The Country Life by Rachel Cusk presents several promises, but eventually seems to break most of them. When Stella Benson, a twenty-nine-year-old, leaves home suddenly to take up a private care assistant’s job in darkest south England, it is clear that she is running away. From what we do learn l...
Every so often I need to read a Rachel Cusk....a proper wordy workout for the brain, like doing a cryptic crossword. They should all come with a free dictionary because it’s a sure thing that I will be reaching for one before long. I would consider it a wasted read if it didn’t contribute at lea...
My grandfather sent me this book a couple months after the birth of my son. Honest, refreshing, comforting... Cusk tells of her rough transition to motherhood. It was nice to hear that you can love your child and feel the burden of motherhood at the same time. The right book at the right time.Aut...
I have not read a work of Rachel Cusk before but the comments and extracts about her book concerning her journey and stay in Italy greatly interested me. In the bookstore in Athens "Arlington Park" was the only book of hers that was available. I was hesitant about buying it since it is female cen...
"There were perhaps a hundred houses there, all like Adam's. In spite of the exertions of the tarmac, which wound and circled graaciously amid the porperties as though to give the impression that each was distinct and difficult to find, the development had a somewhat regimental appearance. When y...
The tide of self-absorption began mounting again in his veins, as it had all evening, and when it drummed insistently behind his eyes he turned away from the window and began busying himself at the kitchen counters to drive it back down into the pool of his stomach. It req...
The author of the first had recently become a father. The tone of his article was valedictory, funereal. Its subject was the death of freedom, its untimely murder by the state of parenthood. In form it was curiously poetic: a brisk tour of the man’s love for his newborn child – Oh babe, with thy ...
It stood in a narrow street like a shady chasm, with the buildings rising to either side. On the corner opposite the entrance to Clelia’s building was a café with a large awning and tables underneath, where there were always a few people sitting. The café had a long side window giving on to the n...
On the corner of my road I pass a man and a woman, kissing in the passing traffic. I pass a heavily tattooed couple coming back side by side from the shops, their arms full of purchases, their children in a line behind them like ducklings. I pass a man and a woman with Down’s Syndrome, holding ha...
This one is a little more personal in its drive towards socialisation, though no less prescriptive. Forgive me, but I’m too tired to play tennis just now. And indeed, there is no time for tennis, nor any other trivial pursuit: the three months are flying on wings of fire, passing over great conti...