In her daring new publication Parade, Rachel Cusk presents an array of characters named ‘G’, each artistically talented and representing a variety of genders, races, and historical periods, loosely linked to each other. This compilation of interlaced tales, comments, and dialogues is described as a ‘carousel of lives’ in the promotional materials, but, being a work by Cusk, it’s more like a magical ride where riders often get consumed by the animating horses.
Parade’s tone channels Cusk’s later work, being precise, thought-provoking, and unabashedly unsentimental. It revives the central themes broached in her widely celebrated Outline trilogy and her non-fiction works, delving specifically into the tensions between artistic endeavours and motherhood, the complex challenge of achieving gender-based equality in relationships, and the evolving identities individuals adopt throughout their lives, which serve to isolate them from others and undermine their hold on their own realities.
Cusk has made a name for herself by attempting to depict life as it unfolds, in accordance with Philip Roth’s philosophy of portraying life prior to the narrative’s takeover. In Parade, she extends this concept through a medley of voices, creating a cross-age tapestry of lives. Towards the end, a character’s statement “Perhaps if I told my story again, it would be completely different” serves as a fitting abstraction of the book’s essence.
Even as it portrays life in its raw, unfiltered state, with every individual tale being dissected by her intense and unparalleled narrative style, Parade gains rigour through the grand notion of the infinite cycle of life, where everything that has happened will repeat itself ad infinitum. This brings to mind the work of Milan Kundera, especially the surreal elements manifest in Cusk’s work and the depth that is incrementally achieved via her vivid anecdotes and, naturally, her prompt character deconstructions.
Speaking on the perils that women face when they marry a fellow artist, it has been said, “A male artist desires a submissive partner and when he weds a female artist, he receives the additional endowment of a partner who perceives him as a genius.” Regarding matrimony in general, “The ageing middle-class pair consigned for life in their self-inflicted and godless servitude is simply history’s mediocre issue.” Discussing the indomitable nature of traumatic upbringings, “The painful combination of authority and neglect from her parents had constrained her from emancipating herself from them,” a sentence that brings to mind Anne Enright’s quotation that there isn’t anything as savage as blood.
Parade is not just composed of sharp criticisms and dissatisfaction. The third section out of four, The Diver, encapsulates the lively chatter of intellectual and artistic comrades during a dinner party following a postponed seminal exhibition debut of the artist known as G. This part, constituting just over one-fourth of the book, stands as an enriching debate on the aforesaid themes, offering a declaration of alternative lifestyles; each one being valid and intriguing.
The remaining three sections – The Stuntman, The Midwife, and The Spy – present varied narratives from the lives of different individuals. These profiles include: a woman assaulted on the streets of Paris, an incident that befell Cusk; an artist called G, a man who paints the world upside down reminiscent of the German artist Georg Baselitz; a woman artist also named G, longing for her earlier, less successful days before she became tied to a terrifying lawyer; a self-centred mother and her grown-up children who discover unforeseen liberties in her demise.
Rewording the original text we find an intense dissection of the historical artistic position women have been assigned as inspiration or subject matter. The woman who, upon seeing the portrait her husband painted of her, feels her vulnerability exposed and something of herself stolen does not escape this domination. A shift in roles in a subsequent passage does not change the power dynamic. It presents a husband who initially denies knowing anything about art, only to claim mastery over his wife’s life as if it were a legal document. Introducing children into this scenario further exacerbates this imbalance, making it more egregious, more unjust. The artist, who is also a mother, is forced to step out of her moment to engage in an entirely different one, each departure extracts a price.
If it had not been previously utilised by Cusk’s peer, Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living would undoubtedly be a fitting title for this book. That said, Parade equally serves this audacious, perturbing novel successfully. Like life, this novel is disorienting, initially trying to engage with but it imprints itself in the memory nonetheless. So, do come along, brandish a standard and join the multitude to observe Rachel Cusk’s unfaltering journey through life.