Memoirs of a Muse Issue #27

By Gretchen Kalwinski
Published: March 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

Lara Vapnyar’s first novel tells of a modern muse living in New York. Russian immigrant Tanya decides as a teenager that she’s not gifted in her own right and, wanting to leave some kind of legacy, she asks herself, “Could I fight death by living my life to the utmost degree?” Her ideas about muses go back to her childhood, when her grandmother warned her about the trials and tribulations of the role. Still, Tanya is so impressed with the great Russian writers that besides masturbating to Dostoevsky, she decides to achieve immortality by inspiring another person’s work.

Vapnyar’s lyrical style is notable for its fine detail, economy of words, and tight, crackling dialogue, best evidenced in the gender-interplay between Tanya and Mark Schneider, the writer she becomes “muse” to. Mark is confident, with well-honed tastes in everything from coffee to clothing to architecture. He enjoys schooling Tanya on the tenets of his sophisticated world, paying for her clothes and food, and letting her live with him. In return, she listens to his childhood memories, discusses his work, brings him coffee while he writes, sleeps with him, and undresses the way he requests — until the affair turns up its you-saw-it-coming pitfalls.

Why a modern-day woman would choose this role instead of pursuing her own path, however, is a question left unanswered. After all, which of us really knew what we wanted to do when were as teenagers? Why did Tanya lack the curiosity to find and develop a talent of her own, rather than glomming on to some dude? We never discover why she decides on such a lazy route at such a young age.

Muse-dom is a complicated notion to approach in a post-feminist contemporary setting, especially when the roles of muses and other “kept” roles for women are now supposedly outdated. But Tanya does slowly begin to understand what being a muse entails even in a “liberated” era, and Vapnyar handles Tanya’s unfolding and awakening with intelligence, dry humor, and keen feminine insight.

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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Memoirs of a Muse

(Pantheon)

by Lara Vapnyar
$22.95
224 pages