CF Nzekio Nzekio itibaren Lernakert, Ermenistan
There are moments of startling absurdist fantasy in Madame Depardieu & The Beautiful Strangers. Unfortunately, most of them are contained in the press reviews quoted on the cover, because for the first 80-odd pages this is one of the most tedious books I have read in years. While it does improve later on, it is fundamentally flawed and constantly misfires. Even Umberto Eco's notoriously boring The Island of the Day Before, with its interminable diversions on heraldry and medieval theology, at least has some intellectual value. Quirke's book is a miserable pageant of male characters seemingly being auditioned (and rejected) for the role of main character in another book. All are held together by the tenuous thread of a leading lady who resembles Bridget Jones only with her personality hollowed out and replaced by a tarnished tin-foil mannequin on whose surface the faces of actors are dimly reflected. And she's left the jokes out. I'm confused. Is this a novel or an autobiography? I'm not sure Quirke knows herself. If it's the latter, who is Antonia Quirke to merit an entire book about herself? If it's a novel, why choose characters who are so ill-defined and artistically unsatisfying? Take Wilson, a Texan who has fled to London after killing a man for $200. You wouldn't think that anyone could make such a character boring, but Quirke manages it. Wilson shuffles into her life, mumbles a few words, shags her (probably) and then shuffles out again after a few pages, having lapsed from taciturnity into total silence. When Quirke loses interest in her male characters, which happens every few pages (though not before the reader has), she dribbles off a half-baked essay about some actor or film, as if the book is a depository for her unfinished reviews or pieces that were rejected by Empire, the Sunday Times or the Basingstoke & North Hants Gazette. Yes, there are moments of poignancy and insight, but one is left with the impression that Quirke felt compelled to write a novel -- for the kudos and the career prospects -- when what she really wanted to write (and should have written) was an encyclopedia of actors. Quirke is only any good when when she is writing about films, when she's on home ground, when she's safe safe SAFE! Safe, in her comfort zone, where the celebs who praise her on the dust jacket are familiar and comfortable with her writing, where she's their pal Antonia, but she's not your Antonia and she's not My Antonia and nor is her book. Her fugue on Jeremy Irons' performance in Betrayal is brilliant, but that's what she does for a living and it ain't novel writing and this is supposed to be a novel (or maybe an autobiography). Antonia Quirke is a brilliant critic and columnist, and the more of her journalism I read the more I like her. But she's not a novelist - not yet anyway. You shouldn't necessarily be put off. Quirke knows how to stick words together in a pleasing way, and if you are immersed in the world of film stars and celebrity - but with enough discernment to see the ridiculous side of it all - then this book might be your favourite book of the year. But if you can't understand why people read OK magazine, then you'd best leave this book on the cutting room floor.