In June, I interviewed Cusk around the publication of “Kudos,” at Greenlight Bookstore, in Brooklyn. Reading these novels, it is easy to forget that the true power lies with Cusk, who has chosen to submit her character to such a radical experiment in passivity, and to respond to the chatty, descriptive tradition of the naturalistic English novel with deliberately wrought formalism and silence. It is as if she has renounced all personal agency and narrative authority. Faye, neutral as a blank page, listens to each of them in turn, sometimes passing judgment, but more often leaving it to the reader to decide how to interpret what we have heard. Her interlocutors speak in long, arcing monologues that swoop from the minute banality of personal experience to touch on the great themes of human life and society and back again. “She lends herself as a filter,” as Judith Thurman wrote in a New Yorker Profile, last year. Like “ Transit” and “ Kudos,” the two books that followed it, “Outline” serves as a record not so much of Faye’s own thoughts and actions but of those described to her by the people she encounters. On a brief trip to Greece, Faye, the novel’s protagonist, does very little, and says even less. Personally, I think I missed something, but I'd be willing to give it another go.In 2014, the novelist Rachel Cusk published “ Outline,” the first novel in a trilogy whose style was markedly different from anything that she had previously written.
There's beauty of words and a certain strong realism to the dialogue, but it lacks plot and character. Who am I kidding? This book was so uneventful. They're not the most interesting stories, but I'm sure they're some kind of a reflection of the author herself.
But her stories are more like an outline of these characters. It's about an author interacting with people in Athens, and telling their stories. If Kudos were nominated, I'd read it, as I didn't dislike Outline or the style Cusk used to bring her story together-it was just abysmally dry. I can see why some might think Cusk would be a welcome nominee.
I cannot speak for Kudos as I have yet to read it, but man, oh man is Outline boring. The latter can be difficult for some, but more often than not, I enjoy them despite being slow.
just in case.Man Booker Prize nominated books can come in many varieties, but it's not uncommon for the list to have several titles that are intelligent and/or relatively dry. If she is nominated, it will be for her newest novel, Kudos but as her newest is the third in a trilogy, I did not want to find myself already two books behind when the longlist drops. I picked up Outline because and only because I've heard Cusk's name being dropped as a potential Man Booker Prize contender this year.
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