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"A woman writer visits a Europe in flux, where questions of personal and political identity are rising to the surface and the trauma of change is opening up new possibilities of loss and renewal. Within the rituals of literary culture, Faye finds the human story in disarray amid differing attitudes toward the public performance of the creative persona. She begins to identify among the people she meets a tension between truth and representation, a fissure that accrues great dramatic force as show more Kudos reaches a profound and beautiful climax"-- show lessTags
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JuliaMaria Die komplexen Gefühle von Müttern gegenüber ihren Kindern und ihrem eigenen Lebenslauf.
JuliaMaria Mutterschaft als das bestimmende Lebensthema
aprille I felt that Kudos was a modern version of A Sportsman's Notebook. In both, a nearly silent narrator travels through the world and transcribes the stories that people tell. In Turgenev, the stories accumulate to give a sense of the unjust misery of serfs' lives and in Cusk's book, a sense of the struggle of middle-aged women to live and work in a space where men take up most of the oxygen.
Member Reviews
Every word of this novel and the two before is different from anything else you've read, but subtly, not obviously. On the surface, you're learning what the narrator hears as she goes about her life and encounters various people, from passengers on planes to an old boyfriend, to the publicity person in this last book when the narrator, her career firmly established, is in (Portugal?) at a literary conference. People tell her their stories and she recounts them calmly, thoughtfully, without judgement, although sometimes you intuit that she believes the person is telling the truth, sometimes probably not, that probably they are rewriting the narrative to make themselves look better or victimized or powerful or simply acceptable to show more themselves. Almost always the atmosphere is calm, there is little drama. Even when there is conflict, the narrator tends to withdraw rather than confront. (One exception would be when her children, two boys, are at issue.) The narrator is divorced and now remarried, but her life is not under the microscope and while she mentions various experiences, it is only as they relate to the present moment. Under that smooth surface the book seethes. The sea is often present or a presence (sometimes in a painting, sometimes as a memory, sometimes for real), dangerous but embracing. Stop and think now. What is a woman in the eyes of men? In their own eyes as a result of not considering other options? A vessel. Passive. But also . . . dangerous. The sea. THE NOVEL MODELS WHAT WE DO AS WOMEN. Listen. Empathize. Absorb. Reflect. In this last novel the sea is a presence from which the town has cut itself off, building huge warehouses, docks, a fenced military post, so that one can only get to the sea by car. For a port to cut the people from the sea, is to cut them from nourishment. Pretty much every aspect of this novel that you choose to focus on will take you somewhere and I'm not sure I'm equal to the task of describing the effect the book had on me. It is, make no mistake, a meditation on what women experience, endure and suffer in the world of men. Through the course of the three books this becomes clear, not angrily, not resignedly, but acknowledged. Towards the end of this novel the woman who translated one of the narrator's novels says, after describing how her husband deprives her of even her child's respect, carefully and subtly and inside the law, "There is a passage in one of your books . . . where you describe enduring something similar, and I translated it very carefully and with great caution as if it were something fragile that I might mistakenly break or kill, because these experiences do not fully belong to reality and the evidence for them is a matter of one person's word against another's. It was important that I didn't get any of the words wrong . . and afterwards I felt that while you had legitimized this half-reality by writing about it, I had legitimized it again by managing to transpose it into another language and ensuring its survival." Another woman responds immediately, "We survive . . Our bodies outlive their use of them, and this is what annoys them most of all. These bodies continue to exist, getting older and uglier and telling them the truth they don't want to hear." (If you don't know your feminist legal history you won't fully get the point of this interaction. Never kid yourself for a nanosecond that the laws under which you live are written to protect "everyone". Made by men almost exclusively, the laws have been arranged to protect men. Even the smallest shift elicits a furious pushback.) The implications of the three novels, especially taken all together, are haunting, disturbing, thought-provoking, moving and, at the price of sounding bossy, important. This is not a simple novel to comprehend, and I expect many women won't want to take the plunge and most men won't touch it! The half-way reality. It's half-way because we don't want to see it as more than that. We know it's there. By the way, some men do get it, and they suffer accordingly. Brava Cusk. ***** show less
There's not much plot to the final novel in Rachel Cusk's trilogy. A middle-aged woman author attends a few writers's conferences in Europe and has conversations with people. But the plot is beside the point, here the protagonist is almost absent, instead, she's a witness, someone who listens as others reveal themselves to her. And each person's monologue addresses in some way how children are affected by the relationship between parents. The format allows Cusk to come at this from different angles, from people discussing different things.
