Transit

From the opening unsolicited promise of cosmic, or at least astrological, significance, the central character of Rachel Cusk’s novel observes life in transit. Whether it be a case of changing homes, or substantially renovating a dwelling, or the transition of state from single to married to single to married, or just the acquisition of a beautiful dog — almost everything, it seems, proffers opportunities for meaningfulness. In the face of so much meaning, how indeed could one fail “to regain faith in the grandeur of the human”? Yet the grandeur of the human comes in such banal, mundane, clothing, it might easily pass unnoticed. As in her previous novel, Outline, Cusk’s narrator, Faye, notices.

The writing here is measured and show more calm. Even a melodramatic scene toward the end is observed as one might treat a Greek chorus, its significance no greater or less than any other event on offer. But does this speak to some ultimate purpose, a fate to which we must reconcile ourselves? Or does the equivocation put the lie to the presumption of meaningfulness? Faye doesn’t take sides, slipping away at the end like a house guest after a trying party. And so we are left with what? A passing storm? The transit of a planet across a constellation? A novel? In each case we are left to make of them what we will.

These are heady metaphysical waters. But Cusk handles such matters gently. You might easily go along on the current and only realize your transposition of locale after the fact. Just what reading a novel ought to enable. Nicely done!

Definitely recommended. show less

I liked Rachel Cusk's novel, Outline, quite a bit, even more once I saw what she was doing with it. So it wasn't a big surprise that I enjoyed every page of its sequel, Transit, although she's not doing quite the same thing here. With Outline, the protagonist was passive, becoming a receptacle for the stories of others. In Transit, she has returned to the UK from Greece and purchased a flat in London that came with terrible neighbors and a desperate need of renovation.

For a long time, I said, I believed that it was only through absolute passivity that you could learn to see what was really there. But my decision to create a disturbance by renovating my house had awoken a different reality, as though I had disturbed a beast, sleeping in show more its lair. I had started to become, in effect, angry.

The protagonist is still listening to people as they bare parts of themselves to her, but she's also present in her life in a way she wasn't in Outline. That said, this is still not a plot-driven novel. She attends a literary festival, gets work done on her house and has coffee or dinner with people. Yet, the glimpses into the minds of others is fascinating, as well as her own reactions to what they tell her. And Cusk's writing is very fine; it's as clear and unobtrusive as water. show less

I really liked Rachel Cusk's Outline, and I enjoyed Transit even more. Her writing is brilliant — mesmerizing and distinctive. Whenever I read her, I find the cadence of my thoughts start to echo the cadence of her prose. So many ideas fill the conversations in this book: the nature of reality and how to live; the singular moments of self-revelation that define oneself; the relationships between passivity and power, self-discipline and evil; freedom and change. Themes and images recur throughout, such as the windows of a room serving as frames through which to observe others, or as mirrors reflecting the contrivances within. Mostly, though, it feels like a passage through a certain period of life, a liminal stage, a resetting.

he often caught himself living in the mistaken belief that transformation was the same thing as progress. Things could look very different while remaining the same: time could seem to have altered everything, without changing the thing that needed to be changed.

Back with Faye in the second book of the Outline Trilogy. And the protagonist, like the reader, seems to be warming up to and with the narrative. Still distant, still interlocutor; but, more of her own story titrating into the story itself with the second book.

As with the first book, the story is based around conversations and thoughts of Faye and the people around her. Her real estate agent, her builders, her children, her students, her neighbours, amongst others. In a sense, show more the idea of the main character as central: with everything and everyone evolving around her is taken apart in this series. So that the other characters don't seem completely attached to the protagonist as would be the case normally, but, realistically, have lives of their own, not dictated by actions whose purpose is majorly to advance the protagonist's course as often happens, and that of the book in turn, but whose lives and actions intersect with those of the protagonist where it naturally would and then parting, like two cars on the opposite sides of a road blinking their lights at each other in the night before disappearing towards their separate courses.

The narrator still remains protagonist, not just recounting the life of others as with a book like Cather's [b:My Ántonia|17150|My Ántonia (Great Plains Trilogy, #3)|Willa Cather|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1389151307l/17150._SY75_.jpg|575450], nor distributed parts with multiple voices steering the story as with Woolf’s choral [b:The Waves|46114|The Waves|Virginia Woolf|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1645526068l/46114._SY75_.jpg|6057263]. But the narrator is the central figure and also medium through which the other characters' stories emerge. So, in a way, a decentralised protagonist. Which to me, as I can't recall encountering this in literature before, and the certain gap of knowledge could make this statement enormously ignorant, as equivalently revolutionary as the discovery that the earth is not the centre other planetary bodies revolve around.

