Claudia Aguirre

“The Coincidence of the Arts” is a short story written by Martin Amis, published in Britain’s Granta Magazine in 1998.  The story is about three characters: Rodney, Pharsin and Cassie.  All three are artists living in New York during the mid 1900’s (exact date unknown).  At the beginning of the story we are introduced to Rodney and Pharsin.  Pharsin is black, a door man who works in Rodney’s building and he considers himself an artist of many disciplines, including “chess hustling” and writing (*note- he sees chess playing as and art). When he meets Rodney, who is a painter, he asks him to read the manuscript of his new book. In short the entire story progresses and Rodney never reads the book.  He continually tells Pharsin that he will read it, and later lies to him about having read it already.

Cassie is married to Pharsin, is the principal character in his book and also has an affair with Rodney. However, in the story while Cassie is in a relationship with Rodney, Rodney has no idea to that she is Pharsin’s wife. This is because it is not until the end of their relationship that they actually speak to one another. Most of their affair is carried out in complete silence. She is also black, she is mime and when she finally does speak we realize that she has a thick working-class British accent. The miming explains the facility in her keeping silent and at the end of the story she confesses that she kept quiet in fear that Rodney, who is a white man from an upper-class British family, would not love her once he heard her accent.

As Rodney and Cassie’s relationship progresses, Rodney notices that Cassie is a victim of domestic violence. Furthermore, she never lets Rodney paint a portrait of her and near the end of the story, while she is asleep recovering from one of her beatings, Rodney paints her. She is awakened by an angry Pharsin knocking at the door. During this scene she hides in Rodney’s apartment while the two men talk about Pharsin’s book. It is here when Rodney realizes exactly who she is and what Pharsin’s novel is about. When Pharsin leaves the couple speaks and Rodney finds himself un-attracted to her upon hearing her accent. She leaves angrily and we later find out the Cassie stole Rodney’s savings from his apartment.
Two years pass the Rodney and Cassie run into each other in England. She is happy and though she continues to be with Pharsin he no longer beats her. It turns out that he only beat her while he knew Rodney. Oddly enough Pharsin never knew about their affair, but Rodney’s attitude towards reading the novel upset Pharsin and his anger was taken out on Cassie at home. In this scene Rodney and Cassie say goodbye to each other and no harsh feelings remain. Perhaps for a while they really did love one another.

The themes in this story include love, art, race, class, friendship, violence and coincidence. Personally, I think the most intriguing theme is that of “coincidence”. After the money is stolen one of the supporting characters of the story asks Rodney if he thought Cassie and Pharsin were in it together. To this Rodney replies, “No no. No. It was all pure… coincidence (239). In this story Pharsin writes about Cassie, Cassie mimes for Rodney and Rodney paints Cassie, and supposedly this all by coincidence. How do you think “coincidence” ties into our FACS classes’ category of “Between and Beyond the Boundaries?”

Laura Bere

The reading The Coincidence of the Arts, by Martin Amis, explored a variety of artistic ideas in a style very unique from the previous readings of the course. The ideas were explored within the context of a short story about a painter who struggles with wanting to be a painter, but being unsure of how talented he is and not being able to paint what he really wants to paint. A parallel to the main character’s struggles are that of his doorman, who also struggles with uncertainty about his talent as a writer. Within these two characters the idea of a class system arises. The main character, Sir Rodney Peel, is an Englishman of upper class background and has enough money to survive as an artist without any real struggle. His doorman, Pharsin Courier, is an African-American man who very much wants to be a writer, but is unable to publish his book and depends on his wife’s second job as a waitress to support his craft. This class difference highlights the way in which the art world can sometimes get caught up in its own self-importance and forget or look down upon the rest of the world, a world which they often ignore, but which they demand attention from.  The character of Rodney Peel seems enchanted by the free lifestyle of the artist, but struggles with doubts about his talent, whether or not he is an “artist,” and finding a subject and inspiration that will make him great. He finds this in a mysterious woman whom he begins to have an affair with. He is struck with an overwhelming need to paint her, which he believes will make him a good artist. The day he is finally given the chance to do this, however, he learns more about who she is and finds that his vision of her was a manifestation of his own imagination. This is an interesting way of showing the artist’s view of their world and the way in which they put their own perspective on it through their art, not always showing the complete truth but showing their own interpretation.

In the story, the character of Rodney Peel makes a comment that “Artists are waiters!” How is the idea of waiting explored throughout the story in relation to the characters lives (especially regarding their chosen artistic crafts)? How can this comment be related to the art world? What are artists always waiting for?

Heather Holmes

Everybody is an artist in his or her own way; this is illustrated in The Coincidence of the Arts with examples of “Construction workers were all constructivists. The AC installers were all installationists”. Rodney Peel was striving to become a successful painter in New York City by painting portraits of wealthy businessmen’s wives. This however, was not quite as successful as he hoped.

While travelling through Washington Square Park his interest was peaked from numerous chess games in action. He decided to sit down and play a round without realizing that the man he was about to challenge will change his life forever. Pharsin Courier won his game with Rodney, and not just the chess game either. After striking a friendship Rodney revealed to Pharsin that he studied literature at Cambridge (which was geographically true, but on all other levels of truth it was not). Pharsin, when hearing this, was interested to know Rodney’s critique of his novel entitled The Sound of Words, the Sound of Words. When the favour was asked of Rodney he accepted, believing that he could just forget about Pharsin and his book, which he claimed to be precisely one million words. Unfortunately the doorman of Rodney’s building and Pharsin are one in the same, and therefore he was there every weekend to ask him about his progress. This persisted for over three months until the long-awaited confrontation occurred.

All while this was happening Rodney unknowingly was having an affair with Pharsin’s wife, who remains nameless until the end of the story. He became infatuated with her in a bar and asked to paint her using a waitress and 4 of his business cards for communication. She refused to have her portrait painted even though she could have earned 500 dollars, but they embarked on a sexual affair that Rodney will never forget. She did not sleep nor talk throughout their time spent together except for their final night she fell asleep. Rodney took advantage of the sleeping beauty by painting her everlasting features. Once finished the painting there was a knock on the door.

This knock that was aggressively getting louder he realizes is Pharsin the author, and also the husband of the woman who is currently in his bed. With less than a minute to read a one million-word novel, he frantically searched for The Sound of Words, the Sound of Words and began to read the last page in hopes of deceiving Pharsin once again. He was successful in making Pharsin believe that he read his novel and loved it, he was also successful in obstructing the view of the bed, but he was not able to hide his portrait of her. When her husband saw this painting he was shocked at the resemblance to his wife, but believed Rodney when he said the image came from a magazine.

Rodney truly believed that he was starting to fall in love with Cassie (Pharsin’s wife) however, after his confrontation with his haunting author he later realized that Cassie had taken all of his money leaving him with only the 500 dollars that he promised her for sitting for the portrait. When asked if the married couple were in it together Rodney’s response was “No no. No. It was all pure … coincidence”. The sudden financial need caused him to return home to London, where two years later he ran into Cassie once more. She told him that they were all doing fine, including their newborn son. When hearing this all Rodney could think of was Pharsin’s first essay that he revealed to him that day in the park called The Co-Incidence of the Arts. He explained the hyphenated word as “the arts happen in the same part of the brain. That’s how come I hyphenate. Co-Incidence”. In the end, is there such a thing as coincidence, or rather co-incidence?

Heather Long

The reading “The Coincidence of the Arts” by Martin Amis, is a story about a man from England who came to New York to live. His name is Sir Rodney Peele, and he is a painter. In this story Rodney goes through life, as an artist who paints pictures of women, all of whom have successful husbands in New York. He has an agent named Rock Robville, whom he consoles in and goes out for drinks with daily to talk about life matters. One day, Rodney ends up playing chess with a black man by the name of Pharson Courier, who happens to be the doorman of his apartment. Throughout the story Pharson attempts to get Rodney to read the novel he wrote. Rodney makes up excuses for not being able to read the book every time he sees Pharson, which makes Pharson extremely offended and mad. While all of these things are taking place over time, Rodney is involved with a black woman, whom he has sexual encounters with regularly, but she does not speak. Since he first met her he always wanted to paint her, but she never allowed him to. Eventually Rodney lies to Pharson and says that he read his book, making up things to try and lead on that he has actually read it. One day while Rodney and the woman are in bed together, Pharson forcefully comes to the door wanting to speak with him about the his book. The woman declares that the angry man at the door is her husband, so she hides, Rodney digs up the unread book from a pile of newspapers, and finally lets Pharson in. They talk about the book and Rodney makes things up, but coincidentally, what he says happens to be right. Eventually, hell breaks loose and all of the secrets are out on the table. The women also ends up stealing a large sum of money in which Rodney has been keeping in his apartment, when he should have gone to get it put away and kept in a safe.