This isn't a novel that makes writing about it easy, even as it looks at writers and publishing. I found the entire trilogy to be brilliant and to be doing something different within the confines of show more what we call fiction. While each book can be read separate from the others, what Cusk is doing here is best experienced by reading the entire trilogy. And having read Kudos, I'm ready to turn around and begin the process from the first book, to see what more is there. show less
This isn't a novel that makes writing about it easy, even as it looks at writers and publishing. I found the entire trilogy to be brilliant and to be doing something different within the confines of show more what we call fiction. While each book can be read separate from the others, what Cusk is doing here is best experienced by reading the entire trilogy. And having read Kudos, I'm ready to turn around and begin the process from the first book, to see what more is there. show less
"I should put a lot of shit in the play," - heti
We are reminded of Woolf's commentary on Shakespeare in A Room of One's Own, that the sign of The Bard's greatness is that he has "consumed all impediments." What appears to be a clairvoyant description on a first reading, seems, perhaps, a simplification in service of Woolf's argument the second time around. How often do we find that it is the trace of identity, the block or impediment to writing, which becomes the fulcrum of strength in the text. In Cusk's own essays, (Coventry collection) she elevates the fragmentary effort characterized by writing in the drawing room as the inchoate form of a 'Female textuality'. Yet what occurs here is on a different level. What is the author's show more response to endless kudos, endless desserts i.e. those writing workshops and speaking circuits which are now the metastatic content of the entire novel (a pleasant 1/3 of the text in Outline then an exhausting 2/3 in Transit, and now constituting so much of the novel that one relishes the exception). Has anything good ever come from hatred of the text?
Almost certainly "yes," though I have significant reservations in this case. If we are to agree with James Elkins that Cusk "writes the 21st century in 19th century prose," then we might apprehend why she does not have the tools-on-hand to leverage the unmasked loathing of fawning public, mouthy interviewers, publishers' contracts, and literary (vicious) circles into a strength.
We begin with what is almost certainly the sarcastic inversion of the encounter with a stranger on a plane in the opening scene of Outline, which, rather than a divulsion marked by the self-serving elisions which are likely not even self-conscious, we read the direct account of a transgression which acknowledges, "men do not even have to pretend anymore." There is a certain inadequacy in the compulsion to write men acting hideously. The anonymous 'neighbor' of Outline was, in fact, the more demoniac figure because he can be laughed off. A curious feature of my edition of the text is that, immediately following the concluding image of the urinating Bear's cruel eyes, we read that Cusk has written a version of Medea. What is the woman's response when driven up into the Attic by a man's provocation (this is the real final word of the text). When I see another character approaching I want to walk away.
