Writing Like Never Before : Second Place by Rachel Cusk!

Posted On February 7, 2022

Hi Readers! I completed my first Rachel Cusk novel! I remember starting this Second Place twice before & both times I couldn’t read it past 10 pages. I couldn’t stay with the story because I drifted away. Once I even tried to stay in the moment & read it but without me knowing my mind again drifted. I felt it was impossible for me to ever read this book. Until, I picked it up for the third time. And, oh god, was third time the charm! I am now a Rachel Cusk fan. Her writing finally spoke to me & I cannot state how much of an awakening it was for me. I had never read this kind of writing before. It did take me a time to get used to it. But, when I found all these multiple layers within the writing, I was immersed into the book.

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

From the author of the Outline trilogy, a fable of human destiny and decline, enacted in a closed system of intimate, fractured relationships.

A woman invites a famed artist to visit the remote coastal region where she lives, in the belief that his vision will penetrate the mystery of her life and landscape. His provocative presence provides the frame for a study of female fate and male privilege, of the geometries of human relationships, and of the struggle to live morally in the intersecting spaces of our internal and external worlds.

With its examination of the possibility that art can both save and destroy us, Rachel Cusk’s Second Place is deeply affirming of the human soul, while grappling with its darkest demons.

~~THOUGHTS~~

“The truth was I had always assumed that pleasure was being held in store for me, like something I was amassing in a bank account, but by the time I came to ask for it I discovered the store was empty. It appeared that it was a perishable entity, and that I should have taken it a little earlier.”

Rachel Cusk’s writing calls out to the reader. It demands to be read. Not just read in combination with background music or with a cup of tea in your hand or with thoughts running in your brain and your brain’s brain. It demands to be read solely & purely. It demands to be read without any other combination getting in its way. Only if you are ready to be barred of every other thought in your mind, then you should read this book. The writing tests your concentration in the best way. Because you daydream for one sentence & you lose. You don’t just lose the thread of the story but you simply lose because you let your mind drift in the first place.

If you pass the first test of not letting your mind wander, then you will be blessed with the next step. You will have a faint smile on your face throughout reading this book. Either because of the non-pretentious humour or simply because of the magnificence in which one word is put next to the other forming almost a rhythm of perfection or harmony or maybe because you underestimated how much you will actually like the book.

When you start a paragraph or even a sentence, you will have no way of knowing where it is headed. The multiple links from one thing to another & the transition between these many thoughts is so smooth. It’s impossible to take out quotes from it because then you’ll be quoting the whole book! The links jump from honesty to parenting to authority to power to something else. It’s like listening to music from a piano but in the form of literature, which is unique & something you wouldn’t want to miss out on, especially if you are a voracious reader.

This book & I suppose all of Rachel Cusk’s books need to be read like drinking wine. Let the words swirl on the page. Let the emotions stir & then rise up to the surface so you can smell them; sometimes they are sweet with a satirical humour to them, sometimes they are bitter with a subtle reality to them. And finally let the writing mull in your mind until finally you have understood its brilliance. The writing is haunting & will stay with you long after you have kept the book down. It will make you question a lot of things; about you, your life, your choices, your decisions and may just entangle you with what could have been & what is yet to be.

“I often thought of the importance of sustainability, and of how little we consider it in the decisions and actions we take. If we treated each moment as though it were a permanent condition, a place where we might find ourselves compelled to remain forever, how differently most of us would choose the things that moment contains!”

If I think objectively about this book, I will probably rate the story only at a 2/5. But the writing at 5/5. So, overall I have rated Second Place at 4/5 stars.

Until next time,