Rose Wylie: I haven't read a book in 15 years
Flaubert's Saint Julian. It always makes me cry.
I used to read like a fiend, but I've given it up because it took up my time. I paint and draw all the time now and watch films and read reviews in the paper. The last book I read was Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, 15 years ago.
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. He's my favourite writer — the details in the furniture, the tapestries, the knives and forks.
Ulysses. I read it in hospital when I had a hip operation. I loved it; it made me laugh out loud. Then there was this whole piece about corpses and since I was in hospital I didn't fancy it. So I shut the book and didn't
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Times
20-05-2025
- Times
Rose Wylie: I haven't read a book in 15 years
Flaubert's Saint Julian. It always makes me cry. I used to read like a fiend, but I've given it up because it took up my time. I paint and draw all the time now and watch films and read reviews in the paper. The last book I read was Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, 15 years ago. Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. He's my favourite writer — the details in the furniture, the tapestries, the knives and forks. Ulysses. I read it in hospital when I had a hip operation. I loved it; it made me laugh out loud. Then there was this whole piece about corpses and since I was in hospital I didn't fancy it. So I shut the book and didn't
The Guardian
27-02-2025
- The Guardian
Chameleon by Robert Dessaix review – a dazzlingly beautiful mix of sex, travel and intimacy
One of Australia's finest writers of memoir and nonfiction, Robert Dessaix, returns with another journey into his past. His writing is highly regarded, particularly 2005's Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev, and this new book, Chameleon, is a similarly artful mix of biography and travelogue: a dazzlingly beautiful reading experience, tightly focused on sexuality and travel. Dessaix writes with a fun, free-wheeling, excited energy and it's infectious. 'Even today, at 80,' he writes, 'I sense a failure on my part to see life as an endeavour rather than a frolic, an endless outing with friends'. He threads together memories from across a long life – he was born in Sydney in 1944, and currently lives in Hobart with his partner, Peter Timms – while always remaining rooted in the present. At the core of this work is the question of what it is to be an authentic, real man: 'At every point in my life, what passersby would see, if they cared to stop and take a look, was some sort of shadow play about being a man: a sensitive man in particular, a man with feelings. Behind the screen the puppets were up to all sorts of tricks.' The motif of puppets returns again and again: a rich concept for Dessaix that speaks to his conception of how we perform our identities, 'this pantomime of masculinity … Even this morning, when I popped into the grocer's, the show, I noticed, was still running. I have never been the man I seemed to be.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning From his position, late in his life, Dessaix does not bemoan this performance – as he writes: 'I don't suppose anyone ends up exactly as he or she hoped to be.' In musing on this question, Dessaix examines characters as diverse as Lawrence of Arabia, John Cheever and Aldo Busi, as well as a range of books and fictional characters like Andre Gide's The Immoralist, Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe (from The Sportswriter) and James Joyce's Leopold Bloom (from Ulysses). It was illuminating to read about the impact of fiction – both writers and their words – on a life. It's something we often see in memoirs, of course, but Dessaix's way of looping around and around his literary and fictional heroes sheds so much light, both on these figures and on Dessaix himself. For Dessaix, visiting Morocco in the early 1960s for the first time was a life-changing event. 'What did happen in Morocco […] – without fanfare, not in a rush – was this: something in me began to shrink into the shadows while something else was sparking into life in the light. Shyly, I turned to face it. This was the real start of a gentle, sweet debauchery, I suppose.' This 'slow turning' is into a full recognition of his self: his masculinity and his sexuality. Dessaix's writing has its greatest depth and richness when he talks about homosexual sex in the Arab world. He is ebullient on the impact of experiences, of all kinds of intimacy, in places like Morocco or Tunisia (particularly Morocco: 'Skin me and that's what you will see: Morocco.'). He never writes explicitly about the kinds of sexual encounters he has; it's more about the sort of permission and acceptance he finds in those places. Describing a huge swath of territory, 'a burnt-yellow belt that stretches (in my head) from Morocco to India and then, these days, a whole lifetime later, down into the pullulating green of Java and Sulawesi', Dessaix writes: 'What is liberating about the attitude to sex in this zone is that you may take pleasure in sexual intimacy without feeling any need to change your identity.' Despite describing an experience that contradicts our present understanding of restrictions on homosexuality in the Arab world, this distance between sex and identity is what Dessaix finds so attractive and informs how he wants to live his life. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Dessaix proclaims that he wants these sexual partners to be his 'brothers'. To him, it's not an exploitative relationship; he mentions Edward Said's concept of 'orientalism', but thinks it irrelevant, despite clearly describing a privileged touristic experience. He always has the ability to escape – as a visitor, one can come and go as one pleases. Having the mobility of being able to head for the deserts of north Africa 'whenever my own life is killing me' did make me feel uneasy about the power dynamics Dessaix describes, despite how liberating they were for him. But it's the humour and energy of his writing style that most propelled me through these pages. At times it's pure whimsy: 'Even at 10 I knew hair made promises,' he writes of a boyhood crush. He can evoke past crushes with a rare poignancy: 'Getting these letters from Ahmed was oddly like smoking: I was always pining for the next one, often thinking of little else, yet each letter, to be absolutely honest, was a faint – wispily faint – disappointment.' His writing is sophisticated and funny, and Chameleon is a rich and entertaining education on a man's life; a detailed map of the literature, ideas, and places that shaped him. Chameleon by Robert Dessaix is published by Text Publishing
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- The Guardian
Fashion disruptors, phoney Picassos and St Paul's goes psychedelic – the week in art
Leigh Bowery!The performance artist, alternative fashion icon and all-round iconoclast gets a retrospective that should be an emotional encounter. Tate Modern, London, 27 February to 31 August LuminousA multicoloured light show by Luxmuralis turns Sir Christopher Wren's architectural masterpiece into an immersive artwork. St Paul's Cathedral, London, 22 February to 28 February ResistanceSteve McQueen selects his favourite photos of protest in Britain, from the 1900s to the 21st century. Turner Comtemporary, Margate, 22 February to 1 June The Face Magazine: Culture ShiftA celebration of the renowned style magazine and its impact on the postmodern age. National Portrait Gallery, London, until 18 May Verena LoewensbergHard-edged, strong-coloured paintings by this Swiss 'concrete' abstractionist. Hauser & Wirth, London, 25 February to 17 April From the late 1950s, South African photographer Ernest Cole chronicled the horrors of racial segregation for publications such as the New York Times. He fled his home country in 1966, arriving in New York at the height of the American civil rights movement. He was initially impressed by the advances the country had made, but he soon became disillusioned by the reality of racial division in the US. His works, which were recently rediscovered and are now the focus of a new documentary, focused on the parallels between apartheid in his native country and segregation in the US. Staffordshire firms are fighting to keep the county's ceramics tradition alive A workshop producing fake Picassos and Rembrandts has been found in Rome Artists in the US are urging the National Endowment for the Arts to roll back Trump's restrictions The National Gallery of Australia was accused of censorship after covering up Palestinian flags at an exhibition Indigenous art is coming to London after the Venice Biennale backlash The political street artist Peter Drew is posting his workouts in the name of narcissism A German court has ruled in a copyright case that Birkenstocks are not works of art Ulysses after the Shipwreck by Jean-Charles Cazin, circa 1800-84 The Odyssey by Homer is not just a very early literary masterpiece but a precociously modern one. Its hero Odysseus, often known, as here, by the Latin version of his name Ulysses, is driven from one peril to another as he tries to get home from the Trojan war. Meanwhile, his wife, Penelope, and son Telemachus are persecuted by suitors seeking to take over his house. There are deep psychological resonances that make it more like a novel than a string of magic tales. In this painting, a French artist from the era of Zola homes in on that realism to portray Ulysses plunged into introspective thought on a sunny but bleak beach. The harshly lit rocks and low hills covered in sparse grass add to his solitary mood as he contemplates a shipwreck that killed his crew, stranding him far from home. This painting's blend of prosaic reality with Greek myth may seem eccentric – yet the same idea structures James Joyce's great modernist work Ulysses. National Gallery, London If you don't already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@
