Indeed, much of the void within and around her has been created by the disintegration of this marriage it has opened a great empty chasm which she tries to fill by gaining an understanding, through the people who talk to her, of the 'hows' and 'whys' of human nature. The particulars can be summed up in a few words - the narrator is a writer who has travelled to Greece to teach a short creative writing course, briefly leaving behind in England, two sons and the wreckage of a failed marriage. In fact, when we are suddenly, and quite jarringly, presented with her name in the penultimate chapter, it feels like an invasion of a sacred space, as if the reader is trespassing on private property. That she remains nameless for most of the novel only adds to her mystique and the essential unknowability of her character.

Through this and other individual portraits of love and loss, of happiness and sadness, of disappointment and regret, we are presented with a profound meditation on life and what it means to be human.Ībout the narrator herself, we are given scant information. One of the most poignant is that of a Greek businessman who, despite his wealth, has failed to find fulfilment with a string of wives, and who now spends his declining years forever regretting the failure of his marriage to his first and truest love. Compelled to fill the silence that surrounds her, the people she encounters over the course of the book recount the story of their own lives. Rather than creating a conventional story-teller, she turns the concept of narration on its head, presenting us instead with a blank canvas, a woman of few words who, in exuding a quiet calm, attracts a host of diverse characters who are seduced by her innate stillness. After all, how can a tale be told in virtual silence? It is, however, precisely this dichotomy that Cusk exploits to remarkable effect in Outline.

An almost wordless storyteller is, on the face of it, a contradiction in terms, if not a complete impossibility.

One of the first things that strikes the reader of this, Rachel Cusk's eighth novel, is the unusual taciturnity of its narrator. By listening to the stories of others, the protagonist in Outline discovers the nuances of human nature.

Outline rachel cusk review