Rachel Cusk

 

I've written on the blog before about Rachel Cusk. I think she's a singular novelist: her Faye trilogy represents a high point in modern literature. Those books occupy their own space, and they have a lingering quality very rare in this world of unrelenting content. 

Having so enjoyed the Faye novels, I recently read another of Cusk's book, Second Place. There's much here which is similar to the earlier works: the uncertain relationship between Cusk and the narrator, the interjection of philosophy and reflection into common experience, and the ability to universalize the banal -- to quietly endow it with an unexpected weight. 

True, Second Place is a book about a second physical space, but equally, it is about the sensation of feeling that you, as a person, have perpetually come in 'second place.' There is a lot here about the dynamics between men and women, and about what it takes to generate great art. There are reflections about the hierarchy of that art, and about the effects of the artistic impulse, especially on families or friendships. 

Second Place is at times a dire, brutal recounting of one woman's interactions with two different types of men: one silent, one aggressive. But it is more than that: it is a story of this woman's gradual awakening to her own sense of power and artistry. Second Place is not as strong, perhaps, as the Faye novels, but that is not a critique as much as a further celebration of those earlier books. In the end, Second Place takes on a tremendous amount -- art, gender, power, space -- and distills it to its core. These things are real, Cusks seems to suggest, while we experience them, and not only in hindsight, not only upon reflection. We would do well to remember this.