#rachelcusktogether
Another clinically accurate image - the unfortunate overheard words like the small stain that ruins the whole dress...
is there 'a disgust that exists indelibly between men & women'?
Then the vomiting child Melete & her trumpet, manifesting 'her disgust in flawed humanity'.
Another clinically accurate image - the unfortunate overheard words like the small stain that ruins the whole dress...
is there 'a disgust that exists indelibly between men & women'?
Then the vomiting child Melete & her trumpet, manifesting 'her disgust in flawed humanity'.
October 31, 2025 at 9:26 AM
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#rachelcusktogether
When the narrator looks at the table next door with the silent couple after Eleni's speaks of wishing to get back to a time before speech - there's pre-talking relationships (all to be said) and post-talking (nothing more to say) . A natural trajectory? Beautiful counterpoint.
When the narrator looks at the table next door with the silent couple after Eleni's speaks of wishing to get back to a time before speech - there's pre-talking relationships (all to be said) and post-talking (nothing more to say) . A natural trajectory? Beautiful counterpoint.
October 31, 2025 at 9:20 AM
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#rachelcusktogether
'the more words we spoke the more tangles & knots there were...the simplicity of the time before we had said one syllable to one other'
Words spring to mind - Bob Dylan, 'Tangled up in blue'
'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive' - Sir Walter Scott
'the more words we spoke the more tangles & knots there were...the simplicity of the time before we had said one syllable to one other'
Words spring to mind - Bob Dylan, 'Tangled up in blue'
'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive' - Sir Walter Scott
October 31, 2025 at 9:18 AM
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#rachelcusktogether
'Very often I have felt that my relationships have had no story, & the reaons is because I have jumped ahead of myself, the way I used to turn the pages of a book to find out what happens in the final chapter. I want to find out what happens in the final chapter.'
1/2
'Very often I have felt that my relationships have had no story, & the reaons is because I have jumped ahead of myself, the way I used to turn the pages of a book to find out what happens in the final chapter. I want to find out what happens in the final chapter.'
1/2
October 30, 2025 at 6:35 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
Such perfect timing to get her neighbour's text when Eleni says, 'Men like to play this game. And they actually fear your honesty, because then the game is spoiled. By not being honest with a man you allow him to continue his game, to live in his fantasy.'
Such perfect timing to get her neighbour's text when Eleni says, 'Men like to play this game. And they actually fear your honesty, because then the game is spoiled. By not being honest with a man you allow him to continue his game, to live in his fantasy.'
October 30, 2025 at 6:34 PM
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#rachelcusktogether 'If I found out more about what he thinks, I might start to confuse him with myself. And I don't compose myself from other people's ideas...'
Issues with boundaries. Empathy and relationship is about understanding what others think/feel.
Is the narrator composed of everyone?
Issues with boundaries. Empathy and relationship is about understanding what others think/feel.
Is the narrator composed of everyone?
October 30, 2025 at 3:15 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
'You could spend your whole life trying to trace events back to your own mistakes.People in legend thought that their misfortunes could be traced back to their failure to offer libations to certain gods. But there is another explanation which is simply that he is mad.' Cassandra?
'You could spend your whole life trying to trace events back to your own mistakes.People in legend thought that their misfortunes could be traced back to their failure to offer libations to certain gods. But there is another explanation which is simply that he is mad.' Cassandra?
October 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
“The worst thing it seemed to her, was to be dealing with one version of a person when quite another version existed out of sight.”
Terrifying indeed.
“The worst thing it seemed to her, was to be dealing with one version of a person when quite another version existed out of sight.”
Terrifying indeed.
October 30, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
“You could spend your whole life, she said, trying to trace events back to your own mistakes…But there is another explanation, she said, which is simply that he is mad.”
This is true.
“You could spend your whole life, she said, trying to trace events back to your own mistakes…But there is another explanation, she said, which is simply that he is mad.”
This is true.
October 30, 2025 at 2:56 PM
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'And I don't compose myself from other people's ideas, any more than I compose a verse from someone else's poem.' ch.8
#Rachelcusktogether #Outline #Melete
#Rachelcusktogether #Outline #Melete
October 30, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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Day 30, Oct 30, Thur - p186 “One of the six…” to p193 “She raised her glass…her hand trembling.”
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#rachelcusktogether
October 30, 2025 at 10:29 AM
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#rachelcusktogether
Eleni's feedback is sometimes correct. 'If you had been frank you would have elicited frankness.' Is this why we so often hold back from being frank, sometimes under the guise of not wanting to hurt the other person?
