Books
by Rachel Cusk
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Outline |
You could sum up this book as people speaking for themselves. The narrator - teaching creative writing for a week in Athens - encourages the people she meets to recount themselves in almost uninterrupted monologues, punctuated by occasional needle-sharp observations on life and human behaviour. Almost nothing happens. The result is a sort of compendium of widely varying accounts of facing life, relating to each other, surviving failed relationships. It's a book to loath or love. I loved it.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 94 Autumn 2019) |
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Second Place |
A writer, living in a remote landscape with her enigmatic husband and adult daughter, invites a celebrated painter to base himself in their annex for a while. She hopes he will translate the marsh views and her feelings to canvas, but the visit brings unexpected challenges. It’s a literary but very readable and at times drily funny short novel, mostly conveyed via M’s thoughts, but with dramatic moments that reminded me of Iris Murdoch.
(Victoria Grey-Edwards - bwl 114 Autumn 2024) |
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