Purdy's Art of Paraphrase

James Purdy's novel Eustace Chisholm and the Works, first published in 1967 but set in Depression-era Chicago, is centrally concerned with the relationship between reality and art or, in other words, with the question of artistic realism. This essay argues that for Purdy the most important term in this novel is paraphrase. To what extent should a work of art function as a sort of paraphrase of real life? What other criteria than realism apply or should apply to the relationship between life and an artistic representation of life? And what sorts of events or emotions are not generally considered worthy of representation (whether because they are too sexual or too violent or not sexual or violent in the right way)? Using the figure of the unsuccessful poet Eustace Chisholm, Purdy offers a critique of unduly restrictive ideas about both art and life.