Jim Brown reviewed Audition by Katie M. Kitamura
A Didion-esque novel about acting
About 30 pages into this book, I thought "this seems like a Joan Didion book." That's a good thing for me, but the comparison only goes so far. Kitamura's writing is less impressionistic than Didion's. This is a book about an actor but more than that it is about acting - how it works, what it requires, what it means to be in a space where "it is possible to be two things at once. Not a splitting of personality or psyche, but the natural superimposition of one mind on top of another mind" (195).
These are my favorite parts of the book, the part where the protagonist is talking about acting:
"I sat back into my seat and my attention returned to Josie and Clarice. I was instantly engaged in the intricacies of their rehearsal, as if my focus had never shifted, I had worked with both of them …
About 30 pages into this book, I thought "this seems like a Joan Didion book." That's a good thing for me, but the comparison only goes so far. Kitamura's writing is less impressionistic than Didion's. This is a book about an actor but more than that it is about acting - how it works, what it requires, what it means to be in a space where "it is possible to be two things at once. Not a splitting of personality or psyche, but the natural superimposition of one mind on top of another mind" (195).
These are my favorite parts of the book, the part where the protagonist is talking about acting:
"I sat back into my seat and my attention returned to Josie and Clarice. I was instantly engaged in the intricacies of their rehearsal, as if my focus had never shifted, I had worked with both of them but I did not think they had previously worked together. I could see that they were strongly attracted to each other, in their mutual admiration, their curiosity, but at the same time there was an edge of rivalry between them that had the potential to flare into open antagonism, it was the nature of the work and its rapid, temporary intimacies. And so, in addition to the story of the play itself, the narrative that was being enacted by Josie and Clarice, I was also observing the drama between the two women, who at times circled each other in the manner of prizefighters, wary and in a posture of constant assessment." (38)