Book 222: Outline

"It is interesting how keen people are for you to do something they would never dream of doing themselves, how enthusiastically they drive you to your own destruction: even the kindest ones, the ones that are most loving, can rarely have your interests truly at heart, because they are usually advising you from within lives of greater security and greater confinement, where escape is not a reality but simply something they dream of sometimes. Perhaps, he said, we all are like animals in the zoo, and once we see that one of us has got out of the enclosure we shout at him to run like mad, even though it will only result in him becoming lost." 

Dates read: April 6-8, 2018

Rating: 6/10

Every so often, I wake up and am confused about where I am. Why is the sun coming through the windows in that way? Why am I not in my childhood room, in the bed I slept in until I graduated high school? Or the one from my third year of law school, to this day my favorite apartment I've ever lived in? It doesn't happen regularly, but on the occasions it does I have to remind myself that I'm not 17 and needing to get into the shower so I won't be late for school, or that I'm not in Tuscaloosa anymore, that was literally a decade ago now. That I'm me, the me that exists right now, and I'm exactly where I was when I went to sleep last night.

That feeling of poignant unreality permeates Rachel Cusk's Outline, which follows Faye, a British woman recently divorced and in Greece to teach a week-long writing course over the summer. The book consists of ten conversations that she has with other people, starting with her seat neighbor on the flight over (with whom she continues to interact during the week) and ending with the next person staying in the apartment she's been put up in. In between, she talks to old friends, new friends, and her class about subjects ranging from animals to marriage and divorce. Well, more like gets talked at rather than talks to. Faye is not a big participant in these conversations, and so what we get about her is...wait for it...mostly an outline, defined more by what's going on around her than anything we see of her interiority.

This isn't an easy book to write about, because there's not a lot of "there" there. Virtually nothing happens, and since Faye is such a cipher and only her airplane seat neighbor makes more than one appearance, there's nothing to speak of in terms of character building or development. Instead, we're left with admittedly lovely writing and a lot of meditation on themes. Dislocation/unreality, processing trauma, illusions, and an unexpectedly heavy emphasis on marital relationships are explored throughout the book, and at the end, Faye heads home and back to her life in the UK without any sense that this week in her life has meant anything.

I can appreciate a book with an unconventional narrative structure, but this one never quite came together for me. Cusk uses language beautifully, you can feel while you read it that each word, each phrase was chosen with care. But the way she sacrificed plot and character development to focus exclusively on theme makes this feel like a writing exercise more than a book. There's not a story here, really. There are just words.

This isn't to say there's nothing of value here. The first section of the book, the first conversation, in which Faye and her seat neighbor discuss his personal life and children and divorces, is by itself a masterful short story. And there are moments of brilliance in her descriptions...Faye finding herself thrown off-balance at the acceleration of a motor boat captured a sensation I've personally experienced many times before in a way that resonated powerfully. And some of the people in my book club, for which I read this one, really connected with it. But all I can offer here are my personal reactions and review, and for me, this didn't work. I can't recommend it, but if it's something that intrigues you, I won't warn you away from it either.

One year ago, I was reading: Going Clear

Two years ago, I was reading: Henry and Cato

Three years ago, I was reading: A Leg To Stand On

Four years ago, I was reading: The Guest Room

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Book 222: Outline

Top Ten Tuesday: Places Mentioned In Books That I’d Like to Visit

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we're talking about places in books that we'd like to visit. We live in a wide world and there's always more to see of it, so here's where books have me intrigued to go to!

Hawaii (The Descendants): This novel about a family dealing with loss as the father is also dealing with a court case about land ownership is deeply rooted in its Hawaiian setting and made it sound just incredibly lovely.

The Tuscan countryside (Under the Tuscan Sun): I've been to Florence, and it's gorgeous, but this book really made me want to visit the rural areas in Tuscany!

Athens (Outline): Cusk doesn't make the city sound all that fantastic in the summer heat, but she does make the ocean sound amazing.

Morocco (Less): Less' trip through the country may be ill-starred, but the beauty of the desert at night is vivid in Greer's rendering.

Puget Sound (The Highest Tide): I didn't love this book, but it did make the Puget Sound tidewaters sound just magical beautiful.

Northern Beaches (Big Little Lies): The contrast of the idyllic-sounding setting against the domestic turbulence of its residents is kind of the point, but also the beachy parts sound gorgeous.

Cambridgeshire (Rebecca): Manderly the house isn't real, but the area of England where it's supposed to be is and I want to see it (and the homes that inspired Manderly) for myself.

