果冻影院

Rachel Cusk is an author some British reviewers love to hate. Take her new book for example, one reviewer at the Times derided the author as 鈥渙ne of our truly world-class mis茅rables鈥�, trivialising and reviling what she calls 鈥渁 plotless, introspective book about how hard it is to be Rachel Cusk鈥�.

Leaving aside the conflation of the author with her many different and notably self-effacing narrators, the reviewer鈥檚 impatience betrays a demand for ideological and formal conformity. Why, she implies, can鈥檛 Cusk just write happily about the things 鈥� marriage, children 鈥� women should be happy about?听

Parade is a searching book written against conformity. It is an exploration of the role of gender in the genesis and reception of art 鈥� a novel in which selfhood, creativity and family relations are submitted to unflinching analytical scrutiny.听

Cusk鈥檚 examination of these subjects is conducted through a kaleidoscope of narratives, told from different points of view, in which the same themes crystallise and dissolve again and again.听

The book鈥檚 four chapters focus on the lives of artists, each of whom is referred to as 鈥淕鈥�. 鈥淭he Stuntman鈥� tells the story of an artist who, 鈥減erhaps because he could find no other way to make sense of his time and place in history, began to paint upside down鈥�. 鈥淭he Midwife鈥� tells the story of an artist who paints 鈥渉orrible, pornographical and gleeful鈥� works as a visceral response to her parents鈥� disapproval and neglect.听

鈥淭he Diver鈥� assembles a cast of academics and art professionals around a restaurant table. Together they discuss a major exhibition of this chapter鈥檚 G, which has been cancelled, after a man jumped to his death from the museum. 鈥淭he Spy鈥� tells the story of a writer turned filmmaker who, working under cover of a pseudonym, discovers that cinema will allow him 鈥渢o see without being seen: for [him] there was no better definition of the artist鈥檚 vocation鈥�.听

The third-person chronicles of these artists鈥� lives are interwoven with strands of first-person narration 鈥� occasionally the first-person singular but, with increasing prominence, the first-person plural. 鈥淭he Stuntman鈥�, for example, interlaces the story of its G鈥檚 inverted painting with a first-person description of an assault suffered by an unnamed female narrator.听

鈥淭he Midwife鈥�, likewise, interlaces the unfurling of its G鈥檚 career with an account of trips taken by an unspecified 鈥渨e鈥� to a strange farm in a foreign country. In the final chapter, the narrating 鈥渨e鈥� reasserts itself, its numerous repetitions lending a mesmerising, almost incantatory rhythm to its tortured meditations on the life and death of an unloving mother.

In the novel鈥檚 closing pages, the abstraction of 鈥渨e鈥� gradually expands to encompass all the various artists and narrators encountered in previous chapters 鈥� the evocative roominess of 鈥渨e鈥� ultimately broadening to include all humanity. The daring of such stylisation, and such implied universalism, recalls the 鈥渨e"s which throng the soliloquies of Virginia Woolf鈥檚 characters in The Waves, her modernist masterpiece.听

These shifting pronouns, along with the book鈥檚 changes of location and biographical focus, constitute a key aspect of its challenge to standard modes of interpretation. The effect of Cusk鈥檚 artful construction, with its enigmatic symmetries and juxtapositions, is to sharpen the reader鈥檚 awareness of the many different perspectives the book assumes and explores.听

The obliqueness of the stories鈥� relation to each other echoes the disjunctiveness prized by the modernists, and their use of structural tension (between, say, the five parts of The Waste Land or the 18 episodes of Ulysses) to engage the reader in the work of interpretation. It is for us to provide the coherence that the fragmented book itself withholds.听

Parade鈥檚 name and chapter titles contribute to the mystery surrounding its meaning, and recall the conceptual one-word titles of her Outline trilogy (Outline, Transit, Kudos), written between 2014 and 2018, which marked a new phase in Cusk鈥檚 experimentalism. Each seems suggestively suspended between the literal and metaphorical, its surface simplicity accruing darker shades of irony as the novel unfolds.听

Even more obviously riddling is Cusk鈥檚 choice to anonymise the artists in her parade. In an earlier version of 鈥漈he Stuntman鈥� published in the New Yorker in 2023, the artist Louise Bourgeois, writer Norman Lewis and painter Paula Moderson-Becker appeared by name. In an interview, Cusk named painter Georg Baselitz as a model for one of the figures in this book. In her recent Northcliffe Lecture at 果冻影院, she named film director 脡ric Rohmer as another.听

In Parade, however, all such identifiers are erased. There is something dream-like and allegorically resonant about this masking of identity, this cryptic condensation of ostensibly distinct human personalities into a single character 鈥� "G鈥�.听

The nature of the self has long been a preoccupation for Cusk. In Parade, the artistic self takes centre stage as she ponders what Freud called 鈥渢he riddle of the miraculous gift that makes an artist鈥�. On the one hand, the book seems to tease us with the notion that correctly naming one of Cusk鈥檚 鈥淕"s might elucidate the work鈥檚 tantalising opacities. Who are these artists? Where among them is Cusk? Who is the narrating "I鈥�? Who the narrating 鈥渨e鈥�?听

On the other hand, the author鈥檚 narrative strategies seem to bring the reality of identity into question. How else to explain the striking similarities between the life stories of her chosen artists? In this parade, in which power, violence, loss and corruption emerge as leitmotifs, how different, really, is one from another?听

In its themes and forms, Parade is a daring and difficult book, one in which Cusk embraces abstraction, pursuing formal innovations which she knows risk alienating readers on a quest for less demanding narratives. Yet the challenges of Parade appear to be a matter of principle.听

In the opening chapter, the first-person narrator ponders 鈥渢he virtues of difficulty鈥�, observing 鈥渉ow far people have been prepared to run the risk of not being understood鈥�. This is a risk which Cusk, in this taut, haunting, exalting book, shows herself willing to take.听

This article originally appeared in on 12听June听2024.

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• Dr Scarlett Baron's academic profile
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