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The Bath Fugues
The Bath Fugues is Castro at his best, in a wonderful performance wrought from intrigue, romance, deception - and comedy. The book is composed of three interwoven novellas, the first centred on an ageing art forger; the second on a Portuguese poet, opium addict and collector; the third told by a well-connected doctor, with a cabinet of venom, and an art gallery on the north Queensland coast. Around these characters circle others, in the contrapuntal manner of the fugue suggested by the book's title.
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Brian Castro
25 books18 followersBrian Castro was born in Hong Kong in 1950 of Portuguese, Chinese and English parents. He was sent to boarding school in Australia in 1961 (1962, Oakhill College, Castle Hill / 1963-67, St Joseph's College, Hunter's Hill.). He attended the University of Sydney from 1968-71 and won the Sydney University short story competition in 1970. He gained his BA Dip.Ed. in 1972 and his MA in 1976 from Sydney University.
He was joint winner of the Australian/Vogel literary award for his first novel Birds of Passage (1983), which has been translated into French and Chinese. This was followed by Pomeroy (1990), Double-Wolf (1991), winner of The Age Fiction Prize, the Victorian Premier's Innovatory Writing Award and the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, and subsequently After China (1992), which again won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction at the 1993 Victorian Premier's Awards. This was also subsequently translated into French and Chinese. His fifth novel, Drift, was published in July 1994. His sixth novel Stepper won the 1997 National Book Council 'Banjo' Prize for fiction. In 1999 he published a collection of essays, Looking For Estrellita (University of Queensland Press). In 2003 Giramondo published his 'fictional autobiography', Shanghai Dancing, which won the Vance Palmer Prize at the 2003 Victorian Premier's Awards, the Christina Stead Prize at the 2004 NSW Premier’s Awards and was named the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year. His most recent novel, The Garden Book, published by Giramondo in 2005, was shortlisted for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award and won the Queensland Premier's Prize for Fiction.
Brian Castro has worked in Australia, France and Hong Kong as a teacher and writer, and for several years was a literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. He wrote the text for The Lingerie Catalogue, a collaborative project with photomonteur Peter Lyssiotis. Castro also contributed the text Stones for Al-Kitab for a limited edition work by Peter Lyssiotis entitled A Gardener At Midnight, produced in 2004.
Brian Castro currently divides his time between Adelaide and Melbourne.
Two of his novels, Pomeroy and Stepper (Stepper, oder Die Kunst der Spionage) have been published in German by Klett Cotta. His novel After China (L’Architecte Chinois), was published by Editions de L’Aube in France in 2003.
(from http://www.lythrumpress.com.au/castro...)
He was joint winner of the Australian/Vogel literary award for his first novel Birds of Passage (1983), which has been translated into French and Chinese. This was followed by Pomeroy (1990), Double-Wolf (1991), winner of The Age Fiction Prize, the Victorian Premier's Innovatory Writing Award and the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, and subsequently After China (1992), which again won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction at the 1993 Victorian Premier's Awards. This was also subsequently translated into French and Chinese. His fifth novel, Drift, was published in July 1994. His sixth novel Stepper won the 1997 National Book Council 'Banjo' Prize for fiction. In 1999 he published a collection of essays, Looking For Estrellita (University of Queensland Press). In 2003 Giramondo published his 'fictional autobiography', Shanghai Dancing, which won the Vance Palmer Prize at the 2003 Victorian Premier's Awards, the Christina Stead Prize at the 2004 NSW Premier’s Awards and was named the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year. His most recent novel, The Garden Book, published by Giramondo in 2005, was shortlisted for the 2006 Miles Franklin Literary Award and won the Queensland Premier's Prize for Fiction.
Brian Castro has worked in Australia, France and Hong Kong as a teacher and writer, and for several years was a literary reviewer for Asiaweek magazine. He wrote the text for The Lingerie Catalogue, a collaborative project with photomonteur Peter Lyssiotis. Castro also contributed the text Stones for Al-Kitab for a limited edition work by Peter Lyssiotis entitled A Gardener At Midnight, produced in 2004.
Brian Castro currently divides his time between Adelaide and Melbourne.
Two of his novels, Pomeroy and Stepper (Stepper, oder Die Kunst der Spionage) have been published in German by Klett Cotta. His novel After China (L’Architecte Chinois), was published by Editions de L’Aube in France in 2003.
(from http://www.lythrumpress.com.au/castro...)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 30, 2018
Rumour and Rhetoric
My first reaction to this novel was to the astonishing writing in the first section.
