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CRITIQUE:

Cleaved to a Cloven Actor

The first volume of John Banville's Cleave Trilogy introduces us to Alex Cleave, a semi-retired, fifty year old theatre actor.

He's married to Lydia and, together, they have one 22 (or 23?) year old daughter, Cass.

On Aspects of Cleavage

It's not for no reason that Banville called his protagonist and narrator, Cleave.

The word "cleave" has two opposite meanings:

* to cleave is to split, or sever, something apart, or into two pieces (e.g., cleavage or cloven); and

* to cleave to is to stick to, or stay close to, somebody (e.g., children might cleave to their parents).

In the Name of the Cleaves

This surname suggests that we might witness cracks or fractures in Cleave's identity (or in the identity of the Cleave family).

It might also be the secret of Cleave's acting career and personal life:

"I clearly recall the day I first became truly aware of myself, I mean of myself as something that everything else was not...

"A myriad voices struggled within me for expression. I seemed to myself a multitude...

"Acting was inevitable. From earliest days life for me was a perpetual state of being watched. Even when alone I carried myself with covert circumspection, keeping up a front, putting on a performance. This is the actor's hubris, to imagine the world possessed of a single, avid eye fixed solely and always on him. And he, of course, acting, thinks himself the only real one, the most substantial shadow in a world of shades..."

Single Estrangement

At the heart of the novel is the fact that Cleave and Cass are estranged (it's one of three levels of estrangement in the novel):

"She exasperates me, I confess it. I do not trust her...

"At times she has a look, a fleeting, sidelong, faintly smiling look, in which I seem to glimpse a wholly other she, cold and sly and secretly laughing. With such ingenuity does she connect the workings of the world to her own fate. Everything that happens, she is convinced, carries a specific and personal reference to her. There is nothing, not a turn in the weather, or a chance word spoken in the street, that does not covertly pass on to her some profound message of warning or encouragement."

It's arguable that Cass is as egocentric as her father. Hence, they're unable to break down the barriers between each other and form an affectionate and supportive relationship:

"What in my mother was distraction turned out in Cass to be an absence, a lostness. Thus the march of the generations works its dark magic, making its elaborations, its complications, turning a trait into an affliction...

"Whole days my girl would keep to her bed, ignoring all entreaties, all reproaches..."

Double Estrangement

Cleave is not just estranged from his daughter, he's estranged from his wife.

As so often happens in domestic or family conflicts, Cass plays one parent off against the other, thus damaging the relationship between her parents. Both parents end up plagued by anticipatory guilt about the possible future impact on Cass.

Treble Estrangement

The third level of estrangement is Cleave's estrangement from himself. He ends up alienated from himself and, as a result, the whole world outside. He loses touch with reality, and ends up seeing ghosts around the family beach house to which he has retreated.

On Not Spoiling Cass

Regrettably, it's not possible to discuss the three forms of estrangement or Cass' fate in any more detail without revealing spoilers.

The pleasure of deeper comprehension than I can offer you awaits your own reading of the novel. It's definitely worth it.


SOUNDTRACK:
(view spoiler)[
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Girl In Amber"



Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Heart That Kills You"



Nick Cave - on the claim "he lives in my heart" in "One More Time With Feeling"



Van Morrison - "Have I Told You Lately?"



Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor - "Have I Told You Lately?"



Emma Swift - "I Contain Multitudes" [by Bob Dylan]



(hide spoiler)]