Kudos by Rachel Cusk: A review

I had been looking forward to this third entry in Rachel Cusk's Outline series. I found the two earlier books, Outline and Transit, to be remarkable works that were thought-provoking reads. With the release of Kudos, one can see now that all three are pieces of a whole and they fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces in the narrative that Cusk has constructed.

Cusk's story-teller once again is Faye, a middle-aged writer divorced from the father of her two sons and now remarried, although that marriage seems to play a very small role in her daily life. Faye travels - a lot it seems. She's always on the go to conferences or literary festivals or publicity tours that her publisher has arranged to promote her latest book. And in her travels, she constantly meets people who want to talk to her, who want to tell her the stories of their lives and their innermost secrets. Faye reports these mostly one-way conversations to us unedited and there is something almost magical in the way that we get a clear picture of the person who is talking by reading Faye's transcriptions of their words.

Seldom do we hear Faye speak. She is the most self-effacing of narrators, almost never inserting her thoughts into the narrative and yet, even in her silence, we do gain a full portrait of her as well, simply by listening to the way people talk to her and the things they say to her and about her.

She does take time and care to describe the settings of her conversations - the hotels, the restaurants, the planes, the walks on the streets of the city - and her descriptions are almost photographic in their clarity.

Not only her descriptions of the settings but her descriptions of the people who talk to her are sharply perceptive. We "see" those people as if they were standing in front of us.

But the stories these people tell are the thing. They talk about their lives, their loves, families, friends, jobs. Many of the tales revolve around marriage, separation, and children. In this, the stories reflect Faye's life as well and the life of the author since she, too, was married and divorced and is dealing with raising two sons on her own.

In Kudos, Faye travels to an unnamed sunny port city in Europe to participate in a literary festival. The theme of the book seems to be success and failure: which writer(s) will succeed and thrive; which will win the prize and what will it cost them? In Outline, we got the parameters of Faye's self-definition; in Transit, she was moving on, renovating her house, redefining her life; now we see the outcome of all that effort and where it has taken her.

Several of the stories told to Faye and her own experiences to some extent deal with sexism or ageism. The difference in how the work of women writers is judged seems a subtle theme of the book. And the final scene of the book (no spoilers here) is so gross and seemingly fraught with metaphor and symbol that it makes this point in a particularly literal and primal way.

Rachel Cusk's accomplishment with this trilogy has been extraordinary, in my opinion. Her unique method of telling the story almost entirely through a second-person narrative was brilliantly creative. Faye's story is one that I will not soon forget.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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