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readpersephone's review against another edition
3.0
2.5/5
i'm not too sure about this one. which is disappointing because i LOVED second place.
the main story follows thomas taking a year off work to be a househusband while his wife tonie comes into a full time position as a department head at a university but it's still not clear to me what point cusk was trying to make.
clearly, i'm not smart enough to fully grasp what cusk is trying to say here because this was a little too all over the place for me. the book felt like vignettes into the thoughts and lives of the bradshaws but every time i thought something interesting was brought up, the idea never developed further.
the book is written multiple in povs but that didn't work for me because this book is too short to have so much focus on the secondary characters. i had a hard time caring about and keeping up with any of the characters because none of them were developed fully. also i don't think the secondary storylines didn't add anything to the main plot.
that being said, 1) i do love rachel cusk's writing style and 2) i'd be interested in rereading this one in the future just to see if i'd changed my mind about it.
i'm not too sure about this one. which is disappointing because i LOVED second place.
the main story follows thomas taking a year off work to be a househusband while his wife tonie comes into a full time position as a department head at a university but it's still not clear to me what point cusk was trying to make.
clearly, i'm not smart enough to fully grasp what cusk is trying to say here because this was a little too all over the place for me. the book felt like vignettes into the thoughts and lives of the bradshaws but every time i thought something interesting was brought up, the idea never developed further.
the book is written multiple in povs but that didn't work for me because this book is too short to have so much focus on the secondary characters. i had a hard time caring about and keeping up with any of the characters because none of them were developed fully. also i don't think the secondary storylines didn't add anything to the main plot.
that being said, 1) i do love rachel cusk's writing style and 2) i'd be interested in rereading this one in the future just to see if i'd changed my mind about it.
lizzie_evans's review against another edition
2.0
The usual realism from Rachel Cusk, and the familiarity of real life beautifully written about. I just didn't take to her characters as much this time. Still, their emotions were played out and you could totally sympathise, maybe looking back their was just too much to take in in this novel.
barbarabarbara's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
adoylestl's review against another edition
5.0
I love a good inside-a-marriage/family novel. This one is a floating-above/watching-below vantage point: you can never really know what's going on with another person.
joanna's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
penelopereads's review against another edition
4.0
Really, really liked this one. There were probably a few too many characters (it was confusing at times) but in this novel, Cusk explores the complexities of human emotions and loyalties in relationships, both romantic and familial. I loved it and found it quite poignant. It was also darkly funny and sometimes a bit gross.
ailsapeacock's review against another edition
A cold exercise of narrative that runs between members of the Bradshaw family, torn between irritation at their stultifying familial roles and the insulation that living as part of a whole offers from reality.
It was interesting reading this so soon after The Real Thing by Stoppard and Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler, two other texts which explore the boundaries between self and the ones you love. What is love and what is habit?
I hit upon a section which reminded a lot of her later Outline trilogy:
"It strikes her now that life is not linear, a journey, a passage, but a static process of irreversible accretion. It is perspective that moves, passing over it all like the sun, now illuminating, now casting into shadow. The angle changes, the relation of one thing to another, the proportion of dark to light; but experience itself is block-like, is cumulative and fixed." 99
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"He has not asked them one question about themselves: she and Claudia do not exist for him, they are just lines of perspective, ways for him to measure his location in space." 93
"It is true that Thomas is increasingly preoccupied by the mystery of other people's abilities. He can hardly bring himself to listen any more to his Glen Gould recordings, to his Clifford Curzon boxed set, to Feinstein's indistinct primordial account of Bach, so swamped does he become in the knowledge that these men are vastly more capable than himself. And it isn't just music, either: the same feeling besieges him when he considers literature or painting, when he leafs through the photographs in his Encyclopedia of World Art, a feeling that is beyond jealousy, that is a sort of sulkiness. All these others, born just as he was, into the same world: they are all better, more capable, more exceptional than he is." 118
It was interesting reading this so soon after The Real Thing by Stoppard and Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler, two other texts which explore the boundaries between self and the ones you love. What is love and what is habit?
I hit upon a section which reminded a lot of her later Outline trilogy:
"It strikes her now that life is not linear, a journey, a passage, but a static process of irreversible accretion. It is perspective that moves, passing over it all like the sun, now illuminating, now casting into shadow. The angle changes, the relation of one thing to another, the proportion of dark to light; but experience itself is block-like, is cumulative and fixed." 99
.
.
.
.
.
.
"He has not asked them one question about themselves: she and Claudia do not exist for him, they are just lines of perspective, ways for him to measure his location in space." 93
"It is true that Thomas is increasingly preoccupied by the mystery of other people's abilities. He can hardly bring himself to listen any more to his Glen Gould recordings, to his Clifford Curzon boxed set, to Feinstein's indistinct primordial account of Bach, so swamped does he become in the knowledge that these men are vastly more capable than himself. And it isn't just music, either: the same feeling besieges him when he considers literature or painting, when he leafs through the photographs in his Encyclopedia of World Art, a feeling that is beyond jealousy, that is a sort of sulkiness. All these others, born just as he was, into the same world: they are all better, more capable, more exceptional than he is." 118
sullivank131's review against another edition
4.0
Meditation on family and relationships. Reads like poetry. One of those rare books that isn't "about" anything but is still difficult to put down. I do wish the focus was on one of the family units instead of expanding to the rest of the family members; I think that space could have been better served rounding out and developing some of the individuals. But don't make me choose.
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