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A review by mondyboy
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
5.0
There's a moment about a quarter of the way through Dana Spiotta's Stone Arabia where the main character has a thought so obvious and yet so profound that I had to take a time-out to digest what I had just read. Our main character, Denise, coming to terms with her mother's gradual memory loss, recognises that she will one day witness her own daughter growing old. This simple observation has never occurred to me. Cleary I'm aware that my kids will get older, racing through clothes and moods quicker than my budget and patience can keep up, but I've never internalised the fact that if I live long enough they will be as old as I am now. As Spiotta puts it "I would live to see her get crow’s-feet and gray hair and hands that showed veins. I would see her feet and her neck change. I would see the perfection of her body be undone by time... The privilege of a long life is you live long enough to see your perfect child also submit to time and aging." Stone Arabia is full of these insights, reflections on middle age and family and parenthood and, as I will discuss in a sec, memory, that force you to pause, just for a moment, so you can absorb the deeper truth.
The main driver of this extraordinary novel - a novel James Bradley has been suggesting I read for a number of years - is how memory informs a person's identity. Spiotta deals with this in a number of ways. As noted above Denise's mother is suffering from a form of dementia that's causing her to not only forget but also become paranoid (and increasingly racist) about those around her. Denise is also doubting her own memories or at least her capacity to retrieve information about the most mundane of things. There's a great moment where she struggles to recall the American actress with the large chest who was decapitated in a horrible accident in the 1960s. Now I knew who Denise was referring too, and I'm sure so do you, but what was both funny and discomforting is that as I read the scene I completely forgot Jayne Mansfield's name. Denise's momentary memory-loss became my own.
But where the theme of memory and identity is treated with a great deal of originality and brilliance is in regard to Denise's brother Nik Karanis and his 30-year project to chronicle an alternate existence where his talent as a songwriter and musician is recognised. Now most of us - well me anyway - fantasise what our lives may have been like if we'd become a famous writer, actor or, in my case, Chef. It's one thing to have these idle thoughts it's another to actually create that alternative through multi-volume journals describing that life, fake clippings of reviews and articles about your artistic genius, including negative criticism and sneers, and the creation of album covers and all manner of one-off merchandise - and yes the music as well - to the extent that if archaeologists were to uncover all this many years from now they would be justified into thinking that Nik Karanis was a famous, much respected, sometimes loathed musician. Throughout the novel we are exposed to snippets of this other life, these memories that only have a tangential connection to reality, this extraordinary intricate alter-ego. Nik's project is so utterly insane and yet, somehow, absolutely authentic. We know it's artifice, Denise knows it's artifice, but we come to believe in the Nik that never existed.
Although Denise fears ending up like her mother, it's her written account that not only provides insight into the 'real' Nik but offers us a portrait of a woman who dearly loves her mother, daughter and brother but isn't entirely convinced she's made the most of her own life. Clearly her diary entries are a response to her brother's fantasy version of himself, but not to undermine or necessarily to set the record straight but as an attempt to understand how she got here - how we all got here. And, of course, they are a repository of her memories, things she's willing to admit to and other things she only hints at. As she says later in the novel sometimes the only way to keep a family together is to submit willingly to a form of shared delusion, the editing and deliberate deleting of certain memories. Not to say that this is a novel where dark secrets are hidden between the sentences, but rather an acknowledgment of what most of us do.
Stone Arabia is an emotional and inventive look at memory and identity. It's also a fantastic family novel that replaces artificial drama with the close bond between a brother and sister. I'll admit I may have shed a tear when Nik admitted to Denise's daughter, Ada, that he saw his sister as an extension of himself. The true keeper of his and his families history.
The main driver of this extraordinary novel - a novel James Bradley has been suggesting I read for a number of years - is how memory informs a person's identity. Spiotta deals with this in a number of ways. As noted above Denise's mother is suffering from a form of dementia that's causing her to not only forget but also become paranoid (and increasingly racist) about those around her. Denise is also doubting her own memories or at least her capacity to retrieve information about the most mundane of things. There's a great moment where she struggles to recall the American actress with the large chest who was decapitated in a horrible accident in the 1960s. Now I knew who Denise was referring too, and I'm sure so do you, but what was both funny and discomforting is that as I read the scene I completely forgot Jayne Mansfield's name. Denise's momentary memory-loss became my own.
But where the theme of memory and identity is treated with a great deal of originality and brilliance is in regard to Denise's brother Nik Karanis and his 30-year project to chronicle an alternate existence where his talent as a songwriter and musician is recognised. Now most of us - well me anyway - fantasise what our lives may have been like if we'd become a famous writer, actor or, in my case, Chef. It's one thing to have these idle thoughts it's another to actually create that alternative through multi-volume journals describing that life, fake clippings of reviews and articles about your artistic genius, including negative criticism and sneers, and the creation of album covers and all manner of one-off merchandise - and yes the music as well - to the extent that if archaeologists were to uncover all this many years from now they would be justified into thinking that Nik Karanis was a famous, much respected, sometimes loathed musician. Throughout the novel we are exposed to snippets of this other life, these memories that only have a tangential connection to reality, this extraordinary intricate alter-ego. Nik's project is so utterly insane and yet, somehow, absolutely authentic. We know it's artifice, Denise knows it's artifice, but we come to believe in the Nik that never existed.
Although Denise fears ending up like her mother, it's her written account that not only provides insight into the 'real' Nik but offers us a portrait of a woman who dearly loves her mother, daughter and brother but isn't entirely convinced she's made the most of her own life. Clearly her diary entries are a response to her brother's fantasy version of himself, but not to undermine or necessarily to set the record straight but as an attempt to understand how she got here - how we all got here. And, of course, they are a repository of her memories, things she's willing to admit to and other things she only hints at. As she says later in the novel sometimes the only way to keep a family together is to submit willingly to a form of shared delusion, the editing and deliberate deleting of certain memories. Not to say that this is a novel where dark secrets are hidden between the sentences, but rather an acknowledgment of what most of us do.
Stone Arabia is an emotional and inventive look at memory and identity. It's also a fantastic family novel that replaces artificial drama with the close bond between a brother and sister. I'll admit I may have shed a tear when Nik admitted to Denise's daughter, Ada, that he saw his sister as an extension of himself. The true keeper of his and his families history.