“Straight to the man’s existential conditions”
“By Rachel Cusk is no place for chitchat.”
“Kudos, which is the final part in Rachel Cusks acclaimed autofiktiva trilogy, begins on an airplane, just as the initial Contours from 2014. When was the berättarjaget on the way to teach on a writing course in Athens after a bitter divorce. In the second novel, Transit, was she instead, alone with the kids and held on to move into a new apartment in London, to start a new, a private life. “
“this time is berättarjaget (her name is mentioned so rarely that it feels ridiculous to use it here), on the way to a författarkonferens in a country in southern Europe. And as usual, she is so significantly absent in the text: instead, it is the places where she was brought in and, above all, the candid stories of people she meets entrusts her, that constitutes the novel’s actual ”content”.”
“as well as the title Contours indicated when this new romanprojekt took its beginning, signed berättarjagets contours of the outside. It will be a dumb projection of all these people, a listener, a passive observer who observes, reflects, and at its height will ask you some questions. It is a kind of negative – and yet a subject. To be by or in relation to the other, of course, constitutes not only a formmässig aspect of the novels. “
“It is in the highest degree, the topic for all the people that appeals to our almost imperceptible romanjag. The man on the plane tells us about the family dog that recently died. A writer she meets tells of a countess who is in a skrivretreat and a woman who survived an avalanche.”
“A journalist who she has met before, tells us about the image of their marriage in relation to his sister’s. If the need of the others looking for confirmation. If self-delusion. On crises, conflicts and compromises. Several of the women tells illusionslöst about their divorces, vengeful exmän, if the kids as a weapon. If the modern woman’s dual burden as the mother and yrkeskvinna. If freedom and captivity. Why in the entire world, ask her publisher at the end, you have poison on you again.”
“Places are impersonal – airplanes, hotels, restaurants – as well as the people romanjaget face. But in Rachel Cusks heart-stopping, and his condensed prose is no place for small talk. Here is självframställningen in focus and everything that happens and is told seems to in one way or another deeply symbolic. It goes right on man’s existential conditions. And it is, of course, the family and its intricate structures are the tip of the psychological iceberg. “
“Even if I read the Kudos on the English already last year, I read about it with great benefit. For this to Rebecca Alsbergs translation deserves praise. It is simply a grace to reside in the elevated perception Cusk has managed to evoke. “
“And the final scene, it must be said, is so spine-chilling, splendid, and meningsmättad to get the hairs to rise on my arms. Patriarchy, there it is.”
“Trans. Rebecca Alsberg”
“Albert Bonniers förlag”