By the time the second section had begun, I'd started to focus on more structural issues. There are three sections, all quite differently written, although the first and third resemble each other the most. I've always been fascinated by the juxtaposition of different narratives in a novel, and how meaning and perspective can bleed between the sections, almost by way of osmosis.
Unreliable Character
The first section, in my opinion, was the most interesting and best written. The main character, Jason Redvers, is more of an anti-hero than a sympathetic narrator. He "possessed the youthful insouciance of a perpetual student." Even in the first person, he is a ratbag, a man of the world (or the street) upon whom you'd be reluctant to rely as a lover, friend or business associate. The Eurasian grandson of a Portuguese judge, art collector and poet (Camilo Conceicao) who was based in Macau, he has had an artistic talent which he used initially to write poetry, then to forge counterfeit artworks (like those by Francis Bacon) and donate the sale proceeds to the Italian Red Brigade.
When the law caught up with him in Rome, he was jailed for his indiscretions, before meeting Marie de Nerval (an art dealer) in Paris on his release. She followed Jason back to Sydney, where she soon left him to marry his mentor, Walter Gottlieb, "a short man with an enormous mane of greying hair", an equally untrustworthy post-structuralist academic of sorts, who believed that "literature died in 1939" and that "the contemporary novelist...was nothing but a grafter, a hack, a grubber with prurient leanings and huge repressions."
Gottlieb's Wayward Genius
Gottlieb has fathered twins by his lover, Fabiana ("she must have been the muse who lit his hidden self"), who lives on a farm to the west of Sydney (on the Putty Road). One of the twins dies in the swimming pool, on Jason's watch. Later, Gottlieb dies in the bath:
Tout Ensemble
The plot isn't the most interesting or rewarding aspect of the novel. Castro (himself an Australian of Portuguese-Chinese descent) largely assembles an ensemble of interesting characters and allows them to interact over several timeframes. Bit by bit, we watch them and learn how they're associated and the influence they've had on each other. The novel doesn't so much edge toward a denouement, as guide us towards a realisation of the intimate connections that link or shape the characters and their temperaments. What is at first concealed will (or might) later be revealed. These influences also include Michel de Montaigne, Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin.
In Flight Entertainment
Jason always seems to be in flight from commitment, responsibility and authority, whether his own or that of his peers. Not quite a refugee, he is a fugitive. However, it's never obvious what specifically he is trying to escape, or where he will eventually end up. Instead, his identity, fugue-like, threatens to disappear altogether. At times, Castro refers to him as a grifter, a grafter, a ghost or a shadow. He drifts in and out of focus, as he moves through the three sections or movements of the novel.
Flight of Fancy in the Bath
He and his grandfather before him spend much time in the bath, reading, relaxing, receiving visitors, smoking opium, ogling the women who surround them.
Introduced to Jason in the first section, we meet his grandfather in the second section (purportedly written by Gottlieb, based on discussions with Jason, supplemented by academic research), and we start to see Jason as a chip off the old block that was his grandfather. He's like one of Bach's "Goldberg Variations", which are composed in the form of fugues. The theme is stated in the first section or exposition, and restated, varied or refined in the second or subsequent sections. In a nice lightness of touch, the title of the novel substitutes the word "bath" for "Bach".
Bicyclical Motion
Castro also plays with the meaning of the word "fugue".
When not in the bath, Jason is a keen cyclist, a "fugueur", who uses his bicycle to leave home and wander around the city and the countryside. He observes the world around him, and happens to run into all sorts of useful people and collectable objects, much like one of Walter Benjamin's flaneurs, who explored the arcades and suburbs of Paris.
Fiction Without Limits
Some of the art works collected by his grandfather in Macau end up in an art gallery in north Queensland via the artist Julia Grace and Doctor Judith Sarraute, who treats many of the characters and whose journal is found in a restaurant and not returned by a grifter who might or might not be Jason:
"The Bath Fugues", likewise, is an exceptionally accomplished fiction that is both off-limits and without limits. For all its global setting, it's both intimate and refined.
SOUNDTRACK:
My first reaction to this novel was to the astonishing writing in the first section.
By the time the second section had begun, I'd started to focus on more structural issues. There are three sections, all quite differently written, although the first and third resemble each other the most. I've always been fascinated by the juxtaposition of different narratives in a novel, and how meaning and perspective can bleed between the sections, almost by way of osmosis.
