Arlington Park

Rachel Cusk is a brilliant writer. Every observation of hers seems so true, is written with such poetry & ease... this a book I'll be rereading for sure. The plot isn't that compelling, but by page one you realize you're in the hands of a true master. I love this book & highly recommend it to anyone who wants stark honesty when it comes to marriage, motherhood & friendship.

Rachel Cusk writes very well. Her prose is poetic, flowing, witty and lyrical. Her latest novel, Arlington Park, is a cynical analysis of domestic life and how small seemingly mundane things signify larger issues at hand. One example is how Solly, a housewife in suburban England, feels particularly oppressed by her husband surname: [quote] 'Solly Curly?' she said. 'Kerr-Leigh', Solly automatically amended. It had required a certain bravado, all those years before, to insist that her name be hyphenated with Martin's rather than replaced by it. That was what she thought marriage should be: a state of hyphenation. Yet most of the people they knew pronounced it as the woman had just done, as one word with the emphasis on the first syllable. That syllable was Martin's: it seemed a particularly insidious form of discrimination. [end quote] Since each chapter is narrated from a different character's perspective Arlington Park reads very much like a collection of short stories, loosely strung together by themes of domestic oppression, self-denial, marital boredom and a general sense of resignation. Juliet feels 'murdered' by her husband, Amanda is irritated by her children, Maisie feels imprisoned by her life... the list goes on. Although Rachel Cusk is a formidable wordsmith, the storyline is at times bogged down by the sheer load of lyrical detail. As a reader, you wish for some progression, some events to sweep down and propel the story along. Perhaps this overriding sense of 'stagnation' is precisely what the author is trying to achieve. At the end of the day, Arlington Park is a well-written if not entirely satisfying read. However, if you're easily seduced by great prose give this one a try.

Is difficult to find an author as Rachel Cusk. She writes about motherhood and the little and daily things of life with a kind of humour acid, dark, smart. The women of AP are ordinary and that is, for me, the big surprise of this book: how it reflects lirically and brilliantly and honestly the ying and yang of being a woman. You could think is depressing or whatever, and you could also think Rachel Cusk is like a friend tha understood that big thing you couldnt express in words. She could.

"Arlington Park" is basically "Becoming a Mother" as fiction. The dangerous and difficult aspects of motherhood are here in all their grittiness. When Cusk writes about the time in a woman's life just before she gives birth: "It was how she sometimes thought it might be to approach death. Everything grew very slightly remote: the fit of life loosened, as though it were a skin preparing itself to be shed" Those of us who have been there know exactly what she means. Cusk is introspective and honest about motherhood and family life. An excellent read for anyone who can and wishes to think critically about marriage and family life.

Don't be put off by the overbaked, "Last-night-I-dreamed-it-rained-on-Manderlay" introduction. Best to just skip it, and make your purchase assessment based on the "Juliet" or "Solly" chapters. No one writes more affectingly than Rachel Cusk of the closely personal, nor spins out so much readable and re-readable, absolutely treasurable prose. If "Arlington Park" falls short of "linear" coherence, and/or has been woefully served in the cutting room, great chunks of it, nonetheless, are brilliantly, touchingly done, and may be taken quite for their own sake, whatever relation they may--or may not--have to the rest of the book and its heavy-handed metaphors (if any). Like so much of Cusk's writing, "AP" is a mixed bag from which there is "sui generis" prime swag to be extracted: interior riffs, in the main, the due progeny of her wonderful non-fiction "A Life's Work."