Rachel Cusk turns literature into listening

Writer, there is no "maybe". Rachel Cusk, with her recently completed trilogy of works, gently and persistently hammered the conventional expectations of the genre of the novel; some will put the books aside frustrated after twenty or thirty pages, others will follow the narrative voice – infatuated, sometimes stumbling, and in a strange symbiosis with the protagonist of Cusk.

A Life Like a Hall of Mirrors: Rachel Cusk's protagonist is seen almost exclusively by what others tell her. (Photo: Alamy)

"Kudos", the cover volume translated into German by Eva Bonné, is designed as a counterpart to "Outline", the original novel published in 2014, which opened the trilogy. Both works show the writer Faye on the way to the missions, as they bring their craft today with him: writing class, festival, author congress. If the symmetry between the flanking volumes is accentuated by the identical scenery of the opening scenes, the reappearance of a character or the reflection of individual motifs, "Transit", the centerpiece of the triptych, further anchors the main character in its London setting. Attention

What do you know at the end of the woman who was accompanied by a total of 667 pages? Through three books that give up a direction from A to B, modeled by moments of tension and development, as well as a portrait of the heroine carefully painted?

Faye is divorced and has two sons, who from time to time call for help. In London, she acquires a part of the house, very dilapidated, which is being repaired in "transit" – protests poisoned by the couple quartered in the basement. He moves into the literary midfield: good enough to be invited to events, but without star status, which could protect against neglect and pain.

But how does she write, and what? How does she reconcile the balance between her work and the relationship with children? Does she have a bland or casual voice, her voice is she smoke or shine? From it has little idea, or none. We know that she shares experiences, traits with her creator. But if you try to call Faye in your inner eye, you will not see Rachel Cusk – but perhaps the term "pinna", translated into a still, pearly-scintillating still, vibrating with attention. Because Faye attracts the confessions of others' lives, self-praises or delusions with magical power. In this regard, the title is "Outline" program: the main character appears almost only as an outline, as part of the stories of other characters around them.

In "Kudos" this approach is ironically forced into the bizarre interviews that Faye, instead of providing information about herself, has to endure as a largely silent listener. The first journalist concludes her soliloquy with the comforting assurance that she has already researched the internet and that she knew everything she needed for this article. Number two – a gentleman whose bald head shines "strangely unnatural" in the hotel's dimly lit lobby – immediately charges all of Faye's work dotted with post-it notes, but uses the time spent to the conversation only for his skill and ability to advertise as a critic. Finally, the TV presenter, who is said to be the author in an improvised and responsive context, expresses very explicitly her desire to "support the work of interesting women";

No Man's Land of Literature

These scenes belong to the topography of the contemporary literary landscape, which Cusk not only critically reflects in the novel, but also represents it concretely on the basis of its localities . The captivating and ruthless precision with which she evokes some of these strange places in "Kudos" is one of the literary triumphs of volume: at one place, modern architecture accumulates in idle festivals, while on the other hand the literary characters find themselves in a hotel box banished from the disused port area and forced to satisfy their hunger with menus that seem to be an endurance test for the stomachs of the guests.

The art of sparing and effectively used representation and sometimes lyophilized humor belong, as well as the cautious, nothing codifying the encirclement of the main character, to the literary instruments that Cusk acquired from 39, a way not always painless. Three autobiographical books by the writer had resulted in collisions with the critic or with a person represented in the work; the last – presented in 2012 under the title "Aftermath" of the wild end of his marriage – has brought it to a standstill. For nearly three years, Rachel Cusk could no longer write, before finding the strangely light form of narration, which in "Outline", "Transit" and "Kudos" opens the eyes in the abyss without letting it flow. A recent example of this is Faye's recognition with a woman that she had secretly envied – her beautiful hometown, where every fifteen minutes the sound of the bell rose like a semblance of silence that breaks out and flourishes as a description of himself hung in the air "; for his exemplary marriage; a life where Faye could take the exact measure of her own deficits. Only at the recent meeting, it becomes clear that this woman has in turn lived in a treacherous Ice Hall, whose Faye reflexes then dazzled, but which is now in ruins. Life, as it is triggered in passing, revolves around itself and has already been washed away by a cold breeze.

The Old Demons

Nevertheless, the voices alternate echoes and continuous, although in different tones and notes throughout the trilogy worn on motifs. In her, transposed and objectified by the vagueness, continue the themes that animate the Cusk in his own life and his writing: the fragility of the partnership and the family, the homelessness that can already affect the children, the erosion quiet of literature by just about everyone involved in their creation and reception; and, covering all these areas, the seemingly fragile power relationship between the man and the woman. His continuation is affirmed in the closing table of "Kudos" so black and vicious that one rubs his eyes: the flight in three volumes has never worn the writer further that the feet of their old demons?