Unreliable Character
The first section, in my opinion, was the most interesting and best written. The main character, Jason Redvers, is more of an anti-hero than a sympathetic narrator. He "possessed the youthful insouciance of a perpetual student." Even in the first person, he is a ratbag, a man of the world (or the street) upon whom you'd be reluctant to rely as a lover, friend or business associate. The Eurasian grandson of a Portuguese judge, art collector and poet (Camilo Conceicao) who was based in Macau, he has had an artistic talent which he used initially to write poetry, then to forge counterfeit artworks (like those by Francis Bacon) and donate the sale proceeds to the Italian Red Brigade.
When the law caught up with him in Rome, he was jailed for his indiscretions, before meeting Marie de Nerval (an art dealer) in Paris on his release. She followed Jason back to Sydney, where she soon left him to marry his mentor, Walter Gottlieb, "a short man with an enormous mane of greying hair", an equally untrustworthy post-structuralist academic of sorts, who believed that "literature died in 1939" and that "the contemporary novelist...was nothing but a grafter, a hack, a grubber with prurient leanings and huge repressions."
Gottlieb's Wayward Genius
Gottlieb has fathered twins by his lover, Fabiana ("she must have been the muse who lit his hidden self"), who lives on a farm to the west of Sydney (on the Putty Road). One of the twins dies in the swimming pool, on Jason's watch. Later, Gottlieb dies in the bath:
"Speech proclaimed his genius; rumour brought him fame; rhetoric fought off adversaries."
Tout Ensemble
The plot isn't the most interesting or rewarding aspect of the novel. Castro (himself an Australian of Portuguese-Chinese descent) largely assembles an ensemble of interesting characters and allows them to interact over several timeframes. Bit by bit, we watch them and learn how they're associated and the influence they've had on each other. The novel doesn't so much edge toward a denouement, as guide us towards a realisation of the intimate connections that link or shape the characters and their temperaments. What is at first concealed will (or might) later be revealed. These influences also include Michel de Montaigne, Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin.
In Flight Entertainment
Jason always seems to be in flight from commitment, responsibility and authority, whether his own or that of his peers. Not quite a refugee, he is a fugitive. However, it's never obvious what specifically he is trying to escape, or where he will eventually end up. Instead, his identity, fugue-like, threatens to disappear altogether. At times, Castro refers to him as a grifter, a grafter, a ghost or a shadow. He drifts in and out of focus, as he moves through the three sections or movements of the novel.
Flight of Fancy in the Bath
He and his grandfather before him spend much time in the bath, reading, relaxing, receiving visitors, smoking opium, ogling the women who surround them.
Introduced to Jason in the first section, we meet his grandfather in the second section (purportedly written by Gottlieb, based on discussions with Jason, supplemented by academic research), and we start to see Jason as a chip off the old block that was his grandfather. He's like one of Bach's "Goldberg Variations", which are composed in the form of fugues. The theme is stated in the first section or exposition, and restated, varied or refined in the second or subsequent sections. In a nice lightness of touch, the title of the novel substitutes the word "bath" for "Bach".
Bicyclical Motion
Castro also plays with the meaning of the word "fugue".
When not in the bath, Jason is a keen cyclist, a "fugueur", who uses his bicycle to leave home and wander around the city and the countryside. He observes the world around him, and happens to run into all sorts of useful people and collectable objects, much like one of Walter Benjamin's flaneurs, who explored the arcades and suburbs of Paris.
Fiction Without Limits
Some of the art works collected by his grandfather in Macau end up in an art gallery in north Queensland via the artist Julia Grace and Doctor Judith Sarraute, who treats many of the characters and whose journal is found in a restaurant and not returned by a grifter who might or might not be Jason:
"The pleasure of observing a grifter comes from the glimpse of his escape. Through slight variations, he comes to be accepted as the return of the same, as in a fugue...At the moment of his disappearance, at the vanishing point, there is a distrust of the eye...Off to somewhere off-limits and without limits."
"The Bath Fugues", likewise, is an exceptionally accomplished fiction that is both off-limits and without limits. For all its global setting, it's both intimate and refined.
SOUNDTRACK:
April 25, 2020
Deeply impressive, and highly recommended, but somehow I found it hard to fall in love with.
November 27, 2025
3.5 stars. A character based novel of three interconnected novellas. The first is about Jason Redvers, an ageing art forger, the second is about Jason’s grandfather, Conceicao, a Portuguese poet, opium addict and collector, and the third is about Judith Sarraute, a well connected doctor, with a cabinet of highly toxic venom and an art gallery in northern Queensland.
