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Original poster

Arlington Park - What a great big pile of crap, worst book I have had the misfortune to pick up in a long long time

142 replies

Oliveoil · 30/01/2008 10:08

One of my NY resolutions is to read more books (now that dd2 seems to realise - at 3.6yrs!!! - that at bedtime she REMAINS in her bed in the evening) and I have been doing just that

well

Arlington Park

I forced myself to get to the end

what an obnoxious moaning bunch of women

I do not know ANYBODY like this, it makes out motherhood and relationships to be crap

yes you may have the odd day when you could easily headbutt the wall, but purlease

hated the writing style and skimmed it over and over again

anybody want it FFP? before I lob it out of the window?

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 14:39

ahundredtimes.... I hope you are not being entirely serious! Because I'm a writer and I don't have servants. I do my own washing-up!

NKF · 30/01/2008 14:43

I think A Life's Work was depressing but then I think it was about post natal depression without being a self help or psychology book. That made it a bit of an oddball book.

I think she can write in the sense that she can describe things with fresh eyes but she doesn't have much to say apart from an expression of anger at women's lives.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 14:46

The more I read about "Arlington Park" the less I want to read it. So the men "go blithely off to work" according to one review. Rrrright. And there is a character called "Solly". Who the hell knows anyone called "Solly" in real life?

I read "Saving Agnes" years ago and it made so little impression on me I can't recall a single thing about it, except that the main character is called Agnes Day. Oh, chortle, chortle, Agnus Dei. Rachey-babes, you are so clever. Fuck off.

Original poster
Oliveoil · 30/01/2008 14:51

the men are all 'murderers' as they go to work and leave the poor ickle women at home with their children

the bastards

yawn

OP posts:
Anna8888 · 30/01/2008 14:51

Actually, now I think about it (and look at the R Cusk books in my bookcase), everything I have read of hers is depressing. A general sort of hopelessness about women's lives pervades her work.

I think I liked her earlier work because at that point in my life I had less control over my existence than I do now. Since I no longer have any feeling of powerlessness, maybe I just can't relate to her general despondency?

Judy1234 · 30/01/2008 15:12

No the women are inadequate because they don't pursue careers and are stupid enough to get lumbered at home with children. It's women who must take responsibility for situations they find themselves in which they don't like. not fair to blame their men. If they love it at home great. If they don't change things but don't do all this endless whingeing. More action, less talk needed from some of that kind of woman portrayed in the book.

I agree with the general despondency comment from Anna too. Women can do anything. They're strong, clever and have lots to give. They don't have to accept lives they don't like and most don't. They can take action and effect change and be happy... or thus says the Xenia optimist anyway.

Anna8888 · 30/01/2008 15:15

Xenia - in R Cusk's earlier work, women do have careers - but they don't enjoy them .

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:01

UQD - I was being completely serious. There's no reason to slate her because she doesn't do her own washing-up or clean her house or whatever. What's that about?

You don't get extra marks because you do the washing up you know. She's a successful novelist, it is her career - why should she be cleaning the floor as well if she can afford not to?

Agree Anna about pervading sense of doom. I think that's what she does. I think she is clever actually, and gloomy and serious - which is quite a rare commodity - and not very likeable.

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:05

Also she was young when she wrong Saving Agnes wasn't she? I remember reading it then too. I think she's allowed to make mistakes and be pretentious and be immature without being sneered at.

God. I appear to be her number one fan on this thread. How odd.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 16:08

How successful is she? I thought she was a niche literary novelist myself.

Having to do the drudgery of daily things can actually make you a better writer. It was the reference to moaning about not being able to get servants which made me laugh. (WHo has "servants" in this day and age apart from the Queen? Image of turning up to see her and being met by her butler. "Ms Cusk is engaged in an Important Work of Literature. She caaan't be bothered bay the laykes you riff-raff. Now naff orf.")

(Doesn't Winterson have a team of fawning acolytes who minister to her every domestic need as well? Or is that a myth?)

