“Canvas”
by Aysegül Savas
from the June 3, 2019 issue of The New Yorker
Aysegül Savas’s debut novel, Walking on the Ceiling, came out a few weeks ago, and here we have her debut in The New Yorker. She is another new author to me. To make matters worse, today being Memorial Day holiday here in the United States, I haven’t even looked at the story yet. Let’s do it together. Here is the first bit:
I heard her upstairs in the studio, in the kitchen, late at night when I was in my room. Afternoons, there was no sign of her. Some days I thought that she — Agnes — must have left the city, gone back to the town where her husband lived, perhaps to recover some of her belongings. She’d told me she would be staying for only a day or two while she sorted things out, at most a week. But then I would hear her sounds again around the apartment.
There was nothing I could object to, nothing that interfered with my days. The rent was already so low, and the arrangement had been that she might use her studio when she was visiting the city. Besides, it would be pointless to look for another place, when I had only a few months left to complete my research before I returned to my university in the south. Maybe a year, if my funding came through.
I’d read about the recent discovery of a pilgrim’s letters from the thirteenth century, during his travels to the country’s northern cathedrals. The pilgrim had described the stone sculptures depicting the Day of Judgment with frankness and sympathy, with no squeamishness or evasion of their sex, their smooth and fleshy limbs, or with any hint of judgment toward the fallen bodies. In my application to extend my fellowship, I explained the effect this finding would have on my research on the Gothic iconography of the soul.
Hmm, I like this slow start. Lots of interesting details that have me feeling like I’m entering a world with some significance. It helps that I like to look at and consider Judgment paintings.
So let’s see what we have here! Please comment below and let us know what you think. Are any of you going to go read her debut?
Here is my view on this story. I’ve also posted in on my blog: https://www.wuxiangyue.com/new-yorker-fiction-review/canvas
After my first-time reading, I wrote these on my notebook:
The story appears to be in first-person perspective throughout, but there was this irregular intimacy when the artist was telling her story. Ordinary story would quote her words, viewing her life from afar. However, this story adopted such an omnipotent point of view, like the protagonist could know all of the artist’s thoughts and all the details.
This was a rough impression though. I read the story again today and thought I can express my feeling in more detail.
It is a story about an artist and it adopted a method of painting: a switch of focus, or constantly changes of focus. From the very beginning of the conversation between the narrator and the artist there was a confusing point where the narrator seemed to know everything in the retelling of her words, while in reality, retelling would only cover a fraction of the orginal information. It was very much like the author was composing the story from a third-person perspective, where she would depict the woman’s thought, what she saw and experienced like living through her body. The narrator in the story, though, could not possibly do that. Therefore I found it switching from two foci, seeing through two persons, the narrator and the artist. I love this fresh arrangement.
In the interview, the author pointed out two coordinates she used in the story. The first one was the nude sculpture that the protagonist was studying, which coordinated with Agnes’s preference for people being nude in the face of their sufferings. The second is the protagonist’s initial attitude to Agnes’ loneliness, which coordinated with Agnes conscious neglect to her relatives’ suffering. There two arrangements appeared to be so carefully planted, and I admired them as well.
The title picture perfectly related to the content, with the canvas, the olive, the enormous woman on the table in detailed painting, and the candle and the wine. It was very enjoyable.
This short short story manages to be secular and religious and makes very concise use these and other twos diametrics throughout. There is Agnes and her friend. The successful and the unsuccessful. The fashionable and unfashionable. The extroverted versus the introverted. The I and the her. The regular person and the strange one. There is the suggestion of a last supper and Jesus and the I/he who functions as Jesus from whom Agnes asks sympathy/forgiveness. Any grace is not guaranteed.
In the secular view, appearances can be deceiving, and one’s destiny can never be assumed to take a particular course. Agnes starts out awkward and grows into being assured. Her friend seems assured and then unravels and morphs into withdrawn obesity while Agnes blossoms into obtaining a full life. The canvas is the backdrop of the sum of people’s lives rendered visually. Agnes sees the sadness of people’s vulnerability as failure in some ways and imperfection.
The story has a deep humanity to it in that everyone has chances in their life to achieve or not achieve or to serve as a friend to another or individuate out or turning away from a person if one feels they may “catch” their bad fortune. Christ suffers all the “sin” or bad fortune of others which Agnes does not want to have to experience.
There are some things I cannot make sense of but the story seems a thoughtful depiction of the human condition and its perils rendered economically. I liked the smooth blending of contrasts in this story.
On my second reading of this story, I underlined many phrases and sentences. Put together, I think they show a remarkable construction that depicts the strange saga of the narrator’s landlady, Agnes, as well as a view of art and life.
Just as Agnes’s cousin goes through a metamorphosis, Agnes herself alters radically. In one period, she says, “I was such a charming girl.” But now, she says, “I suddenly feel in need of sympathy and I don’t know where to seek it.” This leads to her saying, twice, to the narrator, “It’s good to be among friends.” Even though she doesn’t really know the young woman, for some reason Agnes perceives her as a friend.
It is this act – perception – that is the theme of the story. Early on the narrator strikes this theme, when she refers to some finds that inform her research: “The pilgrims had described the stone sculptures depicting the Day of Judgment with frankness and sympathy, with no squeamishness or evasion of their sex, etc.” At one point in time people were frank about such things, now many people would have different attitudes. Perceptions change with time.
The narrator imagines the curtains to be an image of a person: “The curtains floated and exhaled, expanding into a phantom body.” And Agnes has changed her interpretation of paintings by the Masters: “ . . . now she saw in them not beautiful works, but the strain of a deep and steady vision.” And the narrator says of a sketch of a detail in a larger painting: “When separated from the rest of the composition, it had a different significance.” Things change their meaning in different contexts. Agnes, speaking in retrospect of her cousin and aunt, says that “They were not so ungainly at all.”
If things don’t have a single interpretation of appearance, then they can be altered. About her cousin, Agnes says: “She had the feeling that her cousin was made of separate parts that could be assembled and disassembled.” As a result, “The cousin was both real and fictional to her . . .” As the story progresses, we get the sense that Agnes is reassembling herself.
At the core of the story is the narrator’s question: “I asked whether she intended to use studies from other paintings for her new canvas, or if she preferred live models instead.” Two meanings here – what Agnes will paint, and how she will shape her life. That ambiguity is expressed in the narrator’s statement: “I didn’t know whether she said this in answer to my question or for a different reason altogether.” Agnes – rather, the author – is addressing both processes – art and life. Agnes will use sketches from old paintings for her painting, and pieces of other people’ lives – especially her cousin’s – to re-form her life.
“Canvas” is both a surface for painting on and a metaphor for the screen on which we project our lives. A canvas can be painted on, scraped, and repainted.
One more thought, relating to this sentence: “I heard my name called out, again and again.” To me this called up Coleridge’s poem, where the narrator is the wedding guest and Agnes is the Ancient Mariner. Both are compelled to take part in the telling of a tale.