Eleni's feedback is sometimes correct. 'If you had been frank you would have elicited frankness.' Is this why we so often hold back from being frank, sometimes under the guise of not wanting to hurt the other person?
October 29, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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Eleni's response to 'the neighbour' is reassuring. I love the narrator's response. 'My neighbour was merely a perfectly good example of something about which I could only feel absolute ambivalence.' Worrying though that she doesn't know if she likes him or how she'd know.
Eleni's response to 'the neighbour' is reassuring. I love the narrator's response. 'My neighbour was merely a perfectly good example of something about which I could only feel absolute ambivalence.' Worrying though that she doesn't know if she likes him or how she'd know.
October 29, 2025 at 3:52 PM
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#rachelcusktogether #Pilgrimage
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
October 29, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
The image of the woman tourist falling backwards into a planter, her husband looking on - slow-motion. 'Eventually he put out an arm across the table to help...but it was beyond her reach & so she was forced to struggle out on her own'. How much help is there in Outline?
The image of the woman tourist falling backwards into a planter, her husband looking on - slow-motion. 'Eventually he put out an arm across the table to help...but it was beyond her reach & so she was forced to struggle out on her own'. How much help is there in Outline?
October 29, 2025 at 3:46 PM
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Day 29, Oct 29, Wed - p178 “My friend Elena was very beautiful.” to p186 “She picked up the wine list…her glossy hair..over her cheeks.”
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
October 29, 2025 at 11:03 AM
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week 5 of #rachelcusktogether starts tomorrow. reposting with oct 31 fixed!
October 28, 2025 at 5:10 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
I love the visual build-up to it....'There was a certain stiffness in his manner, a self-consciousness, like that of an actor about to deliver a too-famous line.....'
Fabulous that she laughs out loud! And that she describes him as some reptilian creature.
I love the visual build-up to it....'There was a certain stiffness in his manner, a self-consciousness, like that of an actor about to deliver a too-famous line.....'
Fabulous that she laughs out loud! And that she describes him as some reptilian creature.
October 28, 2025 at 4:22 PM
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The condition of being known 'so thoroughly and yet so limitingly' is so recognisable and admirably precise. The drive to be free of being known in that way is also very recognisable. Also what she says about the relationship between disillusionment and knowledge.
The condition of being known 'so thoroughly and yet so limitingly' is so recognisable and admirably precise. The drive to be free of being known in that way is also very recognisable. Also what she says about the relationship between disillusionment and knowledge.
October 28, 2025 at 4:18 PM
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#RachelCuskTogether
„He has been disillusioned more times than he could count in his relationships with women. Yet part of that feeling - the feeling of excitement that is also a rebirth of identity - has attended all his experiences of falling in love; and in the end, despite everything that
1
„He has been disillusioned more times than he could count in his relationships with women. Yet part of that feeling - the feeling of excitement that is also a rebirth of identity - has attended all his experiences of falling in love; and in the end, despite everything that
1
October 28, 2025 at 3:43 PM
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Day 28, Oct 28, Tues - p174 “‘It was nothing,’ he replied…” to END OF CH7 p178
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#rachelcusktogether
October 28, 2025 at 10:55 AM
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I wonder if this story about the boatman's wife waking him into confessing is his warning to the narrator. Does he tell her this story with purpose? Or is this Cusk foreshadowing his plan to "wake up" our speaker? #RachelCuskTogether
October 27, 2025 at 3:06 PM
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He tells the story of how his first wife extracted a confession - 'it was precisely this underhnad act that gave birth to her vitriol, for people are at their least forgiving when they themselves have been underhand...' Our narrator feels 'for the first time, afraid' - good!
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
October 27, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
At last we have a declaration of her approach to life. 'I had come to believe more & more in the virtues of passivity, & of living a life as unmarked by self-will as possible. One could make almost anything happen, if one tried hard enough...' and so forth
At last we have a declaration of her approach to life. 'I had come to believe more & more in the virtues of passivity, & of living a life as unmarked by self-will as possible. One could make almost anything happen, if one tried hard enough...' and so forth
October 27, 2025 at 12:15 PM
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#rachelcusktogether
His 'brief but observable hesitation' when she offers to contribute to the bill is one of those choice details - it's so telling and accurate of the character Cusk has created.
Ah, so the narrator has clocked Cassandra! Uh-oh - he is romancing her! 'A very strong connection'.
His 'brief but observable hesitation' when she offers to contribute to the bill is one of those choice details - it's so telling and accurate of the character Cusk has created.
Ah, so the narrator has clocked Cassandra! Uh-oh - he is romancing her! 'A very strong connection'.
October 27, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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