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:08

lol. When she 'wrote' SA not 'wrong' SA.

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:12

No it's true - though not 'fawning acolytes' perhaps, but a commune of women who live with her and well, I guess, adore her. And why not, I say. Good on her.

Yes she's successful, because she's prolific and hard-working and her books are published and she keeps on going. Good for her. Doing dreary tasks does not a better writer make IMO. There is no moral value in housework, nor artistic merit either, it's just something that needs to be done. Writers need to sit at their desks to do their work, end of. What they do the rest of the time is up to them.

I suspect the reference to 'servants' was about her looking for a cleaner perhaps in that book, or a nanny? Not sure.

She's rather like Virginia Woolf I think. As uncompromising and unsavoury, and therefore interesting.

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:14

Also very important for writers to be disciplined. Very important that people who 'drop round' are turned away. I have every sympathy with that really.

My grandmother was once turned away by Nadine Gordimer because she called round at the right time. She was very put out.

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 16:15

Oh no she didn't - she called round at the WRONG time. Unless it was the right time, and she just hated by grandmother. Which is perfectly possible.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 16:25

Starting to think 100x is Rachel's best mate.

I do think it's important to be disciplined, but having people to clean up your muck is a luxury. One which very few (mostly poorly-paid) artistic types can afford. Some of the best writers can write very convincingly about the ins and outs of day-to-day routine and it's important not to lose touch with that.

I'm going to have to read this "Arlington Park" now to see if it's as bad as people say...

Judy1234 · 30/01/2008 16:25

I wouldn't have bought her books if they weren't reasonably readable.

On servants I suppose they help make writing possible. I'm writing this now because I've a servant in the house dealing with the children actually although I'm really working.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 16:26

Obviously I am going to have to get myself a servant. I can't wait to break this to DW when she gets home from work.

lululemonrefuser · 30/01/2008 16:44

I admire Rachel Cusk's work too, although I haven't read Arlington Park yet. I though A Life's Work was such a powerful exposition of how some women feel after having children. I thought it quite honest and brave.

I can see that she is spiky and harsh in both her writing and her personality, but that doesn't mean that her work is without merit.

And unquietdad - gosh, such venom about Cusk and Winterson. Hope you are equally damning about male writers with household help.

UnquietDad · 30/01/2008 16:53

I would be if I knew of any.

Judy1234 · 30/01/2008 16:59

school run reference.. can we ask if her children go to a state school?

Lazycow · 30/01/2008 17:00

Well this has made me want to read her.

She sounds like just my type of writer. I generally like depressing. And actually I didn't read her book on motherhood but much of what I've heard about it makes me think ' Well isn't it like that for everyone?' so it is interesting to hear that not all women find the early baby years almost unbearable in many ways.

In fact the only thing that made them bearable for me was the fact that I love ds so much.

Lazycow · 30/01/2008 17:01

Unquiet Dad. Most married male writers do have them - they are just generally called wives !

Judy1234 · 30/01/2008 17:04

She described the early baby years so accurately that I always buy that book for new parents I know.

It was bearable to me because I went back to work at 2 weeks which is perhaps what Ms Cusk should have done.

ahundredtimes · 30/01/2008 18:39

Xenia - I think she did didn't she? Doesn't she say at the start of that book that her husband looked after the children for her, so she could write?

I know lots of writers - most of whom seem able to write great book and average books and poor books, all strangely able to do this without the inspiration of the kitchen sink and dirty laundry.

And Lazycow is right, and women don't have wives so they buy them if they chose to work.

frogs · 30/01/2008 18:45

Agree with OO, it was boring as shite. I got to the end and was completely baffled as to the point of the book. Nothing happened. [puzzled emoticon]

I might actually be a touch biased as I knew Rachel Cusk at university, but I find her writing almost unreadably purple, and excesively portentous. If you think that she won the Whitbread first novel prize for Saving Agnes, and compare it with eg Oranges are not the only fruit, which also won the Whitbread a few years previously, there's just no comparison.