The plot consists of the uneventful, or what would be considered mundane–especially with the belief that fiction is supposed to entertain through its telling of the extraordinary. Bickering neighbours, a dull creative writing class, a struggling younger writer seeking advice with her book, a house purchase and renovation, and a visit to a relative that ends up messy making up the bulk of the story. But isn’t life mostly composed of this? The ordinary motions that make up what is called living, and reading through this book reminded me of the Chista Wolf quote: “Before falling asleep I think that life consists of days like this one. Points that are joined together by a line in the long run, if one is lucky. That they can also fall apart in a meaningless heap of time past, that only an incessant, unwavering effort gives meaning to the small units of time we live in…”

The function of conversation in this book opens narrative in a unique way so that subjects like life, living with others, no longer living with others, can be delved into. And also shows how conversation reveals human behaviour in how we construct and reconstruct what happened to us and others and how we relay it to ourselves and others.

I've found that this series so far is incredible. Fiction at its best. Where the experimental converges with the expected and blends magnificently into an extraordinary work. show less

In Transit, Rachel Cusk continues the adventures of Faye, the unflappable and preternaturally observant narrator of her previous novel, Outline. Faye is a fiction writer with a significant professional profile: she is invited to literary festivals, asked to run workshops and participate in panel discussions. The tone and structure of Transit is identical to Outline. In a series of loosely connected vignettes, Faye finds herself in the company of various individuals in ever varying circumstances, and in each case assumes the role of audience as they narrate the story of some highly personal, unforgettable or otherwise noteworthy life event. Faye’s circumstances have changed. In Transit, she is newly separated from her husband and show more living in London, having purchased a run-down council flat for herself and her two sons. The disruption to Faye’s own life caused by the move into and subsequent renovation of the flat is the novel’s chief framing element. One could make a case that Transit is not a novel but in fact a collection of linked stories. Indeed, it often seems to the reader that, despite the commonalities that many of the episodes share, each exists in its own isolated sphere of time and space. In one Faye meets an old boyfriend and learns that he is in a new relationship that, paradoxically, was affirmed and strengthened by an atrocious act of neglect on his part. In another she meets a writer at a literary festival who gleefully tells stories of his stepfather’s cruelty to anyone willing to listen. And in another she drives out of the city to have dinner with her cousin and his wife, some friends of theirs, and their children, and the evening deteriorates into tantrums and squabbling. In each of these chapters, as in others in the book, we witness people at pains to explain or justify themselves, to tell an intimate tale of how events they have gone through have shaped the person they have become. Where Outline seemed to imply that the “self” we construct for public consumption is completed in our transactions with other people, Transit focuses instead on the notion that life is an ongoing process of adjusting, altering and tailoring ourselves to suit changing needs and circumstances, suggesting that we are constantly in transit: from one place to another, or in transition from one state of being to another. Both novels share the cool tone and visual precision of Cusk’s razor-sharp, deliciously readable prose. Transit, a triumph of form blended with content, additionally showcases the author’s remarkable ability to duplicate a narrative strategy from a previous novel and create yet another fresh and compelling work of fiction, one that not only stands on its own but equals and perhaps even surpasses the success of its predecessor. show less

Finally finishing the trilogy after reading out of order, but fills in some gaps. Same writing style that I love where each person the narrator encounters gets a monologue essentially as they expound on themselves or a topic dear to them. Here it’s a builder, a best friend, some dates, and professional colleagues. She has just moved to London after the breakup of her marriage and there is a flat to renovate and some conflict with completely toxic neighbors downstairs, which seems to be the central intrigue but is left unresolved. Also some ambiguous anecdotes about mothering and her two children - she has custody, but isn’t devoted to it. Same great observations about life and human nature thrown in off-handedly: “by failing he show more had created loss and loss was the threshold to freedom.” This comes in a casual conversation with a dog-walker. There are profound moments everywhere when one is attuned. Not a book for readers who need action. show less

Exceptional. The nameless narrator, "The writer", shares vignettes from her conversations- most from over the course of a couple of days. These conversations are all insightful and deep in a striking manner, and if they are not going along this path the writer prompts them with unexpected questions that bend them in this direction. Dialogs with her hairdresser, the nasty trolls in the council flat under her own, an ex-lover bumped into on the street, a friend in the fashion industry, a cousin... all in all a heterogeneous conglomerate cemented by her laser sharp observations and questioning. With her guidance all plumb the depths of the human soul - which of course seems a little unrealistic, as I also found in Outline. Not so show more unrealistic as to not really enjoy each and every little story, with stunning prose and an outlook on life, relationships and what is important that is quite unique. show less