Name: Outline
Rating: 3.720052083333333 (192 reviews)
ISBN: 9783518425282

Rachel Cusk

Outline

A woman writer goes to Athens in the height of summer to teach a writing course. Though her own circumstances remain indistinct, she becomes the audience to a chain of narratives, as the people she meets tell her one after another the stories of their lives. Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talk of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their perceptions and daily lives. In the stifling heat and noise of the city the sequence of voice begins to weave a complex human tapestry. The more they talk the more elliptical their listener becomes, as she shapes and directs their accounts until certain themes begin to emerge: the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy and the mystery of creativity itself. Outline is a novel about writing and talking, about self-effacement and self-expression, about the desire to create and the human art of self-portraiture in which that desire finds its universal form.

a simple, thought-provoking well written story. just enough depth into each character. great use of dialogue in a book that is mainly driven by conversation. very interesting topics as well, all woven together quite seamlessly- nothing jarring 

aemouh

Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her student in storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her seatmate from the place. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves, their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face great a great loss. Outline is the first book in a short and yet epic cycle - a masterful trilogy which will be remembered as one of the most significant achievements of our times. 'Outline succeeds powerfully. Among other things, it gets a great variety of human beings down on the page with both immediacy and depth; an elemental pleasure that makes the book as gripping to read as a thriller... A stellar accomplishment.' James Lasdun, Guardian

truly the most fitting title. i don't quite have the words to describe rachel cusk's writing, but it is so distinct to me. she's a master of saying so much with all that she doesn't say. engrossed me the whole way. i know i'll be thinking about certain anecdotes and images for a very long time.

alice

Pre-order Rachel Cusk's new novel, Second Place, now! Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her student in storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her seatmate from the place. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves, their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face great a great loss. Outline is the first book in a short and yet epic cycle - a masterful trilogy which will be remembered as one of the most significant achievements of our times.

A Novel

The beginning of Outline felt like travelling on a train, listening to other people's conversations and finding out they're more interesting than expected but also that you can't control the flow of the story - you'll hear what you can of what they want to tell you, maybe there's no end to a thread, maybe you'll revisit a plot later, maybe someone will have a counterpoint or else your focus will just drift to the people on another seat. Eventually the book does partially become "listening to people talking randomly", as the narrator-main character is teaching a class and asks for episodes and stories from her students, even as the various conversations she has in and out of the class become more impactful and even dramatic.

This is a short book, quite dry in its prose, full of dialogue and much more of a shower than a teller. One could say the exercise is precisely that, the exploration of people without ever actually telling the reader who or how they "really" are. Rachel Cusk is quite explicit in telling the reader this is a book about exploring people through anything but direct and inner descriptions, more so through episodes, dialogues, perspectives. By the end you feel she gave you the "outline" of the main-character herself.

I was left thinking about perspectives, about the superficiality of our "outside" impressions of other people and the biased views we have of ourselves and even our own stories. What is the truth of us? How much is the "self" the interface between some intangible inside and our interactions with others, or how much access to we have to that inner self?

I can see many people bouncing from this very quickly, and I did feel somewhat lost in its first third, but by the end I was ready to read more from Cusk.

André Nóbrega

The beginning of Outline felt like travelling on a train, listening to other people's conversations and finding out they're more interesting than expected but also that you can't control the flow of the story - you'll hear what you can of what they want to tell you, maybe there's no end to a thread, maybe you'll revisit a plot later, maybe someone will have a counterpoint or else your focus will just drift to the people on another seat. Eventually the book does partially become "listening to people talking randomly", as the narrator-main character is teaching a class and asks for episodes and stories from her students, even as the various conversations she has in and out of the class become more impactful and even dramatic.

This is a short book, quite dry in its prose, full of dialogue and much more of a shower than a teller. One could say the exercise is precisely that, the exploration of people without ever actually telling the reader who or how they "really" are. Rachel Cusk is quite explicit in telling the reader this is a book about exploring people through anything but direct and inner descriptions, more so through episodes, dialogues, perspectives. By the end you feel she gave you the "outline" of the main-character herself.

