Prochownik's Dream

by Alex Miller

What is true for one relationship, for one painting, is not true for another...each possesses its own strange inevitability that resists us and we can never finally know what it is we are doing until the work is finished...It is as if the picture paints itself through us, the story tells itself through us, has a larger existence of which we know nothing...'

Toni Powlett is an artist in the grip of a crisis. Since the death of his father, Moniek Prochownik, four years earlier, Toni has been at a creative standstill - until Marina Golding, the wife of his former teacher and mentor, Robert Schwartz, contacts him, and everything changes. Toni finds in Marina the perfect companion of his life in art and his creative energies are re-awakened.

But Toni's newfound inspiration and artistic energy come at the direct expense of his relationship with his wife and daughter. The more dependent for his art he becomes on Marina, the more potentially destructive become the tensions between himself and his wife, Teresa. Toni's dilemma is how to reconcile the transgressive nature of his imaginative life with the daily life of his family, who he loves. Robert Schwartz's dying father, Theo, warns him not to confuse art with life. But by what means is he to achieve such clear-sightedness?

Immensely satisfying, Prochownik's Dream is a work of great subtlety, strength and intellect. Its examination of the artist at work is complex and completely absorbing. But at its heart, very simply, it is a book about love.

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Literary Fiction, Art

299 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Alex Miller is one of Australia's best-loved writers, and winner of the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012.

Alex Miller is twice winner of Australia's premier literary prize, The Miles Franklin Literary Award, first in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He is also an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game. His fifth novel, Conditions of Faith, won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the 2001 New South Wales Premier's Awards. In 2011 he won this award a second time with his most recent novel Lovesong. Lovesong also won the People's Choice Award in the NSW Premier's Awards, the Age Book of the Year Award and the Age Fiction Prize for 2011. In 2007 Landscape of Farewell was published to wide critical acclaim and in 2008 won the Chinese Annual Foreign Novels 21st Century Award for Best Novel and the Manning Clark Medal for an outstanding contribution to Australian cultural life. It was also short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the ALS Gold Medal and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Alex is published internationally and widely in translation. Autumn Laing is his tenth novel.

Reviews

[Wendy Tanner · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first this book annoyed me. It was indulgent and I didn't like the decadent and artificial art world that it depicted and the self absorbed and self centered artists that inhabited it. I was bored by Toni's obsession with Marina's dimple and by the incessant harking back to the pile of moulding clothes that had been his previous installation. But having just finished it, I realized there was more to this book. It was about relationships and families and expectations and fantasies and dreams. About love and longing. About desire and dishonesty. About fathers and sons. It was about Toni's deep double grief for his father and his ability to paint which he lost at the same time. It was about Robert and his father Theo, with whom he'd never really had a meaningful relationship. And it was about sexual tensions and the frustrations and joys of creating art. But, in the end, who decides what is true and good art and what is not?

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've recently been re-reading some of my Alex Miller novels but then stumbled on this one that I had never read before. I loved it. Miller has always been interested (among other things) in the role of the artist. In this case Tom Powlett (born 'Prochownik') is a Melbourne painter who has not been able to put brush to canvass since his father's death. The return of artist friends Marina and Robert from Sydney and their invitation to him to participate in a show gets him painting again.

Miller shows the essential selfishness of the artist, particularly when it comes to relationships with his own family, but also the need for collaboration with and stimulation from other artists. He explores loss, dreaming, eroticism and the costs of the artistic life in a novel that for me was utterly absorbing.

[Lesley Moseley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly written, real 'people' and dilemas.

[Ilyhana Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars.
What a frustrating pathetic character Alex Miller has drawn in this novel. I had to remind myself that evaluation of a novel isn't necessarily measured by how well the reader likes the characters within.
The work is contemplative, reflective, a fluid page turner. At some depth it explores the seeking of authenticity, always within a context of some tension - tension in the artist's struggle to find himself through both his art and his relationships.
It's an absorbing read.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toni Powlett is a dedicated artist, son of a refugee who was a private artist but Prochownik painted for his own satisfaction only. Toni is married to Teresa a part-time termagant. She and he say they are in love, but his artistic temperament sees his art as all important, whereas she is a businesswoman running a travel agency which isn't doing too well. They appear ill suited to each other. Toni is gripped by ideas for his painting, which include painting the wife of a friend, Marina, whom Teresa can’t stand. Marina and Toni get very close, although she is a bit older, and we get the impression she is, as Teresa says, a skinny old bitch. Marina’s family are artistic; her husband's old father Theo, draws naked people including Marina in sadistic scenes. Theo likes Toni and gives him his sketchbook, which Teresa opens and gets quite the wrong idea – or maybe it is the right idea. I found the introspections of The Artist quite tiresome. The drama is in the conflict between Toni and Tereas, the latter quite certain he is shagging Marina. There is a very starkly drawn scene where Teresa uncovers a painting of a naked Marina. The writing is excellent of course but I couldn’t get into the art drama; it seemed overdrawn, even phony. The end was gripping but it took a long time getting there. I’m sure those interested in art would rate the book higher than I did.

[Nicole Weaver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah always love a Alex miller book. Really got into this story and how an artists mind works I can understand how they can be so involved and drawn into their work that the rest of their life or people surrounding them are cut out or neglected. Was a great read and written well

[Stuart Rosson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enchanting.

[Eloise Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

December 2022

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful novel about an artist. Really gets inside the "creative space"

[SWC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was intrigued by a novel about an artist who painted. I found the ending different than I expected

[Christine]

oh no!! This is our book club book!

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toni Powlett is an artist who’s been stuck in the equivalent of writer’s block since his father died, but gets over it quickly when the lovely Marina Golding comes into his life. She and her husband, Toni’s best friend, have come back from Sydney to put on an art show, and they want Toni (why the female spelling, Mr Miller??) to paint something for it. And lo! Marina becomes his muse, and the paint starts to flow.

Teresa, Toni’s wife, is a shrill character, given to tiresome self-martyrdom (she’s supporting him while he establishes himself as an artist) and long shrewish monologues about her suspicions. My goodness, she goes on and on. She nags him about the kid (whom he neglects); the business (which isn’t doing well); his art (how she wants him to paint her parents); how she doesn’t like the Goldings (because they aren’t ‘real’); and how her parents were right about him (with which one could only agree). He, on the other hand, is a monster of self-absorption, forgetting to pick the kid up from child-care and mooning about in his studio while she comes home from a long hard day at the office to cook his dinner and wash his socks. He doesn’t even sleep with her because he likes to paint in his studio in the middle of the night. Even when he’s not painting, just thinking about painting. No wonder she’s a bit of a misery, eh?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2010/06/10/p...