Crimea (The Romanov Empress): It's supposed to be a lovely area, and the way it's depicted in this book as a place for rest and relaxation makes it seem even more appealing.

Delft (Girl With A Pearl Earring): The Netherlands seem like a cool place to visit, and the way this city is described in this book intrigued me!

Swedish islands (The Fly Trap): This memoir of a man who studies flies on a remote Swedish island makes that setting sound actually pretty interesting, even though it's not someplace I'd ever really thought about before.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Places Mentioned In Books That I’d Like to Visit

A Month In The Life: April 2018

Another slow month, another bumper crop of books. This spring has been so hot-and-cold (literally!) with the weather, with a 70 degree day followed by snow and a high in the lower 40s, that it's seemed safer to just plan to stay in and get cozy. I've come to a place where I feel content mostly staying in and lazing around if there's nothing particularly compelling going on and if this is what being in your 30s means I am HERE for it.


In Books...

• Freedom: Jonathan Franzen as a person is not my cup of tea, but damn the man can write. I will say, though, for all his skill in telling this story of a Midwestern family under strain, I thought the undercurrent of misanthropy generally, and misogyny in particular, detracted from the merits of the book. 
• Sophia of Silicon Valley: This book is really bad, you guys. Billed as a The Devil Wears Prada for the tech scene, it's more than anything a fawning paean to Steve Jobs...or, as she unimaginatively dubs his stand-in, "Scott Kraft". It has no wit or charm, the titular heroine is grating (as is virtually everyone else in the book), and there's no dramatic tension in the plot. I hated it so much.
• Outline: The prose is top-notch, but I was left unmoved by this book. It's structurally nontraditional (the recounting of ten conversations by the narrator, a recently divorced mother-of-two who goes to Athens to teach writing for a week) in a way that I could intellectually appreciate but didn't actually work for me.
• Silent Spring: This book made such an impact when it was published that it led to the creation of the EPA, and after reading it, it's easy to understand why. Carson conveys alarming scientific information in a straightforward, engaged way that gets under your skin. It gets a bit repetitive after a while, but it's a powerful message.
• The Color of Water: James McBride tells the story of his childhood, and the extraordinary woman who raised him...born in Poland as Ruchel Zylska, the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi became Ruth McBride Jordan, who married a black man and founded a church with him, had eight children, and then after his death married again and had another four, all of whom graduated from college despite the family's poverty. McBride parallels his own childhood with what he later came to know of his mother's with skill and affection. 
• Sex at Dawn: An interesting re-examination of the conventional wisdom of evolutionary psychology as it relates to mating behavior...what if what we think we know about men being "designed" to want one faithful woman to ensure that they're raising only their own offspring, and women being "designed" to want a man who won't become emotionally involved with another woman who will pose a threat to the resources she needs to raise her children was wrong? It probably is, according to this thorough analysis, which raises powerful questions.
• Chosen Country: Public lands are a huge issue in the West in a way I never realized until I moved out here. So I was interested in this book about the takeover of that wildlife refuge in Oregon a few years back by a reporter who was there, but honestly his best work on this has already been published and got expanded to book length by the addition of more information about him and his personal life than I was interested in. It's not bad, but it's not organized especially well or very comprehensive. 
• The Kingmaker's Daughter: After four non-fiction reads in a row, this fourth entry in Philippa Gregory's The Cousin's War series hit the spot. Her brand of historical fiction tends to be heavier on the fiction than the history, but she's good at finding a compelling hook into the lives of royal women (this time, Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who reigned as Richard III's queen) and I enjoy her work. 
• Rosemary's Baby: I've seen the movie, and honestly now that I have I think maybe I prefer it to the book? The book isn't bad, it's a short, relatively light horror novel that plays on the fears related to pregnancy and powerfully demonstrates the insidious way women can be manipulated through isolation. But the movie is SO good that the book doesn't quite measure up.

In Life...

• Not a lot! Did our taxes, went out to dinner with friends to see two of them off as they move to Seattle, did some planning for girls trip late this year, thought about some long weekends we'd like to take this year...this was a low-key kind of month.

One Thing:

I quite liked both of her first two albums, but Kacey Musgraves' latest release, Golden Hour, is truly wonderful. Her vocals and songwriting recall classic, traditional country a la Patsy Cline, but her production pushes the boundaries of the genre in a way that makes for absolutely magical listening. Even if you don't think you like "country music", I'd recommend turning it on and letting it play a little. It might surprise you.

Gratuitous Pug Photo:

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A Month In The Life: April 2018