Rachel Cusk
Transit by Rachel Cusk, a sequel to her novel, Outline, consists of a series of encounters with various characters who share their personal experiences and stories with the narrator, Faye.
The setting is uncomplicated. Faye, who has moved back to London with her two sons, purchases a council flat in dire need of renovation, and employs builders to fix it up. One by one, she introduces us to a motley crew of characters, each of whom engages in self-revelation. Among those we encounter are the estate agent, the construction workers, her belligerent neighbors, her former boyfriend, her hairdresser, fellow authors at a reading, a couple of her students, a male friend, and her cousin, Lawrence.
Just as she did in Outline (see my review of April 10, 2019), the narrator engages in self-abnegation. All her chapters begin with a different character, as if to minimize her role in the narrative. Each speaker reveals intimate details of his/her life. Faye listens and observes, reporting what she sees and hears without judgment or commentary while absorbing every detail. She intentionally tries to render herself invisible, gradually receding into the background.
Faye employs the Socratic method by drawing people out through a series of questions that frequently begin with the words, “And then I asked . . .” Each seemingly simple question prompts the speaker to probe deeper and deeper into his/her own psyche in search of answers until the words gush out in torrents, unaided and unfiltered. Her form of interrogation allows for nuggets of truth to emerge from their experiences.
The stories have in common the struggle to transition from one relationship to another in an effort to connect. A divorced friend tells her:
There has been a great harvest, he said, of language and information from life, and it may have become the case that the faux-human was growing more substantial and more relational than the original, that there was more tenderness to be had from a machine than from one’s fellow man.
A student reveals his fascination with Saluki dogs who are total in sync with one another:
This idea, of the two dogs sharing the work of reading the hawk, was one he found very appealing. It suggested that the ultimate fulfillment of a conscious being lay not in solitude but in a shared state so intricate and cooperative it might almost be said to represent the entwining of two selves. This notion, of a unitary self being broken down, of consciousness not as an imprisonment in one’s own perceptions but rather as something more intimate and less divided, a universality that could come from shared experience at the highest level . . .
For her part, Faye listens. As she tells her cousin, “I had found out more, I said, by listening than I had ever thought possible.” She allows us a glimpse of her thoughts on those rare occasions when she articulates her views, but she does so in passing—as if they are an aside to the real drama. Her anonymity is deliberate; her self-erasure carefully constructed. She doesn’t even reveal her name until we are almost at the end of the novel.
The technique is fascinating. It positions the narrator as a conduit, a vehicle for transmitting another’s thoughts. And it positions the reader almost as a bystander overhearing a conversation between two people—one of whom coaxes revelations through a series of questions in the manner of a psychiatrist, while the other reveals intimate details of his/her life.
At one point in the novel, Faye says, “. . . it must be interesting to be able to see people without them seeing you.” Her technique allows her to achieve a level of invisibility that is both impressive and fascinating to observe.
This is a brilliant novel, brilliantly executed, innovative, and very highly recommended.