Illusion in Peter Cameron's Writing
Peter Cameron Uses Illusion to Develop Themes in His Writing
In his novel Andorra (Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1997), Cameron explores the theme of illusion on physical, psychological, and emotional levels, using people, buildings, situations, and even settings.
Physical Illusion
Andorra is rich with examples of physical illusion. When the novel opens, the narrator, Alexander Fox, has just arrived in the small country of Andorra. He is seeking a fresh start in this idyllic European country he once read about. Initially, Andorra seems to be the perfect escape for Fox, but this lovely façade cracks right away. Soon after arriving, he is told by a long-term Andorran resident that the author of the book that inspired him to move to this particular place had, in fact, never visited Andorra and her descriptions of it were wrong.
Fox is nonetheless initially enamored of Andorra’s sun-drenched beauty and its quirky residents, but this honeymoon period does not last. His hotel, which initially seemed welcoming, looks ugly from other angles and states of mind. His round room on the hotel’s top floor contains a triptych of Joan of Arc. Physically, Joan of Arc resembled an uneducated peasant girl, but at heart she was a brave soldier and great leader. It is no accident Cameron places this particular saint in the narrator’s room, for she is the patron saint of prisoners, and Cameron’s narrator is indeed held captive by his own illusions.
Emotional Illusion
Cameron also develops the theme of illusion psychologically. Jean Quay, Fox’s subtle romance, always wears her hair in a bun, as neatly controlled as her emotions. Yet her reserve does not match her romantic story of passion and lost love. Her story of heartbreak is surprising, but her reserve is her way of dealing with intense pain and functioning effectively, something that Fox cannot do.
Psychological Illusion
Fox certainly is the greatest example of Cameron’s theme of illusion. Although a first-person narrator, he is not self-confessing and therefore, untrustworthy. His name is not even mentioned until page 37 of the novel, suggesting his wiliness: A. Fox. He does, however, warn readers of his untrustworthiness by saying: “Appearances can be deceiving.”¹
Fox’s false reality is inadvertently challenged during his travels by a sanctimonious boarding house matron, Esmerelda St. Pitt. She offers Fox his choice of rooms, her words loaded with meaning that could just as easily refer to his need for a false reality: “I will show you both and you will have to decide which of them you want. I cannot decide for you.”² Later, she tells Fox: “If we are decent people, we should have no need to reinvent ourselves. One persona should suffice.”³ One persona, however, will never suffice for Fox. He is unwilling to be content with who he is, what he believes, and what he has done.
Throughout the novel, Fox seems to be trying to escape from some hinted-at tragedy. His past seems to be a large tree crowding out the delicate shoots of his new life. But it is not Fox’s past blocking his fresh start. It is his illusions that lead to his ultimate failure.
A. Fox claims to find comfort in symmetry. However, whilst the novel’s final sentence is the same as its first, it is here that Cameron’s theme of illusion is fully realized, for readers discover the tale has been told in retrospect, a fact which throws everything into shadows that are unnervingly obscure.
Andorra is Peter Cameron's third novel.
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