If I can permit myself to reference Jonathan Poole's critique of Cusk's so-called "Annihilated Perspective" as a catachresis, perhaps Cusk would do better to characterize her writing as, "More annihilated than repentant." (I have never discovered where Kierkegaard found this phrase.) It might be revealing to understand Cusk's project as like that second interviewer in this story, who, in the setting of a defective audiovisual system, is compelled to talk because there is a problem with the sound. She produces a compulsive sound-making which, oblique to semantic meaning, is a background against which one can perceive the artifact/distortion in a recording, and this flaw in the background becomes the foreground of our focus. There is a combination of phrases which can set things right, but it will always be inaccessible to her, first, because she is not an audiovisual engineer and therefore does not know the right words, second, because she has no access to the recording and therefore has no direct knowledge of the problem, and third, even if she knew the answer without the education and without direct knowledge of the situation, the audience would not even be listening. show less
In Kudos, the third volume of her brilliant Outline trilogy, Rachel Cusk returns to Faye, a British author of some repute who in this novel is attending a literary festival/conference in a warm, probably Mediterranean, European urban centre that remains unnamed throughout the book. Once again Faye encounters men and women who regale her with accounts of their personal struggles, largely marital in nature, and who speak at length, fluently and without reserve about matters artistic, aesthetic and philosophic. Most of her encounters are with people associated with the festival: other authors, her publisher, journalists. All have deeply personal and sometimes enlightening, sometimes harrowing stories to tell. One, a first-time author with show more self-esteem issues, narrates her account about the writers’ retreat in Italy she attended, operated by a wealthy widow who gains satisfaction (and ego gratification) from surrounding herself with young male literary celebrities, but who turns vindictive the moment her gift of solitude is rejected. Later, Faye meets with a female journalist who, having been engaged to interview Faye, instead spends the entire time talking about her own sister’s failed marriage. The characters in this novel are all described with grace, wit and visual exactness, as is the anonymous city they inhabit. For all the sharpness and precision of its details however, a divide remains between the reader and the action on the page that the narrative never quite manages to bridge. It begins with the unspecific urban setting (this is not the case with Outline, which is set in Athens, and Transit, set in London). And though everything is filtered through her consciousness, Faye remains somewhat aloof emotionally, and, where personal matters are concerned, withholding, almost to the point of secretiveness. For instance, we learn in an aside from the interviewer who’s obsessed with her sister’s marriage that Faye has remarried, but Faye herself has nothing to say about this. In conversation with another interviewer we learn that Faye’s son has left her to live with his father, but we get nothing beyond the bare fact. For this reason, Kudos strikes a tone of emotional reticence. Faye seems guarded, less willing than previously to share her hopes and fears with the reader. But this in no way diminishes what Rachel Cusk has accomplished in the Outline trilogy. These are milestone works: instantly engaging, fiercely intelligent, searching, original and thoroughly modern novels that cast a wise and jaundiced eye on the literary life, the institution of marriage, parenting, and the battle between the sexes. show less
3.5 This is the third in a trilogy and I read it first. Hate when that happens! Clever, meta story about writing and publishing. Faye, a writer attends an international literary festival in Europe and the entire book is other people talking to her and expounding on their opinions. She literally says nothing and does nothing actively - she is the passive receptor of everyone's stories, starting with the guy she sits next to on the airplane. The festival itself is a Kafka-esque example of futility - the writers stay at a remote hotel lacking amenities and must be bused or walk to all the venues; meals are apportioned by tickets and all the writers subtly one-up each other, but again, Faye is completely passive through all of this. Even show more people hired to interview her talk more than she does, using up her allotted time with their own vignettes and anecdotes. This becomes humorous, though it is not meant to be overtly so. There are some great observations about human nature and society - this is contemporary Europe struggling with Brexit - and those also add to the understated humor. In a rare opportunity to speak, Faye says: "I hadn't realized how much of navigation is the belief in progress and the assumption of fixity in what you have left behind." (34) This wry comment is in response to the hotel's circular architecture which has all the guest perpetually getting lost. Another writer comments: "There is a generalised yearning for the ideal of literature, as for the lost world of childhood, who authority and reality tended to seem so much greater than that of the present moment. Yet to return to that reality even for a day would for most people be intolerable....what is history other than memory without pain?" (35) When talk turns political someone mentions: "If you were unfamiliar with the political situation in our country [England], you might think you were witnessing not the machinations of a democracy, but the final surrender of personal consciousness into the public domain." (12) Finally, another observation of human nature: "A degree of self-deception was an essential part of the talent for living." (34) Leave it to a bunch of (fictional) writers and intellectuals to bog down a book with all sorts of profundity. This short book provided a lot to think about, not least of which was the rather bizarre ending. show less
For a third outing, Rachel Cusk’s Faye is once again the receptacle of other people’s tales of their lives’ trials and tribulations. This time Faye is attending a writers’ festival in an unnamed sunny European country. Mostly she encounters other writers, most of whom are significantly more famous than she is, or at least think they are. There are also publishers, arts journalists, event organizers, and more. Everyone seems to have their story to tell, though of Faye we learn little. Her son is growing up and her relationship with him and through him with his father seems to set the theme. For much of what Faye learns through her encounters is of broken relationships and how the women in them negotiate the dangers, emotional and show more physical, that arise in such situations. Especially, perhaps we hear of how children or the lack of children come to define and be defined by these relationships.
