Rachel Cusk: "Do women want power or be dominated?"

• Interview Rachel Cusk: "Marriage still has something of a fairy tale"

Rachel Cusk is full and it shows. A year ago he decided to leave Norfolk in protest of his deep disagreement with Brexit.

with her partner, the visual artist Siemon Scamell-Katz. After publishing

a very hard novel in the key of autofiction based on

, Cusk returns to the charge with

(Libros del Asteroide / Les Hores),

,

, the desire and the role that we give to art in our lives.

Cusk is one of the most acclaimed British writers of her generation

and her books do not leave anyone indifferent because of her

, not only with others, but also with herself. Two decades ago she wrote

, a book on motherhood about which one critic went so far as to say that, if read, the human race would become extinct.

, in Spain

and

. "I write about my life, but even in my memories, it is not exactly what it seems.

but the writing process is always objective. I write to get rid of things that have happened to me, "he explains.

Finalist for the Booker Prize,

proposes

of great psychological depth between the protagonist, a middle-aged woman who decides to invite L., an artist whose painting subjugates her, and her husband, a simple and gentle guy. who likes carpentry and working with his hands in the field. The novel is, in a way, a rewrite of

the memoirs of the North American patron

a radical from Greenwich Village who in 1917 set up an artists 'colony in Mexico, where she invited Ansel Adams, Georgia O' Keeffe or Aldous Huxley. He also received

and who is inspired, in part, by the dark, moody and prestigious L. in Cusk's novel.

How does it feel in your new life as a 'self-exile' in Paris? It is extremely liberating to live there, I feel very lucky to have enough freedom to do so. My daughters are older and have finished college. I have the feeling of having complied:

. It's like a rebirth. Existing in another language that you are not fluent in is a challenge. Even so, it is something that I recommend to everyone:

of this caliber is difficult but very exciting. There is also a sad part about it, I think of all the people in England who deserve much better. But most cannot leave. It's been a year now, you had to leave before the end of last year in order to keep your European rights. We arrived on December 28, hurrying. What does Brexit look like from there? Every time I read about queues and shortages there is a part of me that can't help but rejoice and think:

But the reality is that half the population did not vote for Brexit and is suffering its consequences. It is like in the United States, the same policy of 52% -48%, 51% -49%, which has the population divided. That's a lot of people forced to live with something they don't agree with.

I think the same of the Democrats in the United States with Trump.

But in the end it seems that it happened without a real opposition, that it was imposed with resignation. It is tremendously unfair that my daughters' generation cannot do what I did at their age, such as living and working for a while abroad. They have been waiting for the visa for months and it does not arrive, the jobs they had gotten have disappeared.

How did 'Second House' come about? I did not really know what direction to take after closing the trilogy and suddenly I found myself in

, that of middle age or post-middle age, biologically and sexually speaking. I wanted to talk about that transition and how imperceptible it is: there are no guidelines or a structure to hold on to,

simply

You go through those vital decades in which almost all your energy goes to taking care of the children and when everything ends, it's funny how you look back and it gives you a certain shock to see how quickly everything has happened,

. You feel all that but you don't say anything, you don't express it. That's when I had the idea of ​​writing the novel with a mask: setting the action in a house that seems half abandoned, almost as if it were a play. The novel takes place in a place away from everything, in the marsh, in a Almost confinement environment. I wanted to write a story suspended in time and space, then the pandemic came and it seemed to me that everything fell into place.

You have to think of a lot of conditions. A visual artist does not have to worry about how to reflect social networks in his work, for example. Language is closely tied to the contemporary. In the novel, he speaks of achieving freedom through "continuous obedience."

It is technical. Not knowing how to do things gets you nowhere. You can say that a baby is free, but it is not because it needs many things to be done for it. Aristotle already said it. He also talks a lot about art and what it causes in people. People are attracted to art because they expect it to express some part of them, a hidden truth.

in contrast to the behavior of many artists throughout history, especially

It fascinates me because the culture of cancellation, which in its most extreme position tells you not to read a certain author because he has done this or that, does not apply to painters or visual artists. Lucian Freud's behavior, which was despicable in his life, does not take you away from his work. But I have the feeling that this feeling is fading. Can the author's work be separated? It is a complex question that is basically about power. All over the world people abuse power and are often brought to justice. So we should all ask ourselves that question:

, and how exactly does it relate to what you have done? We write while all of these things are being re-evaluated. He means that the culture of cancellation hasn't hit the art world yet.

I wonder when it will arrive. It is not a question of whether or not it should be done, but of when.In 'Second House', the protagonist is torn between two men: a toxic and unscrupulous artist to whom she is attracted and her husband, a quiet and calm that he goes about his own thing and does not intrude on her life.This is what she talks about non-stop: on the one hand she values ​​her husband's silence and his apparent lack of power and control compared to the more conventional power of the artist . But at the same time he wants the artist to enter his life, to affect it, shake it and transform it in some way. Her husband is the opposite: he leaves her enough space to be who she wants, without interfering.

What do we recognize as a man? Do we want power or do we want to be dominated? Why do you consider it in that vital moment? The book is set in a moment in life that happens after the action, and I think that moment is good to reconsider the genre. She thinks: ok, I have served my gender, I have lived a gender life but now I want to get out of it.

And that brings us a little closer to equality.

, but the woman does not have the ability to do that: no youth is going to be devoured by her because she has no power to reciprocate. In the novel the protagonist talks about menopause, but the two male characters are also going through andropause , even if they don't mention it.

In fact, it's something that never appears in any book written by men. Yes, they don't write about it precisely because they are men.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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