The whole point of a slow novel is that you do care, that you feel the project moving toward something, even if you cannot quite see what that something is. And meanwhile, all around you, life continues to demand trips to the grocery store and hours of child care. You battle outbreaks of norovirus, rat infestations, catalytic converters stolen—then stolen again just hours after the new one has been installed.
The misuse of “Born in the U.S.A.” has been so blatant that it’s distracted us from its message. As Nietzsche put it, “The text has disappeared under the interpretation.” The misinterpretation is so glaring and has gone on for so long that it’s still a punch line.
Rachel Cusk’s repeated attempts to exterminate the novel while still writing one are genuinely impressive. Ten years ago, frustrated by what she called the ridiculous act of “making up John and Jane”, she wrote Outline, followed by Transit and Kudos, a compelling trilogy in which the narrator, whose biographical circumstances seem to match Cusk’s, reveals almost nothing about her life or feelings, and instead recounts the monologues of people she encounters. In an interview in 2018, after the publication of Kudos, Cusk told the New Yorker:“I don’t think character exists any more.” She then wrote Second Place, about a detached, Cusk-like character who opens her glorious marshland home to a destructive artist. And now there’s Parade, an icy thought experiment in which an unnamed narrator, whose scant biographical details map Cusk’s, moves between nameless European cities, visiting exhibitions and thinking about artists.
The endorsements plastered across the cover and inside pages describe it as everything from clever, witty, charming and wonderful, to brilliant, thrilling, comedic, whimsical, off-beat and a new classic. And every single one of those endorsements is correct. This is a book full of so many themes, so many charms, and so many insights. It truly is the sort of book that can truly be appreciated upon multiple rereads.
A hilariously chaotic insight into modern dating culture, Experienced is an ode to the beauty of queer love stories.