Black Mirror

Gail Jones’ 2002 novel Black Mirror holds my interest for a number of reasons. First, Professor Jones is one of the leading lights at the Western Sydney University’s Writing & Society Research Centre where I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program. Second, the novel explores modernism, and an Australian artist in Paris and London; and a young researcher who goes to see the elderly artist in search of some personal truths. When I read about the nature of the novel, I feared a little (as writers do) that my own thoughts and ideas may have already been captured by this prize-winning writer. However, Jones’ book is quite different to the one I hope to write, and having read it, I can breathe more easily. What follows is then just a few observations.

The novel opens in the viewpoint of the young Anna Griffin, about to interview the famous surrealist, Victoria Morrell. The same rainy scene is then told from Victoria’s perspective; and so quite easily and naturally, the reader understands the nature of the narrative to unfold. Victoria’s story – told to Anna after she establishes a trust and a connection – is that of her childhood in a Western Australia mining town, and her time in London and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, when she got to know some of the famous European artist and writers as part of the Surrealist movement. Anna’s own childhood in the same town is also relayed, as well as her time in London which includes her relationship with a married Jamaican. The relationships depicted in the story from both female characters are troubled ones, and there is a sense of loneliness that pervades and reflects the expatriate lives of those who have escaped trouble and are somewhat at sea.

The art of writing a complex story that weaves in an out of the lives of the artist and her researcher, and builds into it a confidently handled historical setting is something to be admired here. Equally, the range of language. Take this one example. Three girls in Anna’s childhood memory of her restrictive mining town lie on bed, thinking of England. London is where it all happens, Beryl declared. No more deadshits. Or gutless wonders. Or mingy bloody dickheads (p.66). The singing voice of Australian idiom! Then the next page, Victoria telling of her life in 1936, and the rich, complex sentences: All across the city men in black bowlers and dark suits were crumpling, concertina-like; women were removing snow-white gloves and fanning them fingerless at crimson faces; children were entirely hectic and out-of-control (p.67). It is a London heatwave, as an Australian writer would see it, imagined in this historic way.

Did I say I could breathe more easily? I certainly don’t mean in terms of sizing up the achievement – this is considerable. Just that it covers territory I would like to explore, but in a different style to my own. But it is intimidating to read, none-the-less. Black Mirror is a novel for a reader who would enjoy the play of the past on the present. Perhaps a writer like Michael Ondaatje is a fair reference point; I am reminded a little of reading Divisadero (2007) – set in America and France, and drawing out parallel lives and experiences.