The twin themes of Rachel Cusk’s latest novel are truth and fame. In fact it’s not quite accurate to call it a ‘novel’: there are two main characters, but there is no plot; and although you start to understand each woman, it’s through observation of their behaviour in a series of vignettes rather than a conventional story.
The titular ‘M’ is an actress of beauty and renown, reportedly based on Natalie Portman. Her friend, the unnamed narrator, wants to write her biography. ‘Would you just make it up?’ M suggests airily, giving us a notion of how fabrication is sewn into her life. The narrator, who (as in Cusk’s Outline trilogy) seems partly based on the author herself, feels battered by the ‘random violence of insignificance’ – from which her friend is protected by fame. She senses that she was unloved by her parents (Cusk wrote about her mother in Coventry); and let down by people she has loved (Cusk’s divorce book, Aftermath, was savage about her ex). She also feels as if she can’t be her true self with M.
Though M claims to shun the privileges of fame, she actually enjoys them. A table in a hotel garden closes for the season; those permitted to sit next to her are carefully curated by the management. We learn that she has been affected by attempts to sexualise her as a child actress – plans vehemently blocked by her mother. M wants to be genuine, but is aware that she is acting all the time. The world feels malleable to her, as it is to those with power. She can’t feel emotion or empathy, although she can mimic these sentiments convincingly. Truth is frequently elided by those around her. When shown around the estate of a man whose mistress she will be playing, she discovers it is not his estate at all: his possessions have been moved there to simulate his home. And reality is further distorted. A friend complains about depression – and, not being on antidepressants, insists she is the only one seeing the world accurately. But this dubious moral advantage is lost if antidepressants are ubiquitous in recycled water supplies.
Early on, the narrator’s partner is hospitalised. Cusk’s description of the long walk there is reminiscent of the hypnotic rhythm of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’: ‘Prosperous stretches giving way to rougher ones and then becoming prosperous again, like a perpetual argument or a struggle for victory.’ Although its not explicitly stated, this loss of control over her life contrasts with M’s serene glide through hers.
M strives to live normally – taking her children to school, preferring to talk to the low-paid nannies than the upmarket mothers – but the special treatment she invariably receives makes this impossible. The film world is full of artifice. A literary salon is run by a designer. M, an avid reader, is invited, but so is a model, who enthuses about the books despite not having read them. People delude themselves about their ridiculous lies. Yet the thought of not being recognised terrifies M. She can pretend to eschew fame, but she needs it.
Truth is explored in numerous, often contradictory, ways. The narrator doesn’t enjoy watching films, because she doesn’t want her head filled with memories which are not her own true experiences. But she is not such a stickler for the truth when trying to jazz up her own factual writing. She explains that embellishing herself is exhilarating, giving her the chance to retain the parts of her life that she likes and discarding the rest.
Mystifyingly, she sometimes resorts to the word ‘we’. The other person is presumably a different part of herself, as though, through constant self-fictionalisation, she has become multiple people. She rejects some aspects of her personality and has become disillusioned with others. She can’t imagine being crazily in love. At one point she talks about a man who loved her and then hated her (shades of Aftermath again). Yet she loves and needs her ill partner, a dependency she fears.
The ending is enigmatic. Is M finally challenging the narrator to make a choice? This novel is Cusk pushing the boundaries of fiction even further than she did in the Outline trilogy. It is clever, sharply insightful, and – in the ending – infuriating.
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