At times humorous, often sad, but always very human, we see writers engaging with each other in the ways that such an unusually solitary discipline might suggest, i.e. awkwardly. But beneath the surface of competitive ego management, the writers and those who work in the industry that facilitates them are just people struggling with very similar problems to others. The writing here, as in the previous two works in this trilogy, remains quietly distanced, observant, always potentially ironic, and lucid. And yet, I find it immensely compelling. Kudos are warranted, indeed.
Certainly recommended. show less
At times humorous, often sad, but always very human, we see writers engaging with each other in the ways that such an unusually solitary discipline might suggest, i.e. awkwardly. But beneath the surface of competitive ego management, the writers and those who work in the industry that facilitates them are just people struggling with very similar problems to others. The writing here, as in the previous two works in this trilogy, remains quietly distanced, observant, always potentially ironic, and lucid. And yet, I find it immensely compelling. Kudos are warranted, indeed.
Certainly recommended. show less
Autofiction is a genre that inhabits a place between fiction and memoir. In KUDOS (OUTLINE and TRANSIT being the other two novels in this trilogy that I must confess to not having read), Cusk intelligently explores a broad array of interesting ideas. Having read the two previous novels would prepare one better for the experience of reading KUDOS because the traditional elements of the novel are not apparent. Yet KUDOS is a surprisingly compelling read. There is little plot, setting, dialogue, progression, or character development. Instead Faye, the protagonist who resembles Cusk, listens attentively to a random array of people who eagerly talk about themselves. Curiously, Cusk seems to believe that fiction’s approach to storytelling show more is moribund and in need of streamlining, yet the people Faye encounters in this novel seem especially fond of telling their stories.
So what is on Cusk’s mind? First and foremost it is gender inequality. Clearly her views on this topic are cynical. In the final analysis, it is a man’s world where women are merely tolerated. The novel begins and ends with two misogynistic anecdotes that seem to symbolize her views. It opens with a self-absorbed fellow airline passenger who can’t seem to keep his legs out of the aisle showing little regard for the hard-working flight attendants. This guy clearly loves his dog more than his family. The novel ends with a more threatening image. Faye is swimming at an isolated beach at night when “a huge burly man with a great curling black beard and a rounded stomach and legs like hams” grasps “his thick penis and…urinate(s) into the water.” Other topics range far and wide, including the nature of freedom; identity in marriage and family; the many ways we delude ourselves with personal narratives; the failings of the literary lifestyle; the importance of suffering in the creation of art; the unstable state of European affairs; and especially how we fail to listen to each other.
The meager plot involves Faye traveling the book circuit in unnamed European cities. Most of the people she meets are associated with the literary life. These people are Cusk’s unwitting victims and she is merciless. They are characterized by self-congratulation, smugness, loquaciousness, and eccentricity. One journalist, who is assigned to interview Faye, spends all of his time talking about himself but in the end concludes that he has got everything he needs to write the article. In another anecdote, a bestselling novelist plays down the importance of ideas and admits that “the whole point of it was to make money.” Cusk precedes each encounter with a colorful, often unflattering, physical description followed by a quick launch into their secret stories. After a few pages of this, the characters disappear from the novel never to be heard from again.