Jason Redvers decides to ride his 1928 Swift Safety Bicycle across rough countryside. He paints over other people’s paintings to reveal their meaning and reads Montaigne.
Conceicao is a Portuguese lawyer who becomes a judge in Macau until he takes one of his litigants as a concubine, falling in love with her daughter. He then becomes a teacher and collects Chinese art and paints over it in his bathroom. He then falls for a lesbian named Julia Grace, who is passing through China to Spain.
A fairly plotless book with lots of interesting tit bits of information on a variety of topics.
Castro provides an idea of what the book is about in the following quote from the book:
“Bach wrote fugues. The important thing about a fugue or ‘flight’ is that all the voices are equal and independent in counterpoint. They are all relative to each other, and in this organised complexity, they speak together, drop out, become fellow travellers, form pairs of dialogues, and in general, mutilate the subject by inverting, augmenting, truncating or copying it.” (Page 274)
A novel that plays with language, with many puns. (For example, Conceicao’s Chinese women are all birds of prey: Peregrine; Silver Hawk and Nickel Hawk). A book that would be better appreciated on a second reading.
This book was shortlisted for the 2010 Miles Franklin Award.
Jason Redvers decides to ride his 1928 Swift Safety Bicycle across rough countryside. He paints over other people’s paintings to reveal their meaning and reads Montaigne.
Conceicao is a Portuguese lawyer who becomes a judge in Macau until he takes one of his litigants as a concubine, falling in love with her daughter. He then becomes a teacher and collects Chinese art and paints over it in his bathroom. He then falls for a lesbian named Julia Grace, who is passing through China to Spain.
A fairly plotless book with lots of interesting tit bits of information on a variety of topics.
Castro provides an idea of what the book is about in the following quote from the book:
“Bach wrote fugues. The important thing about a fugue or ‘flight’ is that all the voices are equal and independent in counterpoint. They are all relative to each other, and in this organised complexity, they speak together, drop out, become fellow travellers, form pairs of dialogues, and in general, mutilate the subject by inverting, augmenting, truncating or copying it.” (Page 274)
A novel that plays with language, with many puns. (For example, Conceicao’s Chinese women are all birds of prey: Peregrine; Silver Hawk and Nickel Hawk). A book that would be better appreciated on a second reading.
This book was shortlisted for the 2010 Miles Franklin Award.
July 13, 2025
This is the first Brian Castro book I’ve read. It's a brilliant work, a fresh reading experience, just the sort of intelligent and playful book (and writer) I’m always looking for. But I read it at a bad time (during Wimbledon), because works with a musical structure demand quick reading, to be experienced more like a musical work, which works in time. Two weeks is too much time.
Also, this is a demanding book, a book that I didn’t feel up to. A quicker read would have made the book feel less daunting. I plan to get back to Castro soon.
Also, this is a demanding book, a book that I didn’t feel up to. A quicker read would have made the book feel less daunting. I plan to get back to Castro soon.
September 4, 2021
This is not a book for everyone, it's challenging but I liked it. Brian Castor is one of Australia's most erudite authors, a Patrick White for the 21st century, I think. See http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/200...
-by-brian-castro/
-by-brian-castro/
January 22, 2021
Pretentious
July 22, 2023
There is palpable rhythm to this novel, a sense of how the various themes, concepts and the prose itself almost sways, recurring at intervals in stories that are about very different things. At the end, the total seems more than the moments, an exploration of the space and the overlap between real and imitation, between movement and control. But while I enjoyed this, I also struggled to engage. Probably because this kind of introspective prose is not my favourite. This would also suit Francophiles and art lovers more I think.
April 27, 2020
A high 3 stars, although with reluctance. Castro is a fascinating transformational artist of the literary form but I’m not 100% sure all of his theories hold up under close interrogation. Either way, The Bath Fugues is difficult, and Castro has no qualms about admitting that in interviews. This is not really storytelling, nor is it literature. It’s perhaps a novel but more accurately a book.
If you don’t like such semantic discussions, you won’t like this. On the other hand, if you enjoy puns about the 19th century Swiss semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure, you’ll be in heaven.
If you don’t like such semantic discussions, you won’t like this. On the other hand, if you enjoy puns about the 19th century Swiss semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure, you’ll be in heaven.
February 8, 2023
Gets you in and then you spend the rest of it desperately wanting to get out!! Ugh!!!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews