(Mis)appropriating Caravaggio in Michiel Heyns’s A Sportful Malice

Abstract

Caravaggio’s painting, David with the Head of Goliath (ca. 1609) is the central iconic intertext in Michiel Heyns’s novel, A Sportful Malice: A Comedy of Revenge, which was awarded the 2015 Herman Charles Bosman Prize. The article demonstrates how Caravaggio’s depiction of the young David looking at the severed head of Goliath at the end of his outstretched arm is transposed in A Sportful Malice into a secular subject, and the symbolic import of the painting into a comic mode in a very funny work of fiction that might possibly suggest comparable degrees of artistic self-reflection. The article examines the implications of the painting as a complex self-portrait by Caravaggio, and the disdain and compassion, and repulsion and identification, in the relationship between the youthful beheader and his victim, as a metaphor for gay cruising, and for the ironically amused tone of Heyns’s protagonist, Michael, and his camp sensibility. “Camp” is theorised with reference to Susan Sontag’s pioneering “Notes on Camp” in which she defines camp as an aesthetic experience of the world, disengaged, anti-serious, frivolous and extravagant, as well as to subsequent theorists who emphasise its rootedness in queer/gay identity and its politics, and as referring to strategies of queer parody. In his comic novel, Heyns parodically updates debates about artistic representation from traditional figurative art to present-day conceptual and performance art, as well as the narcissistic self-portraiture of Facebook. A Sportful Malice presents a complex (self)portrait of its camp protagonist in a camp narrative that performatively and self-reflexively holds camp itself up to critical scrutiny.

Opsomming

Caravaggio se skildery, Dawid met die Hoof van Goliat (ca. 1609), is die sentrale ikoniese interteks in Michiel Heyns se roman, A Sportful Malice: A Comedy of Revenge, bekroon met die 2015 Herman Charles Bosman Prys. Hierdie artikel ondersoek hoe Caravaggio se voortstelling van die jong Dawid met die kop van die onthoofde Goliat in sy uitgestrekte arm in A Sportful Malice komies verplaas word na ’n sekulêre konteks, en die simboliek van die skildery omgesit word in ’n baie snaakse roman wat moontlik ’n vergelykbare mate van selfvoorstelling deur die skrywer suggereer. Die artikel kyk na die implikasies van die skildery as ’n komplekse selfportret van Caravaggio, en na die minagting en meegevoel, en afgryse en identifisering, in die verhouding tussen die jeugdige oorwinnaar en sy slagoffer as ’n metafoor vir gay cruising sowel as vir die ironies geamuseerde instelling van Heyns se hoofkarakter, Michael, met sy kamp-sensibiliteit. “Kamp” word teoreties benader vanuit die perspektief van Susan Sontag se baanbrekende artikel, “Notes on Camp”, waarin sy kamp omskryf as ’n estetiese lewensuitkyk, onbetrokke, nie-ernstig, ligsinnig en oordrewe, en ook met betrekking tot latere teoretici wat die oorsprong van kamp in queer/gay-identiteit en -politiek beklemtoon en dit in terme van queer parodiestrategieë definieer. In sy komiese roman parodieer Heyns die debat rondom uitbeeldingswyse van traditionele figuratiewe kuns tot hedendaagse konseptuele en vertoningskuns, asook die narcistiese selfvoorstellings op Facebook. A Sportful Malice bied ’n komplekse (self)portret van die kamp hoofkarakter in ’n kampvertelling wat selfrefleksief die aard van kamp krities betrag.