
with your eyes. It begs to be read out loud. The sum of a prose poem seems here
to be so much more than the combination of the parts. It’s a fusion of art
forms. A juxtaposition of writer, artist, actors, mythmakers and theatre. A
collision of creative worlds all imagined by the writer. And I relished it.
Reading this I felt the excitement
and pleasure of those long Romantic poems by Keats, Shelley and Byron or even
Pope and Milton but it’s not ‘like’ any of them. It is not a modern version of
a classic, it is a modern classic. I felt like I’d spent an afternoon on the
sofa with Shelley himself.
But he
deals with contemporary issues as well. There’s descriptions of the publishing
industry, and the expressed belief that good literature engages with your
imagination. The ever present author explains that ‘I paint clothes on the
human characters. But gods are gods. I dramatise their divinity.’ The
compelling analogies between painting, writing and theatre were an absolute
revelation to me. Staniland paints with the imagination. Deliberately. And explains
his process to you, drawing you into a consideration of the creative process in
all its dimensions. I have never read anything like this in my life – and
it really excites me. His comment on art is Any work of art aspires to an absolute realism. To be its own
reality. It is fatuous to reduce this work of
art to a subject of debate, but one feels that one is studying literature
rather than just reading it.
He
turns his consideration to how we ‘spend our lives’. It’s very deep. It’s
something for people who like to STUDY literature. It’s not a ‘page turner’ in
the conventional way. It’s something you want to savour, to think about and to
ponder at every turn. He sets up a dynamic model of narrative which then
presents an ending which is dynamic rather than dramatic. A blank ending.
Playing with form. Showing us that Our lives are also outside us. It is all our own work.
It’s working on several different
levels, and then some. The interrelatedness of the creative processes employed
– from the mythic ‘tale’ to the ‘authorial’ role to the contemporary reportage
of the ‘actors’ perspective, give a depth and uniqueness to this incredible
creative statement.
It’s as far removed from genre
fiction as it is possible to get. It’s a genuine literary work of art. A true
contemporary classic. It’s beautiful, it’s intelligent and I don’t imagine I’ll
ever read anything like it again.
I loved it. It’s hard not to put a
personal slant on it because it engages you in such an intimately person way. I
don’t know who else this will appeal to – it has the poetic charisma of making
me feel he is speaking only to me. Of course it’s an acquired taste. It’s
intellectual marmite, or truffles. If you’ve ever been moved by long
Romantic poetry, if you’ve ever been captivated by classical theatre, if myths
and classical forms and imaginative beauty attract you, I urge you to read
this.
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