I was left thinking about perspectives, about the superficiality of our "outside" impressions of other people and the biased views we have of ourselves and even our own stories. What is the truth of us? How much is the "self" the interface between some intangible inside and our interactions with others, or how much access to we have to that inner self?

I can see many people bouncing from this very quickly, and I did feel somewhat lost in its first third, but by the end I was ready to read more from Cusk.

I’ve spent months thinking about this book.

I really wanted to like it, and although I love a film that doesn’t rely on plot and allows the characters to show, not tell, you about themselves through mundane interactions, something about this book I can’t put my finger on didn’t quite do it for me.

I do really love that reading Outline pushed me out of my reading comfort zone and continues to challenge me to take a critical look at my literary likes and dislikes. I’m undecided if I want to continue with the rest of the trilogy, but I guarantee I will eventually circle back for another read of Outline to see if my feelings have changed.

katie h.

I’ve spent months thinking about this book.

I really wanted to like it, and although I love a film that doesn’t rely on plot and allows the characters to show, not tell, you about themselves through mundane interactions, something about this book I can’t put my finger on didn’t quite do it for me.

I do really love that reading Outline pushed me out of my reading comfort zone and continues to challenge me to take a critical look at my literary likes and dislikes. I’m undecided if I want to continue with the rest of the trilogy, but I guarantee I will eventually circle back for another read of Outline to see if my feelings have changed.

An innovative novel captures 10 conversations involving the narrator, a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens.

The author can brilliantly use the language to share what she sees. However, aren’t all subjects in this book quite boring?

Marek Hnatiak

Unbeknownst to me, I think I have been trying to write like Rachel Cusk my whole life. 

Mitch

Brainy, thinly, floaty… conversations as negations of self. Negation of self as growing older. 

Andrew

i hated reading it in the beginning. it was infuriating and the characters felt vague. but later on, as i processed, something clicked inside me and i found myself wanting to know more about how their brain chemistry worked. 

it was extremely dry. the narrator took every actions so passively, she didn't contribute to the story line at all which in turn, made the entire story passive and i am absolutely all for active characters. 

the book reflects on how different encounters with people shape a person's lives. the idea that we are all actually just outlines, it was infuriating and yet i cannot stop myself from pondering over it every now and then. 

the truth is that this book can't be summarised. i just can't. the pace was annoyingly slow in the first chapter, i had considered dnf-ing more than five times but i am glad i pushed through because there are so many things that i did learn from this book. human complexities are nuanced and maybe, we, indeed, are just outlines.

sani

i hated reading it in the beginning. it was infuriating and the characters felt vague. but later on, as i processed, something clicked inside me and i found myself wanting to know more about how their brain chemistry worked. 

it was extremely dry. the narrator took every actions so passively, she didn't contribute to the story line at all which in turn, made the entire story passive and i am absolutely all for active characters. 

the book reflects on how different encounters with people shape a person's lives. the idea that we are all actually just outlines, it was infuriating and yet i cannot stop myself from pondering over it every now and then. 

the truth is that this book can't be summarised. i just can't. the pace was annoyingly slow in the first chapter, i had considered dnf-ing more than five times but i am glad i pushed through because there are so many things that i did learn from this book. human complexities are nuanced and maybe, we, indeed, are just outlines.

I like meta- writers reflecting on writing etc. Relaxed bood which I enjoyed but not particularly stayed with me

Orla Kilroy

erika s

jess

The book that made you both in awe and lost in time with the writing style and the series of interactions over different circumstances and yes i have repeated most of the beautiful sentences she's written bazillion times; out loud. 
Tbh, i rarely felt compelled to keep reading. It's a brilliant, tremendous, exquisite book, but intentionally has no grip. This made me fascinated by it, but it also slowed me down. But eventually I finished, in awe, in love, infatuated, and it makes me wanna write and travel.

Outline

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