Rachel Cusk: “The ultimate end of art and literature is the destruction of authority”

“This book is born from the intention of imposing my vision to reality, as if I was observing the world through the peephole of a rifle. We currently live a kind of narrative of the decline in which we are told that reality has changedthat we are losing authenticity and integrity, that there are no certainty, “argues the writer Rachel Cusk (Saskatoon, Canada, 1967) at the headquarters of the Books of the Asteroid in Barcelona. “But I don’t think that is something bad in itself, because fragmentation can be a force of creativity. At an existential level I am in a moment of, say, social post -structures, where I celebrate the collapse of many thingsespecially of that mysterious authority that was previously called God, which is just a narrative thing, “he says.

“I think most people, in the end, will realize that this authority does not exist and that reality as we understand it is simply a conventionsomething they told us that we had to believe, but that it is really alien to us, “says the author.” Although I know that most people need to see the world as a series of structures whose collapse threatens their freedom, for me This fragmentation at all levels is somewhat regenerating and intrinsically linked to the creative process“, defends Cusk animated, who after a couple of weeks of promotion for Sweden, Finland and Germany, confesses to be a little tired.” Although I am lucky, in Spain you always ask me very interesting questions, “he says smiling.

After three recognized novels written in the 90s, Cusk began working with non -fiction in response to the limits of The novel as a genre to represent female experiencebecoming a pioneer in self -fiction long before the label became fashionable, a little in the style of Nobel Annie Ernaux. Their Autobiographical stories about motherhood and divorce, A lifetime job y Remains -He asteroid- were As revolutionaries as controversial.

However, fame would come with THE BREAVY NOVEL TRILOGY Backwards (Contraluz, transit y Prestige). Held for their absence of pure narrative, these books follow a narrator, often silent, in their trips and meetings with strangers that offer long discursive monologues ranging between banal and deep In a fresh and incisive prose that distills issues such as identity, gender roles, or the human need for creativity and freedom.

See without being seen

After deepening this demolition of the novel in his previous work, Second housewhere the art world became great importance, Parade (also in asteroid) is A complex experiment, lucid, cold and rationalin which an unnamed narrator, whose scarce biographical details map those of Cusk, moves between European cities without a name, visiting exhibitions and thinking of artists. But who tells us these stories?

“The key of art, its maximum perfection, is to see without being seen. As an artist and as a person we are always judged, since very young, even for those who create and raise us. Some artists can put on a mask, or use a pseudonym, but that is not something that offers your life, except in very specific circumstances, “says the writer.

“I celebrate the collapse and fragmentation of many social structures, it is something regenerative and intrinsically linked to the creative process”

 

“That is why I believe that identity always generates conflict. Many people think that creators, for example a writer, have the freedom to park their identity for a whilewhen they create their imaginary worlds. But it is not true, because the language you use, your means of expression, exposes your origin, your social class, your generation … Identity always defines us“, rivets.

The four chapters of Parade They focus on the life of artists, each of which is known as “G”. “The double” tells the story of A veteran artist who achieves success when he begins to paint the other way around. “La Comadrona” tells the story of an artist who paints “horrible, pornographic and cheerful” works as visceral response to abandonment and disapprovalfirst of her parents and after her husband.

“The jumper” gathers a cast of academics and art professionals who during a dinner and desktop talk about an important exhibition of the G of this chapter, canceled after the mortal jump of a man from the museum’s atrium. “The spy” tells the story of a writer turned into a filmmaker who, by family conventions and eagerness for freedom decides to create his art under a pseudonym.

It is in this chapter that it addresses the death of a mother, that for Cusk it is something symbolic not only at the artistic level, also vital. “This death of who has created and narrated is also the death of hopebut as I said of fragmentarity, I see it as something positive, “he reason.” It is a new acceptance of reality, the loss of self -deception. That is, do not need beauty or self -deception constantly, or the judgment and cruelty that are embodied in those same things, I see it as An optimistic message“.

Difficult literature?

The third -person chronicles of the life of these artists are intertwined with first -person narrative threads: occasionally in the first person of the singular, but, with increasing prominence, in the first person of the plural. “A while ago he collapsed for me the idea of ​​writing conventional narrative with a” you “or a” me. ” I felt that this concept of “I” was in retired and I started exploring a collective voiceComo la de Annie Ernaux in The years“He points out.

“In this wonderful book she states: ‘We are the product of the same society, of the same historical eventsof the same treatment by capitalism, the same manufacture of desires and satisfactions and the same biological structures. Therefore, do we exist as individuals? Do we have a self? ‘ It has to do with the individual’s relationship with reality and the burden of individualitywhich increases as the reality of things becomes more transparent. “

“Many people criticize the difficulty of my work, but there are a lot of easy books to read, so I don’t understand why I should change,”

 

Parade It is too An inquisitive book, written against conformismwhich addresses from an exploration of the role of gender in the genesis and the reception of art to tense reflections on the complexities of artistic identity and the usefulness of creation, through debates about debates about debates about debates about debates If art is the only place where freedom is truly attainable or also a rigorous analysis of traumas and vericuetos of family relationships.

The themes, prose and shape of this book, almost a cubist, have caused the writer to question a lot for the difficulty. “Many people have told me about that difficulty, if readers do not care, but I think there are a lot of easy books that people can read, so I don’t understand why I should change my way of doing things“, Brome replies.” But it is true that it is a fine and important line, because the book needs to be read to exist, although only one person reads it, “he grants.

The health of culture

Something that does not affect the works of art that, for that reason, says Cusk, can ask questions where literature can only offer answers. “Art can be positioned far beyond understanding, it can be done completely inaccessiblesomething that in literature can only allow poetry and perhaps the theater, if you are Beckett. The writer who raises some questions has to offer the reader some answers, although they are not entirely clear, “defends the writer.

“I don’t think art is dying, on the contrary, people are more hungry for complexity than they had for a long time.”

 

Insisting the issue of complexity, Cusk praises the great health of creation. “Although it repeats each time, I do not believe that art or literature are dying. On the contrary, things are changing and people are more hungry for difficulty what they have had for a long time. That is a wonderful collateral effect of nefarious films and fatal books in recent years, ”he adds with a point of fun malice.

“I see many young people reading, for example, Hannah Arendtand that means that if they do not find that difficulty in living creators, if we do not bet on explaining the world bravely, they will go looking for that in previous times. “In this sense, he considers that”The ultimate goal of art and literature is the destruction of authoritythat’s why creative works have been persecuted. Although they never die, they are always there as a life teachers, “he says.

And put an example. “When we think of World War II and Hitler, The first thing that is remembered is the holocaust, true, but the second is the persecution of artists And the destruction of works of art, “he says.” First, human life, but secondly, artistic creation, which also persists in many cases, as I say. So As a moral record I think it works quite well“He concludes.