Perhaps I am the wrong reader of Life of M. Certainly I find Cusk’s books unsympathetic generally. (I hated Outline.) But I was absorbed enough to want to finish this novel, even though I don’t find it impressive.
If a novelist believes that character doesn't matter why write novels? I like playful novels that are conscious of the form, but it seems very austere to think that the abolition of character in the novel is imperative because making up characters is fake and false and everything is bogus. Why carry on writing? Maybe I just miss the point of it all
There are experimental novels that try to do away with character. For example I love Beckett's trilogy, which progressively strips away the standard elements of fiction until you're left with a nameless voice alone in the darkness that can't stop talking. But Beckett is full of fear and sadness and humor. Cusk is dry stuff by comparison.
I'm mature enough to think when I encounter a writer like a painter I just don't get despite the rapturous critical reactions to them the fault is with me. Middle age has changed me, when I was younger I'd declare it the artists fault. Cusk's novels fit into that condition with me. I'm sure they're as good as people say, but, I can't see it
The bit about free indirect style running backwards is what I'll take away from this. And I think it's the reason for the incoherence you point at, not a separate problem. If the voice is borrowing from outside the book, then nobody inside it is holding anything, and "sacrifice" has no one to belong to.
Which is uncomfortable to read when you write in first person. The idiom is right there, it always sounds fine, and the character quietly leaves the room.
If a novelist believes that character doesn't matter why write novels? I like playful novels that are conscious of the form, but it seems very austere to think that the abolition of character in the novel is imperative because making up characters is fake and false and everything is bogus. Why carry on writing? Maybe I just miss the point of it all
There are experimental novels that try to do away with character. For example I love Beckett's trilogy, which progressively strips away the standard elements of fiction until you're left with a nameless voice alone in the darkness that can't stop talking. But Beckett is full of fear and sadness and humor. Cusk is dry stuff by comparison.
I'm mature enough to think when I encounter a writer like a painter I just don't get despite the rapturous critical reactions to them the fault is with me. Middle age has changed me, when I was younger I'd declare it the artists fault. Cusk's novels fit into that condition with me. I'm sure they're as good as people say, but, I can't see it
That’s more or less why I decided to read and write about this one.
The bit about free indirect style running backwards is what I'll take away from this. And I think it's the reason for the incoherence you point at, not a separate problem. If the voice is borrowing from outside the book, then nobody inside it is holding anything, and "sacrifice" has no one to belong to.
Which is uncomfortable to read when you write in first person. The idiom is right there, it always sounds fine, and the character quietly leaves the room.