Every happening in this story all eventually leads to one conclusion and it is a coincidence that they were all related, but none of the characters knew this at the time. In relation to our course, this story suggests interdisciplinarity. All of the main characters in the story are artists, and all of their areas of the arts mesh together through life. All of the arts are connected through hybridity. It is interesting how these characters lives demonstrate this hybridity of the arts in general. Although this is true, I pose the question of wether the story is focusing too much on the characters lives, and if it connecting enough to what we have learned in class.

Nicole Love

This reading is a story of coincidence. A narrative that follows three very separate but resultantly very linked aspects of one man’s life. It intertwines his personal, social, sexual, and work related dealings with a number of people. It is the story of Rodney Peel, the man who’s life we begin to experience ourselves as we read, and it takes on an unusual form which I feel is very purposefully done by the author Martin Amis to emphasize the coincidence of his life.

This story is split into paragraphs that jump back and forth from what seems to be entirely separate aspects of Peels life, and in that sense is hard to follow initially until the end when each portion becomes coincidentally tied to the next.

Rodney Peel was an upper class Englishman who came to America, specifically New York, to have a fighting chance at becoming a serious painter. One portion of the story deals with Pharsin Courier, whom Peel met playing chess. Pharsin, an artist of words himself, asked Peel to read his novel ‘The Sound of Words, The Sound of Words’ which leads into the story of how Rodney Peel avoided reading the novel, even in intimate discussion of it’s contents with Pharsin. A second portion looks closely at his personal life. His work as an artist painting portraits of wealthy men’s wives and his meeting and purely sexual dealings with a nameless, speechless African American woman. The third portion of this story looks at Rodney’s social life and dealings with his agent and friend Rock Robville. Rock represents Rodney’s nightlife as a continual exploration of the bars of New York and is Rodney’s confidante. Rock is the only person in this story who is told the truth about what’s happening in Rodney’s life.
It is not until the end of the novel that you begin to notice the way each coincidence played out. With each action Rodney took came ironic results. He took on the challenge of reading Pharsin’s essay since he assumed it would be easy to avoid him, ironically Pharsin worked the door of his building. The nameless and speechless African American woman he had relations with, and met in a bar, ironically was a mime. In addition to this, Rodney realized when this woman was unclothed that she had bruises from her husband across her entire body. Her husband turned out to be Pharsin. The reason Pharsin became so violent was because of the stress he had taken on with Rodney not reading his novel. When Cassie (The Woman) spoke to tell Rodney that Pharsin is her husband he realized why she was silent; it was because she was lower class English and if she had spoken he would have never given her the time of day. Ironically, it was Rodney who caused the bruising on this woman, unknowingly. We continue to find irony in that If Rodney would have read the novel he would have known the character Cissie was a representation of his lover and Pharsin’s wife. Cassie then runs off with Rodney’s money, only to coincidentally meet him many years later in a café in Sussex England, while on his way to meet another woman.

In analysis of this reading and the way in which Martin Amis told this story, there is a deeper meaning that Amis is trying to emphasize. He opens by saying how everyone is an artist, “The coffee-shop waiters and waitresses were, of course, actors and actresses; and the people they served were all librettists and scenarists, harpists, pointillists, ceramicists, caricaturists, contrapuntalists, The little boys were bladders and jugglers, the little girls all ballerinas…” (Page 208-209). With this introduction Amis is trying to make the reader associate this story as a representation of the arts brought into the context of the everyday that people can relate to. The coincidence we found in Rodney Peel’s life is representative of the coincidence found across the arts. The word coincidence and the character Rodney Peel were used to represent interdisciplinarity. Rodney essentially was interdisciplinarity. A representation of how the arts, such as the three separate portions of this story, may have their unique individuality yet somehow seem to work better, and complete the story, when they are joined together. Revealing Rodney Peel and interdisciplinarity as one in the same. This reading is a conclusion to our exploration of interdisciplinarity and stretches the boundaries of its conventional representation.

Question:

Throughout the story Rodney talks about having ninety-five thousand dollars: cash. Aside from playing a small, and potentially unnecessary, role in the end of this reading, what is this money’s significance?

Everything else within this story lead to an explanation, yet we were never told why he had this large amount of money or where it came from. Was this money just added for effect to help lead into Rodney and Cassie reuniting?