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A review by unfetteredfiction
Outline by Rachel Cusk
3.0
“I said that I thought most of us didn’t know how truly good or truly bad we were, and most of us would never be sufficiently tested to find out.”
- Rachel Cusk, Outline
A writer travels to Athens to teach on a writing course, that’s it.
Well, not really. This book is a meandering of thoughts and a delicate but simultaneously deep dive into interactions, memories, stories and experiences, both personal and collective. Themes surrounding relationships are brooded upon and spoken about often. Relationships between friends, children and parents, siblings, spouses, lovers, awkward acquaintances…
The tone is easy going but interesting. The stories shine a light on the voices of female characters, which is great, even if they are all maybe a certain type of successful, creative, ambitious, relatively well-off and independent type of women… I like that they’re mostly all divorced, though.
We learn about some of the main events of the pretty much all of the characters lives, to which the protagonist has some incredibly self aware reflections and somewhat enlightened (?) responses. As I mentioned before, they’re clearly confident, successful, intelligent etc, which produces a lot of punchy revelations crystallising complex feelings into pretty beautiful fragmental sentences. At the same time this kind of voice could become grating, perhaps, maybe a *little bit* much, I’m undecided. The protagonist is so incredibly passive but also sometimes frustrating but at other times seriously admirable and inspiring. It can be difficult to get a thorough idea of who they are. The structure too, feels passive. Also, if you aren’t up for sentences starting with And, then, consider this your warning.
I really didn’t mind that there isn’t an obvious plot moving this thing along, within the first few pages it becomes clear that that wouldn’t be right. It’s not that there is nothing happening, we still see our protagonist *doing things* but most of what’s happening is going on inside, or it feels like it is. It’s like they’re painting a picture of people and interactions that somehow encompasses both their present intention as well as all the moments leading up to it. The tone is both detailed and matter of fact at the same time.
I’m really glad I read this. I’m not sure whether I’ll go on to read the next two. I feel like I might next time I’m away on a beach somewhere, as this was really excellent holiday reading.
- Rachel Cusk, Outline
A writer travels to Athens to teach on a writing course, that’s it.
Well, not really. This book is a meandering of thoughts and a delicate but simultaneously deep dive into interactions, memories, stories and experiences, both personal and collective. Themes surrounding relationships are brooded upon and spoken about often. Relationships between friends, children and parents, siblings, spouses, lovers, awkward acquaintances…
The tone is easy going but interesting. The stories shine a light on the voices of female characters, which is great, even if they are all maybe a certain type of successful, creative, ambitious, relatively well-off and independent type of women… I like that they’re mostly all divorced, though.
We learn about some of the main events of the pretty much all of the characters lives, to which the protagonist has some incredibly self aware reflections and somewhat enlightened (?) responses. As I mentioned before, they’re clearly confident, successful, intelligent etc, which produces a lot of punchy revelations crystallising complex feelings into pretty beautiful fragmental sentences. At the same time this kind of voice could become grating, perhaps, maybe a *little bit* much, I’m undecided. The protagonist is so incredibly passive but also sometimes frustrating but at other times seriously admirable and inspiring. It can be difficult to get a thorough idea of who they are. The structure too, feels passive. Also, if you aren’t up for sentences starting with And, then, consider this your warning.
I really didn’t mind that there isn’t an obvious plot moving this thing along, within the first few pages it becomes clear that that wouldn’t be right. It’s not that there is nothing happening, we still see our protagonist *doing things* but most of what’s happening is going on inside, or it feels like it is. It’s like they’re painting a picture of people and interactions that somehow encompasses both their present intention as well as all the moments leading up to it. The tone is both detailed and matter of fact at the same time.
I’m really glad I read this. I’m not sure whether I’ll go on to read the next two. I feel like I might next time I’m away on a beach somewhere, as this was really excellent holiday reading.