Second Place

Rachel Cusk

My rating - 5/5 stars

This world that we inhabit constantly seems to shuffle with two realities. One, the version of things that we think of as real, and two, as the things really are – outside our interpretation of them. Sometimes we may, without being aware, try to merge both versions into one. Into one complete whole in the image of our liking. Sometimes we may succeed. At some others, we might be left just bewildered. As if betrayed, left writhing in pain by something merciless.

When fortunate, we might come to peace with the understanding that the world moves in ways we cannot always fathom. And that perhaps we need to be more merciful with ourselves than we usually are.

We might be less forlorn in a world which we meet with our imagination, to quote Wordsworth, it is however kinder to sometimes just let things go.

Cusk explores the murky world of such a struggle in this beautiful book. All of her characters, except one, try to cope with the realities they confront. Sometimes these realities present a dismal picture of insolence with which a person can treat others. A narcissism, which blinds one person towards even the existence of another.

I felt moved by this struggle. And it was not only L but also M who baffled me. How far can one go before the realities become as clear as a bright, cloudless day.

A note at the end by Cusk declares that this book is inspired by Mable Dodge Luhan’s 1932 memoir Lorenzo in Taos and the painter L here is taken after the writer D.H. Lawrence who stayed with Mable for some time.

Did it surprise me? No, not at all.