'Outline' by Rachel Cusk

I plucked 'Outline' off the shelves in Waterstones a while ago for several reasons. The blurb says it is about a writer going to Athens to teach a writing course and all about the people she encounters and converses with during her visit. I liked the idea of reading about a writer. I liked the idea of it being set in Athens. And I liked the idea that it focused on people, their relationship with the world and themselves. Despite how promising the book sounded to me, it remained untouched on my bookshelves at home for several months until my course leader at uni suggested I read it. Apparently, I write all about people and relationships too. And I needed to think about point of view. So, almost reluctantly (for some reason, I struggle getting through books I have been 'told' to read...) I settled down in the post New Year den I had created for myself on the sofa and began to read.

Author, Rachel Cusk

'Outline' is a bit of an odd one. It is written from a first person perspective but, unconventionally, this character remains a indistinct, a blur, a shadow of a person. Instead of reading about her thoughts, musings, emotions, actions as you do in the vast majority of books, the character becomes an audience to a chain of narratives, the lives, loves, heartaches and traumas of other people, those she encounters on her journey. And it is these narratives which make up the text. You are told the stories of countless people and hear their anxieties, perceptions on life, their pains and pleasures, their family lives, their memories. If you have ever people watched and truly wondered what stories the strangers surrounding you had, you should give it a read.

Through the tales of others, themes emerge (loss, the difficulty of intimacy) which give us an slight glimpse into the struggles of the narrator. Although it is only a sense. We never hear her thoughts or emotions. Nothing. We learn only a few details about the narrator: she is a writer, recently divorced, has two boys, is trying to get a mortgage loan. When her name is used towards the end of the novel, it is startling- you are almost ashamed at not having known it until that point. As the text progresses,  the slightly unsettling and upsetting feeling you have when reading it becomes almost unbearable. These people the narrator speaks to do not care about her. They offload their lives. She listens. She
makes brief comments, which we never hear. She takes things from their tales that make us realise

ultimately how alone she is. How disconnected. That she is moving through her life having now given up on making a real go at anything- she merely wants to drift through the rest of it unnoticed. It makes us realise how alone we ultimately are in the world, how self consumed we are, that relationships, with anyone, are doomed. One character spends several pages revealing intricate details of his life before asking the narrator, as an afterthought, "What about yourself...working on something?" which is where the chapter ends, our narrator never having answered, as her answer was never truly wanted.

Rachel Cusk's 'Outline' is not an easy read but it is fascinating, subtle and beautiful. If you are intrigued by the hidden lives of others, check it out.