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A review by fionnualalirsdottir
Transit by Rachel Cusk
I watched as the reader glanced up from the page, sat for a moment without moving, then closed the book.
"That episode about the dog," she said, turning to me, "the episode where the creative writing student succeeded in conveying to the class that his dog was beautiful even though he didn't know how to explain it initially. What exactly did you intend in that episode?"
I asked what she thought I had intended.
"Well, I'm inclined to think you were making a point about the old 'show versus tell' chestnut," she said. While she had been reading Outline, she told me, she had had the thought that the book was something of a manifesto proclaiming that 'telling' can be as powerful a tool in writing as 'showing', and she had continued to ponder that notion as she made her way through Transit. When she had read the passage where the second student insisted that the first student show the class that the dog was beautiful instead of just telling them he was beautiful, she had thought I was setting readers up for a demonstration of some kind.
"And you were," she said. There were layers and layers of telling in the following pages, she went on, as readers were given not only the narrator's version of the first student's account of his involvement with the beautiful dog, but also his story of the woman he met in Nice, and her involvement with the same breed of dogs. And that story in turn included a story about a man the woman had met years before who trained such hunting dogs. At the end of that series of dog stories, which the reader claimed she had read with increasing interest, she told me that she understood why the dog was beautiful and that she had become completely reconciled to my 'recounting' technique, although while reading Outline, and even earlier sections of this book, she had felt frustrated by it.
I asked her why she had chosen to continue reading something that had frustrated her.
"I'm interested in your project," she answered, "which is why I picked up the second book, in spite of the amount of pluperfect tense I was certain it would contain!" She had never come across the word 'had' used so frequently in a text, she said, smiling. But, in spite of the pluperfect tense and the eternal recounting, she had been intrigued by the inner workings of a writer's life that were occasionally revealed in the books. She imagined the text as giving a glimpse of the way writing is arrived at. Or not arrived at, she added, turning to me with a quizzical look, since the narrator of both books, who is a writer after all, she pointed out, didn't seem to be in writing mode during Outline or Transit, yet...
Even while she was speaking to me about Faye not being in writing mode in the two books that existed in spite of that fact, she herself had taken up her iPad and had been typing furiously. I asked her what she was doing.
She took a minute to answer, her fingers flying across the virtual keyboard.
"Oh, you know," she replied at last, "something akin to what you and Faye do with your students, your hairdresser, your builder, the people you meet on planes and at literary forums."
"What exactly do you mean?" I asked, already anticipating the answer.
"I'm using you," she said.
And then she pressed Save
"That episode about the dog," she said, turning to me, "the episode where the creative writing student succeeded in conveying to the class that his dog was beautiful even though he didn't know how to explain it initially. What exactly did you intend in that episode?"
I asked what she thought I had intended.
"Well, I'm inclined to think you were making a point about the old 'show versus tell' chestnut," she said. While she had been reading Outline, she told me, she had had the thought that the book was something of a manifesto proclaiming that 'telling' can be as powerful a tool in writing as 'showing', and she had continued to ponder that notion as she made her way through Transit. When she had read the passage where the second student insisted that the first student show the class that the dog was beautiful instead of just telling them he was beautiful, she had thought I was setting readers up for a demonstration of some kind.
"And you were," she said. There were layers and layers of telling in the following pages, she went on, as readers were given not only the narrator's version of the first student's account of his involvement with the beautiful dog, but also his story of the woman he met in Nice, and her involvement with the same breed of dogs. And that story in turn included a story about a man the woman had met years before who trained such hunting dogs. At the end of that series of dog stories, which the reader claimed she had read with increasing interest, she told me that she understood why the dog was beautiful and that she had become completely reconciled to my 'recounting' technique, although while reading Outline, and even earlier sections of this book, she had felt frustrated by it.
I asked her why she had chosen to continue reading something that had frustrated her.
"I'm interested in your project," she answered, "which is why I picked up the second book, in spite of the amount of pluperfect tense I was certain it would contain!" She had never come across the word 'had' used so frequently in a text, she said, smiling. But, in spite of the pluperfect tense and the eternal recounting, she had been intrigued by the inner workings of a writer's life that were occasionally revealed in the books. She imagined the text as giving a glimpse of the way writing is arrived at. Or not arrived at, she added, turning to me with a quizzical look, since the narrator of both books, who is a writer after all, she pointed out, didn't seem to be in writing mode during Outline or Transit, yet...
Even while she was speaking to me about Faye not being in writing mode in the two books that existed in spite of that fact, she herself had taken up her iPad and had been typing furiously. I asked her what she was doing.
She took a minute to answer, her fingers flying across the virtual keyboard.
"Oh, you know," she replied at last, "something akin to what you and Faye do with your students, your hairdresser, your builder, the people you meet on planes and at literary forums."
"What exactly do you mean?" I asked, already anticipating the answer.
"I'm using you," she said.
And then she pressed Save