Book Review of Art and Lies by Jeanette Winterson

"There is no such thing as autobiography, there is only art and lies."

I've never written a book review in my life and I don't intend to begin now although I suspect that it is precisely what I'm going to wind up doing. Sometime ago, I read a book which I loved. It's called Art and Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd by Jeanette Winterson.Prose and poetry merge, and words are used to sculpt images (as opposed to being used to frame sentences). There isn't anything academic in it but doesn't lack depth.

Art and Lies certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea though: it's the kind of work which either leaves you stunned by the beauty of its language or makes you want to throw rotten tomatoes at the author who, after all, often does nothing more than simply state the mundane and the obvious albeit beautifully.

In many ways, the book reminded me of the film Closer - although it lacks the crudity of the film - and in particular, one line from it:
"It's a lie. It's a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully, and all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it's beautiful 'cause that's what they want to see. But the people in the photos are sad, and alone, but the pictures make the world seem beautiful. So the exhibition's reassuring, which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie."

Even so, I think that it's one of those books which you're better for having read.

Art and Lies appears to me to be some form of meditation on the manner in which one should live. Although the book itself traverses the centuries with ease, it is set in a London of the near future which the three main characters are fleeing from. They are Handel, Picasso and Sappho. They seem to represent Music, Art and Poetry although Handel is, in the book, a former priest turned surgeon and Picasso is a female painter who is abused by her brother. Only Sappho resembles the poet of antiquity. And the stories of these characters are often interrupted by Doll Sneerpiece, an 18th century bawd.