As always: Spoiler alert — though it’s not like much happens in the first place…
That’s what the Blurb says:
Arlington Park is an ordinary English suburb. Over the course of a single day, the story moves from one household to another, revealing its characters: Juliet, enraged at the victory of men over women in family life; Amanda, warding off thoughts of death with obsessive housework; Solly, about to give birth to her fourth child; Maisie, struggling to accept provincial life; and Christine, the optimist and host of a dinner party where the neighbours will come together.
Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I wanted to read something by Rachel Cusk for a while now, but didn’t want to start with her (IG-)famous trilogy that revolves around family life and having children. So I read the blurb of Arlington Park and thought to myself, “that sounds like the author is working her way through a lot of interesting themes of life.”
Well, I was wrong — sort of. The focus of these stories is on family life in the suburbs. It’s white middle-class women discussing the yoke under which they exist — security, shiny new cars and houses, and several kids.
Yes, I know, having a family isn’t all sunshine and roses, and it’s important to discuss gender inequality in family dynamics, as well as other issues like mothers who work, who don’t work, who wanted more from life, who want a different life. It’s all important and should be discussed openly as well as artistically. However, it would have been great if the blurb would’ve been less poetic and more to the point. Just a tad…
The Ladies of the white suburban family lore…
Starting with the structure, this was what additionally drew me in. I love well-rounded story collections that at the end have the character of a closed narrative — with a twist. Arlington Park sure works like that. Which is what I enjoyed about this book. It features a larger number of characters than just the ones mentioned in the blurb; and not all of those are also part of said dinner party. On the other hand, not all who are at the dinner party also get a lot of attention and/or love from the author. I have yet to understand why certain characters feature stronger than others — as they are all tableaus, stereotypes, and cliches. So this can’t be the reason for it.
Take Christine, for example: Why the blurb calls her “the optimist” is beyond me as to me she’s the ‘Karen’ of the group: a nasty know-it-all who shows no affection towards her children or her racist husband and is at her best when she can challenge someone with a sense of irony (contrary to many Karens, she at least got that). Meeting Christine in several other chapters — either as a protagonist or someone the others talk about — makes her one of the main characters of the book. This gives her character space to breathe and develop. Which may not always be to my liking, but that’s fine. That she, even though we read about her a lot, in the end remains just another shell filled with cliches to the author’s liking, is not.
Or Solly. “About to give birth to her fourth child” alone doesn’t carry a chapter of 20+ pages, at least not one I want to spend my precious lifetime on. What Solly does indeed — SPOILER ALTER — is renting out a spare room to language students. It is her fascination with lives she doesn’t know, can’t imagine, but wants to know more about, that gives her chapter some depth and significance.
Then we have Juliet. “Enraged at the victory of men over women in family life” only tells part of the story. What is even more enraging to her are her failed professional ambitions: what she would have done, could have done, had she not met her future husband, had she not had kids. I get it. This is enraging, and of course, it’s part of “family life” and its dynamics. Therefore, she is doing her best to provide future generations with a better understanding of said dynamics to make better, more intelligent choices. At least that’s what she seems to be doing. But is it her best? Or is it just another stereotype?
Oh, the cliches…
Talking, or rather ranting on about stereotypes and cliches, let’s inspect what I mean when I complain about all this. As some may know, I am happily child-free, so a lot, if not most, of the issues Rachel Cusk discusses in Arlington Park I don’t know personally and only have secondhand knowledge about. Most of my female friends — we are all 30+ — have children. They love their kids, and for most of them having children was fulfilling a deep-seated wish, something they knew they wanted to do in their lives.
Nevertheless, it’s not all buttercups and everlasting love. Days, weeks, months, or even years without sleep. Most of them carry the primary responsibility for childcare and household work, even though the majority have partners who help and support them. However, said partners often have full-time jobs while the women stopped working — at least for a few years — or went back to working part-time.
Long story short: Even in a near-perfect loving family, you sometimes just can’t. It’s too much. You need a break, a time-out to feel yourself again after all that lack of sleep, runny noses, tons of laundry, dull food, playground small talk, and other things that can take a toll. I hear that regularly. I get it. In the end, there are reasons I’m child-free…
With Christine, Maisie, Juliet, Amanda, and Solly, it seems to be something different. Having children feels like a sort of obligation to which they agreed for different reasons. Notwithstanding, they don’t like it and have a hard time interacting with their offspring in a meaningful way (note that I use ‘meaningful’ as in ‘meaningful to them and their children’ NOT ‘meaningful to me’). The children work as props that the story needs to progress. Like accessories, one wears when meeting certain social circles because you can’t go without. In doing so, they don’t really need names or characterization. They fulfill their purpose as schemes in the background. Which is fine as a creative tool. Yet it’s not very inspiring.
Wrong choice
Maybe I didn’t like Arlington Park because I don’t ‘get it.’ Maybe these stories are more meaningful to a woman who has kids. I rarely read ‘mom lit’ (in reference to ‘chick lit’ and its numerous subdivisions) because I don’t care about the topics these books focus on: kids, husbands, marital and family issues. From what I read about Rachel Cusk, I would not categorize her in any way other than ‘fiction’ and probably ‘contemporary (women) writer.’ To me, this does not mean her books only work for certain audiences. But maybe I’m wrong — I’ll probably find out once I read another one of her books…
Unfortunately, I don’t feel inclined to do so. This is not good because there are two more of her books waiting on my shelves…🙄 Once again, a hyped bookstagram author did not live up to my expectations. I’ll see what I make of the next one.
Have you read this book? Did you like it? Let me know what you think of it! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by! See you soon — take care 🙂