I Am Not Your Eve - Devika Ponnambalam

 There is a haunting quality to this deceptively slender novel that tells the story of Teha’amana, the muse of Paul Gauguin during his Tahitian days. The somewhat unorthodox narrative presents as fragmented at times as the various voices offer their perspectives, from Gaugin himself through to the diary extracts from his daughter. It’s a narrative that requires concentration from the reader to focus on exactly whose voice we are listening to. Teha’amana remains dominant, and rightly so.

Something that struck me most forcibly was the very visual nature of the writing. It was almost as if a Gaugin painting had been created with words rather than paint. The subtle and effective use of colour words gave the text a vibrancy that matched that very identifiable quality that pervades Gaugin’s work during this period in his career. It’s cleverly sustained throughout the novel and was very impressive.The novel also uses the myths and legends of Tahiti to run alongside Teha’amana’s story fusing her present with the ancient lore of her country adding an almost spiritual dimension to the tale not to mention the understated effects of colonialism and patriarchy. The title hints of the Biblical, and a smattering of potential feminism maybe? 

The novel is very much Teha’mana’s story and does little to dilute the controversy of Gaugin, and the view that, his Tahitian art particularly, was exploitative. Teha’amana was his child bride in Polynesia, the same age as his eldest daughter,  whilst he left his legal wife and the rest of his family back in France grappling with the implications of his painting. 

Much of the story presents, almost as a prose poem, full of rich, evocative language that celebrates and encompasses the Tahitian culture. But there are also very quotable, epigrammatical lines.

‘Everything has a shell.

      Man’s shell is his woman because he comes from her. And woman’s shell is woman because she comes from herself.’

And,

‘This is my body, my voice.’

Interesting that a couple of books this year have focused on artists’ muses. I couldn’t help being reminded of Sophie Haydock’s The Flames which told of Egon Schiele’s muses. Both books, give voice to these women who are rendered immortal, almost by these artists, and whose likenesses we can gaze on decades, centuries, after their deaths. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine, or remember that they were living, breathing women with their own lives, hopes and dreams, all there for these artists to capture should they so desire. Without these paintings they would probably never be known to us. But what I think is interesting is that these stories, to an extent are placing current thinking and moralities on events that occurred in a past where contexts were very different. But, in the case of I Am Not Your Eve to have created a book with such rich layers shows a great deal of research and exploration into a little-known culture and present it very palpably.

This book has been shortlisted for this year‘s Walter Scott Historical Fiction prize. And that’s quite an achievement for a debut novel. I was fortunate enough to win a copy in a prize draw, which I am very grateful.