Wonderland

"This was another book that I read a few years ago and revisited because, in a sense, I wanted to see what it was that hooked me so deeply about it. I think, when you’re writing about artists, about people who make something, it’s a compounded challenge because you have this responsibility to not only convey the characters in a way that is honest and whole, but do the same for what they’re making. And if it’s really central to the story then whatever they’re making also has to be a character – it has to be just as alive and take up just as much space on the page. “As a writer, you have a responsibility to not only convey the characters in a way that is honest and whole, but do the same for their art” Wonderland really achieves that, particularly when, in the early part of the book, Anna is describing how she made Whale , her first album. And, really, for her, just like with Thea, the book starts out with this joy-pinnacle – what it felt like to make something that really took flight and took you with it – which you then spend the rest of your career, the rest of your tenure as an artist, trying to reclaim but falling short every time. It’s almost a question of whether that moment of elation was worth all the years following where you just try and fail over and over again. There’s this tone when she’s talking about selling Roy’s work where her perspective seems to be, basically, ‘Well, I should be horrified, and there is a part of me that is horrified with myself, but it was a foregone conclusion that I would do this’. She knows that she would pay any amount of money, any amount of sentiment, to be able to reclaim that one moment where she’s making Whale and she feels as if she’s caught in this perfect warm sandstorm. Her production partner is playing the drums and he’s wrapped athletic socks around the drum sticks and he’s making this soft repetitive drum track… And it feels to her that she’s as close to perfection as she will ever come. The way that scene is written, it doesn’t then come as a surprise to the reader that she sells off her father’s art to fund her tour – I mean, who wouldn’t want to get that feeling back? Oh yeah, absolutely, and what I really found interesting about Wonderland is how that idea of value was complicated by this thing that she has made being put on the market. Anna has made three albums – two of them she loved, the third she didn’t love as much. It hurt when the third failed but, in a way, that maybe made more sense than the failure of the second one, because the third wasn’t as big a part of her. The name of the second album was Bang Bang – and it’s fitting because there’s a certain kind of double heartbreak that you feel if something like that happens. It’s one thing to be in your own little cave working on a project and feeling a private joy, but it’s a whole other to feel the abject terror when what you’ve made has been put out into the world and it’s suddenly a product for other people to buy. From that point, whether or not you are able to make more art in the way that you like is contingent upon whether or not the product is palatable for other people, for consumers. If they don’t like it that hurts, and it means you can’t make more, which really hurts. It’s a terrifying prospect. It’s petrifying and it’s a huge risk. When it translates into anxiety it can really snuff out the sense of joy that’s inherent when you make something but also your sense of instinct, as to what you’re making, what you’re doing. That’s a big part of the narrative with Anna. It’s the saddest part of the narrative. There’s so much of the book that takes place in memory, in flashback; so much of the meat of the story is these instances from her past in which she has made something that she believes in and it feels good to her. But it’s the past, and her present, in the meantime, involves struggling through this tour and fighting with her band mates and sleeping with her band mates. This tour-story carries one part of the narrative along, but you’re aware, as Anna is, that the real thing lies elsewhere. It’s interesting because you’re not quite sure if it’s a burden for Anna or something for which she is grateful – as though her parentage gave her the internal wiring necessary for her to pursue her own art. But the way she talks about almost being able to see herself, to see her origins, in a big centrepiece created by her father – a work in which he splits a train open down the middle – makes you feel the relationship as a burden. I guess most artists yearn to claim themselves – so having artists for parents could seem like a hindrance. I felt, as a reader, that it was burdensome for Anna."