The Boy in theYellow Dress (2014) is the autobiography of the author, actor, lecturer, and TV
producer Victor Marsh (1945-). It is divided into five sections: prelude,
exile, return, hometown blues, and coda.
Born in Perth,
Western Australia, Marsh begins his memoir with a strong recollection of
wearing his mother’s silky yellow dress, and finding “this lovely thing” later
burned to ashes. He writes of his student days and his interest in
post-surrealism and French playwright, actor, and theatre director, Antonin
Artaud (1896-1948). Acting “provides its own insecurities but, occasionally,
playing a role gives me the chance to try on confidence for size.” His brother
David, older by three years, dies at the age of 26 of a rejected kidney
transplant. The birth of Victor’s baby, whom he names David, is an
acknowledgment to his brother.
Marsh openly
discusses his thoughts about his own sexuality, especially as it relates to religion.
From 1973 he takes on a frugal, celebate and itinerant life in a Zen Buddhist
ashram, the Divine Light Mission, traveling around the world “with no fixed
base” as an instructor. “Lifestyles come and go. The need for peace is
constant,” he writes. This ten-year period is the most detailed part of the
book. Marsh compares his following of a living master with an epicure seeking
not the best restaurant but the best chef. But there are advantages and
disadvantages in this – which he questions; does it take away power and what
does one actually learn from the practice of meditation.
In the chapter
“reflection” the parable about the gift of a cow to a fishing village is
beautifully told. There are also interesting phrases from his learnings, such
as “a rolling saint gathers no attachments” – “wondering is wandering” – and
“egolessness does not mean the absence of a functional self.” Another
interesting chapter is “the wobble factor” where he discusses his understanding
of repression, attraction, and detachment.
In 1983, after suffering
hometown blues, he resigns from the monastic life he led from 27 to 37 years of
age. Now at 38, he has returned home, but he has “no car, no phone, no credit
card, no knife, no fork, no spoon; no career history that any employer can
relate to.” He does get work briefly – as a TV producer with the family music
show Young Talent Time – which has already
been running for 15 years, producing artists such as Tina Arena and Dannii
Minogue. He moves onto the Don Lane late-night talk show production crew and Beyond 2000, the science and technology
show, as the Los Angeles coordinator.
He concludes with
his father’s death at nearly 82 years of age. After Frank’s death, Marsh learns
the truth about his father’s life – and it is through these revelations that he
not only understands his father, but also himself.
As Marsh says,
“this book has been about the original dis-location and the odyssey of return.”
But it is more. It is a not only a detailed account of his journey with
spirituality, it is a candid, open-hearted, open-minded “unpacking” of the
different factors affecting his thinking, and the extent to which it does so is
rare in an autobiography.
Comments
Post a Comment