This is a great book which I feel challenges preconceptions and stereotypes of beauty in a modern world.
The photographs have a distinct edge and are furthered by the Texts which echo the work so well. My favourites are the Rachael Cusk and Nick Cave Essays.

I heartily recommend this book, it is really intellegently put together.

This is a collection of beautiful photographs of mostly unbeautiful people and places. This is a great challenge and he meets it well. The more I look at this book, the more unfolds for me. These are dense, graceful photos from around the world. He uses cross processing, black and white and simple color with the eye of a real master. There are a collection of short stories which I have not read yet, but anything with Nick Cave in it, gets my money. For a first book, this is a keeper.

There were times, when reading this novel, where I found myself staring at a sentence so perfectly and interestingly structured, that I couldn't go on reading. I would read the sentence again and again, feeling a mixture of awe and complete despair that I'll never write as well.
This book kept me riveted, not so much by the plot, as by the writing itself. It is writing for readers who love words and the way they can fit together to express something that is so familiar and yet never properly articulated. Rachel Cusk has an astonishing talent and she's only 36. She has a great future ahead of her.
The story is about a young lonely woman, and a young lonely man, who are somehow thrown together in a world that is disorienting, and alienating. At times it is painful, other times it is so funny that you cannot help laughing out loud. The main characters, Francine and Ralph, are a match made in hell. She is vain and petty and superficial. He has resigned himself to a life of familiarity. Their relationship is fascinating and depressing and often hilarious all at once. You feel genuine compassion for these two; neither is bad nor good. And you want a happy ending for them both because they are suffering.
Unfortunately, the ending bothered me and left me uneasy. But it's a good story and it is written in language that requires a certain amount of penetration; it is not a book that you read with the stereo on. I highly recommend it and will add Rachel Cusk to my list of admired writers.

I do not understand why this book is out-of-print, when Rachel Cusk's first novel won an award, and her third is doing so well. I have not yet read The Country Life, but Saving Agnes seemed like a mere preliminary exercise to gear up for the writing of the masterpiece that is The Temporary. Just as I could not understand what was so outstanding about Saving Agnes (although I did enjoy it), I could not understand why this wonderful book has been overlooked. Aside from the sophisticated, intricate writing, the kind that may not have been successfully executed since Jane Austen, Rachel Cusk's insights into human behavior are dizzying. She uses unique, unexpected metaphors to describe, and almost every paragraph includes a disturbing glimpse into the human psyche. In my opinion, The Temporary is a psychological thriller, and the genius of it is that Cusk has created a sympathetic character whose behavior we sometimes question, and an unlikable character for whom we come to have compassion. At least that's how it worked for me. The fact that the ending left me mildly baffled only increased the novel's success. It ends with a cliffhanger, which in hindsight is almost the only way the author could end this book without disappointing, b/c I wanted to feel that the characters go on and are not trapped in their happy/unhappy/anticlimactic fates. Anyway, I cannot say enough good things about this story of a temporary, her hapless victim, and the womanizer who brings the whole thing to a head in one of the most chilling scenes I have ever read. Go to the out-of-print section and get it!

One is initially tempted to suggest that the English landscape, having already suffered through various bovine and vegetable scourges, is now being decimated by a viral infection which causes gifted young novelists to write books which combine first person narratives by neurotic-but-intelligent heroines and plot points that take rather pointed (i.e., "pointed points" indeed) satiric nods at 18th and 19th Century literary plots.

Rachel Cusk's the Country Life, though, mines its sources with wit and style, and has the feel of a 30s farce, rather like A.A. Milne's comedies for adults. Ms. Cusk has a bit of fun with allusions to the varied novels of country retreat. Yet, the novel does not feel artificial at all, nor is it particularly smug.

The tone is very light, witty but not fall-down funny. There's a whiff of Jane Eyre here, and bit of Cold Comfort farm there, maybe a nod or two at Wilkie Collins over yonder, a set of characters who might populate John Mortimer or Muriel Spark novels, a good bit of the class pretension/class distinction motif, and more than a touch (indeed, a whole portion) of the urban dweller goes rural satire. But this book is not confined by its sources--Rachel Cusk is a *real* novelist, the kind who can take a light comic format and run with it.

The plot is straightforward. Urban twentysomething woman seemingly inexplicably leaves her job to take au pair job in rural setting for wealthy family with disabled son. Disaster ensues.

The thing that makes this a worthwhile read is that one has the sense that Ms. Cusk knows she has a few points to make, but is far too gifted to stop in the middle of this bit of cotton candy to belabor the reader with long-winded condescension to her characters or to the reader. We don't mind that we have visited this landscape a time or two before, because Ms. Cusk is such a talented tour guide we see new wrinkles in the dilemmae that our previous tour guides have overlooked.

A good read.

