My Life As A Fake by Peter Carey

My Life As A Fake by Peter Carey is a strange,life story, its fantasies, inventions and questionable
multi-layered journey through a man's past, hisrealities.
artistic inspiration and his products, both illusoryAnd it's a story that comes and goes to and
and real. Christopher Chubb is Australian and afrom Australia. It progresses through Indonesia
budding poet. He resents the privilege of a certainand peninsular Malaya. We visit Penang, sup tea in
litterateur and so he decides to nail him. Anthe E and O as Chubb pursues McCorkle, his own
apparently genuine but actually bogus set ofnow demonic invention, across south east Asia.
poems is supplied and adjudged significantly moreHis alter ego becomes something real, something
than competent. The agent publishes. The materialapart from himself.
is fake. Chubb is accused and stands trial for hisThe book is packed with literary references, but
sins against artistic identity and integrity.is in no way academic. There is a strong sense of
Some years later John Slater and Sarah Elizabethplace, with the sights, sounds and smells of Kuala
Jane Wode-Douglas visit Kuala Lumpur. Slater is anLumpur oozing from the page. The only aspect
accomplished poet who has hobnobbed withmissing is the taste, and in Malaysia food is much
anyone worth hobnobbing with, Eliot, Pound,more pervasive an influence in the culture than
Auden, etc. He also something of a lady's man onwe encounter via Chubb's adoption of it. It's a
the side. Sarah is an upper crust girl whominor point.
developed a liking for other girls at school.Eventual reconciliation of the Chubb-McCorkle
Aspects of her origins are a matter of someconflict, Sarah's pursuit of the poems and Slater's
conjecture, however. Slater seems to haveapparent management of the process is truly
played a role. Her present is clear. She is thesurprising and it is for the reader to discover this
editor in chief of a miniscule literary journalempirically.
devoted mainly to new poetry. In Kuala LumpurOverall the pace of the book is varied and, here
she discovers the story of Bob McCorkle´sand there, one feels that Peter Carey has
fabled poetry, the fake created by Christopherover-complicated things and thus detracted from
Chubb.the directness that could have achieved increased
Chubb is resident in KL and has been so forimpact. But then poetry is like that, isn't it? If it
several years. He has a bicycle repair shop, butwas linear, uncomplicated, What Katy Did, then it
still writes his own doggerel. Sarah meets him andwould not have the richness that makes it poetry.
dismisses his work as dire, derivative at best.It would lack the diversion, the invention. My Life
McCorkle´s poems, however, are blissful andAs A Fake has all these things and probably
she tries everything possible to get her hands onstands alone, eventually, as an examination of the
the material so that she can publish it. Thenature of creativity and invention. When viewed in
problem for her is the fact that McCorkle isretrospect, Chubb's life, his haunting by the
apparently an invention of Chubb, so the only wayaccomplished poet he has ostensibly created and
that she can get near to the material is throughhis pursuit of the same to reclaim a daughter he
him. The Australian is now a poor artisan withbelieves is his own at times beggars belief. But
ragged clothes and tropical ulcers. He speaksjust try predicting tomorrow's news, or even,
English strongly peppered with bits of Malay andespecially, your own emotions or reactions. We all
plays hard to get. The only way that Sarah canbecome inventors, with neither a past nor a
access the McCorkle poems is to suffer Chubb'sfuture solid in our present. Eliot again.