Cusk’s presentation is controlled and clever, occasionally showing Faye interjecting expressionless humor and judgments that her characters never seem to get. Despite being filled with intriguing ideas and images, the novel often bogs down. Multiple unresolved conversations can be unsatisfying; the voices sound alike and seem to be a thinly disguised Cusk; the monologues seem superficial lacking interiority; and the anecdotal nature of the book makes many of the stories unmemorable. show less
So what is on Cusk’s mind? First and foremost it is gender inequality. Clearly her views on this topic are cynical. In the final analysis, it is a man’s world where women are merely tolerated. The novel begins and ends with two misogynistic anecdotes that seem to symbolize her views. It opens with a self-absorbed fellow airline passenger who can’t seem to keep his legs out of the aisle showing little regard for the hard-working flight attendants. This guy clearly loves his dog more than his family. The novel ends with a more threatening image. Faye is swimming at an isolated beach at night when “a huge burly man with a great curling black beard and a rounded stomach and legs like hams” grasps “his thick penis and…urinate(s) into the water.” Other topics range far and wide, including the nature of freedom; identity in marriage and family; the many ways we delude ourselves with personal narratives; the failings of the literary lifestyle; the importance of suffering in the creation of art; the unstable state of European affairs; and especially how we fail to listen to each other.
The meager plot involves Faye traveling the book circuit in unnamed European cities. Most of the people she meets are associated with the literary life. These people are Cusk’s unwitting victims and she is merciless. They are characterized by self-congratulation, smugness, loquaciousness, and eccentricity. One journalist, who is assigned to interview Faye, spends all of his time talking about himself but in the end concludes that he has got everything he needs to write the article. In another anecdote, a bestselling novelist plays down the importance of ideas and admits that “the whole point of it was to make money.” Cusk precedes each encounter with a colorful, often unflattering, physical description followed by a quick launch into their secret stories. After a few pages of this, the characters disappear from the novel never to be heard from again.
Cusk’s presentation is controlled and clever, occasionally showing Faye interjecting expressionless humor and judgments that her characters never seem to get. Despite being filled with intriguing ideas and images, the novel often bogs down. Multiple unresolved conversations can be unsatisfying; the voices sound alike and seem to be a thinly disguised Cusk; the monologues seem superficial lacking interiority; and the anecdotal nature of the book makes many of the stories unmemorable. show less
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Author Information
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Rachel Cusk was born on Feb 8, 1967 in Canada. She spent much of her childhood in Los Angeles and finished her education at St Mary's Convent, Cambridge. her education at St Mary's Convent, Cambridge. In 2003, Rachel Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'. That year she published The Lucky Ones (2003), show more her fourth novel, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award. Since then she has published four more novels; her latest is Outline (2014). She has also written several non-fiction books. A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother (2001) is a personal exploration of motherhood. The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy (2009) is a memoir about time in southern Italy. In 2015 she made the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist with her title Outline. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Kudos
- Original title
- Kudos
- Original publication date
- 2018-05-03
- People/Characters*
- Faye
- Important events*
- Brexit
- Epigraph
- She got up and went away
Should she not have? Not have what?
Got up and gone away.
Yes, I think she should have
Because it was getting darker.
Getting what? Darker. Well,
There was still some
Day ... (show all)left when she went away, well.
Enough to see the way.
And it was the last time she would have
been able . . .
Able? . . . to get up and go away.
It was the last time the very last time for
After that she could not
Have got up and gone away any more.
'She Got Up and Went Away', Stevie Smith - First words
- The man next to me on the plane was so tall he couldn't fit in his seat.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Ich schaute in seine grausamen, fröhlichen Augen und wartete darauf, dass er fertig wurde.
- Blurbers
- Garner, Dwight; Franklin, Ruth; Kavenna, Joanna
- Original language
- English UK
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.914
- Canonical LCC
- PR6053.U825
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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