The Country Life is a light, breezy novel for those in search of something a little different. We meet Stella Benson as she is about to take a new job, away from her native London. She narrates her story in an interesting way. We have virtually no background information on her, only what she chooses to tell us. We are kept guessing for a while about what her job is, what she is running from, why. Every 40 pages or so, she slips one of her secrets in, sometimes drawn out through conversation with the other characters. I really liked that technique. She talks to us as if we are her best friends, yet hides important things from us. Our perspective on her story is constantly shifting. You imagine her reasons are thus and so, yet they turn out not to be. Stella's navigation through her new life is quite amusing and entertaining. Stella tries to figure out what makes the people in her new world tick, just as we are trying to figure her out. It's a great, fun book, an entertaining read.

Cusk's style is somewhat labored and verbose in spots -- early on I found myself hacking through the metaphors with a machete -- but the intriguing characters, particularly Martin and Stella, are well worth the work. This is NOT a plot centered novel; external events are merely the catalysts for the important internal action. As a novelist, Cusk is obviously interested in the psychology of human beings, not contrived, action filled plots. Such rich characterization is unusual in contemporary fiction -- the Farm is filled with fascinatingly complex folk. If you like to be engaged and involved in what you read, this book is for you.

I'm pregnant with my first child and was also looking on personal accounts of the "mother" experience. I guess I can't say if it's right or not, still being pregnant but my best guess is that this is very slanted. So this woman felt invaded and overwhelmed with her daughter, but hey, what did she expect?
I'm tired of people having babies and then complaining that they can't continue their life as it used to be before. Hello?! What did you have a child for? To play with it a little and then put it on a shelf?

Rachel Cusk's novel "The Country Life" is a favorite of mine-so I was eager to read her thoughts on new motherhood, being the mother of a young child myself. I found the book somewhat disjointed, and felt like she was writing in a stream of consciousness form sometimes. However-I have never read someone so accurately describe the intense feelings of bewilderment that life with a baby can induce in you (speaking for myself). The combination of devoted love and attachment one feels for a child & at the same time longing for freedom lost, resentment at times too; Rachel Cusk conveys this conflict successfully, especially in the last few chapters. I do not think anyone who is not a mother should read this-I would think it sound too scary. Ms Cusk even says in the intro that this book is mainly for people who are already mothers-as the description of parenting "loses something in the translation" to non parents. I couldn't agree more.

Rachel Cusk is the first writer I know of to describe how disorienting it is to become a mother. She doesn't complain, but she articulates the strangeness of the experience and brought back vivid memories for me. Learning to nurse is a challenge -- it only LOOKS natural! Like her I had a colicy baby, which everyone treats as if it is a benign condition while you as the mother are faced with a fiercely inconsolable child. She describes the oddness of arriving home from the hospital with the baby, a new person totally dependent on you, and looking around at your home that encompasses your former life, the life that is gone forever. And the common feeling pre-baby, that life will continue as it is and the baby will fit in, is shown as it changes, as Rachel can't leave her child for an evening out without calling so often that she is finally forced to return home to her screaming child.
When a mother says, "Why doesn't anyone tell you what it's really like?" she should be given this book.

Saving Agnes is confounding. I'm torn between two assumptions - either Rachel Cusk writes beautifully and intends on challenging readers or she's pompous and likes using big words to show how good a writer she thinks she is. My guess is that the truth lies somewhere in between.

The premise of Saving Agnes is wonderful - professional woman working in London trying to find herself. It's not a very original premise but its one that's worked for many other authors. The very first paragraph of the book draws you in and is hard not to like. But aside from the decent premise and that first paragraph, Saving Agnes doesn't have much going for it. What little happens in the book and what resolution there is can be gleaned just as easily from the blurb on the back of the book without having to wade through 200 pages.

That said, Saving Agnes is an interesting read. Perhaps I'm better off for reading it as it makes me appreciate good solid writing even more. Cusk has potential but needs to shy away from her intense and overly indulgent writing style.

Although this is an OK book, it is nothing like Bridget Jones except that both characters work in London publishing houses. There are one or two interesting side characters (Greta's pretty good), but Agnes is just whiney and self centered without much humour. The author seems more concerned with pretty sentence structure than plot.

I am surprised that there have been so many 2 star reviews, and they leave me wondering if these readers have actually read the entire book. The first part of the book was admittedly rather dry, and I was tempted to chuck it aside. But I hanged on because of Ms Cusk's beautiful prose. And I'm really glad I did. She really has a way with words, and many a time, she just wowed me with the way she expresses complex emotions so fluidly. The second half (starting from the working day description if my memory has not failed me) is brilliant. I couldn't put it down. This book doesn't engage the reader with much action, but rather, with what goes on in Agnes's mind. Thus, if you are looking for an action-filled plot, this book may not entertain you. But if you enjoy observing human emotions and behaviour, as well as life's little ironies and nuances, pick this up right away!