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A review by casskrug
Parade by Rachel Cusk
4.0
me yapping about rachel cusk and this book for 50 minutes 🫡 https://youtu.be/dtTfT1aRTaY
parade is a complex, thought provoking experiment in form that is impossible to distill into a simple review. i initially went into it expecting more of a traditional novelistic form, but these are more like vignettes exploring the same handful of themes about motherhood, creativity, death, etc. on my first read through i was really caught up in the excitement and expectation surrounding reading one of my favorite author’s new books, and felt like i needed to put the pieces together and figure out how all these disparate sections would come together in the end - but that’s not ultimately the point of the book. with my reread, i wanted to focus more on the themes and language, rather than plot. i enjoyed this so much more the second time around and really appreciate the challenge that cusk presents to her readers with parade. i wouldn’t recommend starting with this one if you haven’t read her before, but if you enjoyed the outline trilogy and second place, this is a great next step!
i think this quote from the spy really sums up what cusk is doing here: “His style, so uninterfering, drew attention to itself without meaning to. He rarely, for instance, showed his characters in close-up, believing that this was not how human beings saw one another… They expected a storyteller to demonstrate his mastery and control by resolving the confusion and ambiguity of reality, not deepening it.”
parade is a complex, thought provoking experiment in form that is impossible to distill into a simple review. i initially went into it expecting more of a traditional novelistic form, but these are more like vignettes exploring the same handful of themes about motherhood, creativity, death, etc. on my first read through i was really caught up in the excitement and expectation surrounding reading one of my favorite author’s new books, and felt like i needed to put the pieces together and figure out how all these disparate sections would come together in the end - but that’s not ultimately the point of the book. with my reread, i wanted to focus more on the themes and language, rather than plot. i enjoyed this so much more the second time around and really appreciate the challenge that cusk presents to her readers with parade. i wouldn’t recommend starting with this one if you haven’t read her before, but if you enjoyed the outline trilogy and second place, this is a great next step!
i think this quote from the spy really sums up what cusk is doing here: “His style, so uninterfering, drew attention to itself without meaning to. He rarely, for instance, showed his characters in close-up, believing that this was not how human beings saw one another… They expected a storyteller to demonstrate his mastery and control by resolving the confusion and ambiguity of reality, not deepening it.”