Rachel Cusk on the hostile reaction to A Life's Work

[MyEye]

here

As I've said on another thread, she is perfectly entitled to hate motherhood, I don't like a lot about it myself, but there is something so portentuous and self important about her writing, I just find it very comical. Without digging out the book there's a bit about her baby crying in a shop and her being "bludgeoned with tragedy"
I am the first to agree it's no fun when your baby screams in public but "tragedy?"
As my mil would say what would you do if you were living in Darfur?
And even though I am no fan of four by fours, I think the "I'm saving the planet bitch" dialogue is just un petit peu OTT.
Did you see the response to the book club article? It was brilliant and put the whole thing in perspective.

Plus it is a fair point to talk about mothers being judgemental, they are
But RC is hardly unjudgemental when it comes to others - she's vile about eg other mothers at playgroup, dismissing them all as imbeciles, as she was vile about the women at her book club and I remember reading an interview where she said the people who didn't like her book were "alice-band wearing mumsies"
Again, love. No. They just didn't like your book. And it probably wasn't your attributes as a mother they didn't like (I didn't care if she left her daughter on the kitchen floor or whatever) but the fact the prose IS pretentious imo.
Others on this thread disagree and liked the book a lot. That's their decision, I'm not going to dismiss them out of hand for enjoying it, our tastes differ and hooray for that!

I have said this before on MN I read this book before dd was born and I am glad I did., it addressed many of my anxieties.

as it turns I am a very AP type parent and things have turned out easier than I thought, for the most part anyway.

besides she is entitled to her opinion however self involved it may be

Yes and people who didn't like the book are entitled to their opinions

yes they are

i haven't read this book, but read her famous first novel and found it so unbearably self indulgent. Loathe her I'm afraid. Or at least her writing....
(will now go and read book club link)

having said that, many years before I had kids I thought GF was a good idea.
don't know what I would make of RC these days have no intention of re reading

I read this book when pg with DS and thought oh my god what have i let myself in for? Now I am glad I read it as nothing was as bad as she made it sound but I recognised her emotions if not her 'depth' - Arlington Park is pretty good - i find a little of RC goes a long way, too much and you might be tempted to throw yourself under an approaching 4x4

My experience of PND makes me pretty sure she had it too. It's just so infuriating (and sad) that she shows no understanding of the illness at all. This bit 'Penelope Leach gives, I think, an accurate definition of postnatal depression: she says that in postnatal depression the mother believes that there is something faulty or abnormally difficult about her child' is so inaccurate, it's untrue. It may be true in some cases, but it's absolutely not the norm. So to generalise like that just seems daft, and suggests she hasn't really looked into it at all.

And elsewhere, RC writes about being 'accused' of having had PND which seems very telling.

If I hadn't read A Life's Work, I think I would have been better equipped to spot my own PND, and that makes me unspeakably cross.

Message withdrawn

I liked A Life's Work but all that guff about medieval apples and autumn colours makes me want to barf. And if she finds the criticism of it so difficult, why on earth is she releasing a new edition?

I vaguely remember finding some enjoyment and interest in A Life's Work but it was reminiscent of the book club article in her attitude to other women. Her feelings of superiority to and greater (if tragic) depth than every other woman in the book club / ghastly toddler group are wearying. See profoundly patronising end to book club article...

I also think the problem with her prose is that no one edited the guff out in Saving Agnes and she got all that attention and now no one will ever dare to edit the guff out.

I tried to read A lifes work but hated it. Gave me a stiff neck. She's so CROSS. Why is she so cross?

I am half way though this book and keep putting it down. She is so selfish and so depressed. I feel is completely missed the point of motherhood. That is why she struggles so hard against it, rather than going with the flow and looking for a positive element of being a parent. I cannot believe that her children didn't have a few lovely moments, even if she didn't/couldn't see them. I hope the children had a good father to make up for the judgemental mother

I can't wait to get to the end of this book.

I feel she is completely

I related with a hell of a lot of what she described in her book. That feeling of hopelessness and anger in the early days of motherhood is, I would hazard a guess, much more common than one might imagine. I think for many women motherhood is one hell of a big, nasty shock and the adjustment to that new role is brutal. It's commonly called 'PND', but for many mothers I don't think it is some sort of hormone-induced depression that should be viewed as a 'problem' and treated with drugs. For many women, I think those hostile, negative emotions towards motherhood are a very natural reaction to being thrust into the most responsible and relentless role they have ever undertaken, usually alongside severe sleep deprivation. Perhaps she does come across as angry and self-obssessed. I know I certainly felt extremely angry, scared and completely absorbed with my own feelings after the birth of my first child.

FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree with her fundamental point: that deeply imbedded at the very heart of our culture is a narrow idea of what a mother should be, and that anyone who strays from that and dares to voice strong (taboo) emotions and opinions outside of it is viciously attacked by men and women alike (none so vicious as another woman in this case, in fact).

My criticisms of her are:

• her writing style is incredibly flowery and self indulgent, and thus a chore to wade through

-the response to the criticism she received was too personal, too defensive. She could have made a more robust and biting defense of her stance if she had moved it away from her own feelings just a little.

That's my take anyhoo..

Haven't read any of her books, but rereading those articles has reminded me how much her prose style and up-own-arseness makes me want to rip out both eyes in a frenzy of white-hot rage.

"Your book is going to make people very angry" - and that didn't make her sit up and go "Ker-ching!"

That's not the worst thing anyone could have said to her. That would have been "nobody is going to read this."

(I read recently that the literary editor of the Times has a policy of not giving first novels bad reviews. If they think it's rubbish, they just ignore it. Far more effective!)

I actually really liked a life's work. and I used to feel uneasy "in the public places of motherhood". Much less now.

Mrsmattie great post.

I haven't read it

I dislike anybody who bangs on about how difficult being a parent is to be honest .. I find them self-obsessed and immature .. farkin' well get on with it, roll with the punches, deal with the crap and find people to complain to .. but don't make money out of a standard part of life which all the rest of us just deal with .. it's irritating and whiny and weak

Surely, as she published her views in a book, she could not be surprised that some people did not like the book?
Otherwise she should have kept a diary and talked ernestly to like minded friends who would never have criticised her?

People whine and write about other standard parts of life (love - work -relationships - death - loneliness - etc), why parenthood should be different, I wonder?

Jayzuss. I read the blurb. It sounds dull. Lol at her daughter's hair being exactly the same as the autumn pallette.

I wish I had even half as much time to spend navel-gazing. But, tbh, if I did have that much time on my hands I'd read a funnier book.

What's the point becoming so hideously self-absorbed?

She's just a posher version of Katie Price. Write some tosh, ok, cerebral tosh, and coin it. kerching.