How do you find meaning in a novel that rejects it so thoroughly? The publisher’s blurb for The Theory of Everything, Yumna Kassab’s new work, describes it as many things, among them “a rant, a manifesto … a dramatisation of actual events, a horror-scape … five mini-novels or else five post-novels … an agreement, a wink”. In perhaps her most ambitious work to date, all of these things could be true.
While Kassab, the inaugural Parramatta laureate in literature, has become known for her fragmented, polyphonic style, here she breaks the mould even further, removing the narrative supports of her earlier works Politica and The Lovers and taking us out of the familiar forms of the novel, novella, short story, even vignette, into something – indescribably – else.
Divided into five parts (or “mini-novels”, as the blurb suggests), The Theory of Everything is far from a comfort read. There is no opportunity to lose yourself in a narrative – and if, for a moment, there seems to be, it’s snatched away almost immediately.
The novel opens with a powerfully violent allegory that sees “the war of the century” play out in a sports stadium, but it immediately gives way to another, more fragmented form. The overall impression is less novel than surrealist painting, provoking strong, even contradictory reactions, and changing shape as you watch. It might be a love story worn down by the pressures of elite sports and structural racism, then a diatribe about the novel itself; a lengthy philosophical oration on form and function. Later, it morphs into a monologue which might be read as society breaking down, or alternatively a society finally finding the courage to revolt.
All the interpretations might be simultaneously true. All might be totally incorrect. Kassab has posed a mighty challenge to her readers.
The Theory of Everything revolts against a toothless, performative feminism, hypocritical and racist ideologies that embolden the status quo, and a world unwilling to change. Kassab’s critiques are wide reaching, covering disparities in education, maternal health care, economic potential and social acceptance. The women in this book, frequently unnamed or spoken of in general terms, are trying to get back to their children, or staying strong for their families. They are women who are sick of being brutalised for playing nice.
The novel’s creative challenges are a delight, stirring up the possibilities of what novels might be and do. At her best, Kassab writes burning little glimpses of our fractured global existence. In all but the final section of the novel, beautifully rendered scenes gleam through the wreckage of a world that is tearing itself apart. In one of these vignettes, Mothering (for Mellie), a mother changes her baby’s nappy while a pig-headed security guard attempts to remove her from the store. In The Friends (for Gabrielle), a man living on the brink of poverty games the system in order to keep feeding his only companions – the birds at his window.
In contrast, the denser monologues feel weighty, almost exhausting to read. She, a subsection of the novel’s second part, Gender, is oppressively self-reflexive, pre-empting, perhaps, any criticisms of the novel’s form. Kassab (as She) writes: “Just because it’s called a novel doesn’t mean it’s a novel. Publishers are notorious for trying to pass off non-novels as novels, likely for commercial reasons but perhaps there’s an element of the experiment, that the label of the novel should not be so narrow.”
It might be easier to grasp The Theory of Everything’s central premise if the experiment were slightly more contained, but that’s clearly not the point. And honestly, it’s a delight to see a writer willing to push the boundaries so far, and to be so unconcerned with palatability.
There are three characters in particular that stand out as more fully drawn than the others, whose stories reveal the performance of belonging. Ibrahim, who appears in the novel’s early parts, is an elite footballer who finds fame and wealth signing on to a major league in the west, but is forced to reckon with how much of his identity he’s willing to sacrifice as his wife, his religion and his visits to his home country become easy fodder for racist media headlines. Lucille, a movie star who no longer uses her old name, Nour, experiences similar interrogations as she is asked repeatedly in interviews “where [she stands] in relation to the cause”.
Jamal, the last of these three characters, best articulates the dilemma the three characters have in common: “The price for the support and friendliness and community was that he hand over his life. In return for his inclusion, he was to nod when told, speak when ordered, to voice the opinions he had been taught. In short, his life was to be an echo of their life.”
Here, Kassab reveals how tenuous the protection of success and celebrity are, how reliant they are on the performer playing along. In this bold, electrifying experiment, Yumna Kassab refuses to perform.
The Theory of Everything by Yumna Kassab is out through Ultimo Press ($34.99)
