Thomas Liam
@thomasliam300.bsky.social
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thomasliam300.bsky.social
Future group read? One of my favourite books.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
This beautiful passage feels like a stylistic aside for Cusk. Atmosphere overlaps structure with near-poetry. It has the luxuriousness of Proust...or being Greece, is it a nod to Durrell?

#RacheCuskTogether
thomasliam300.bsky.social
"...paused in an atmosphere of extraordinary pallor and thickness."

Day 14
#RachelCuskTogether
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

"At evening, with the sun no longer overhead, the air developed a kind of viscosity in which time seemed to stand very still and the labyrinth of the city, no longer bisected by light and shade and unstirred by the afternoon breezes, appeared suspended in a kind of dream..."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
It seems incredible to me that at the age of sixty-one I am still capable of producing, in all innocence, a completely unrealisable hope.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 13

"There was no longer a shared vision, a shared reality even. Each of them saw things now solely from his own perspective: there was only point of view."

At this point, I feel like this is what the novel(s) are about: perspective, point of view.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
This line from today's reading brought me back to that image.

"But everything falls away, try as you might to stop it. And for whatever returns to you, be grateful."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#HenryVIII_2025
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Henry VIII:
Come, come, my lord, you’d spare your spoons!
(V.2.200)

An expression I was unfamiliar with.

In Tudor and early Stuart England, Apostle Spoons (ornate silver spoons with a small figure of one of the twelve apostles on the handle) were traditional christening gifts from godparents.
Apostle spoons
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Henry VIII:
Come, come, my lord, you’d spare your spoons!
(V.2.200)

An expression I was unfamiliar with.

In Tudor and early Stuart England, Apostle Spoons (ornate silver spoons with a small figure of one of the twelve apostles on the handle) were traditional christening gifts from godparents.
Apostle spoons
thomasliam300.bsky.social
The editing of her writing deserves a tribute, too.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Such beautifully constructed writing.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 12 (Caught up!)

"Yet this impulse, this desire to be free, was still compelling to me: I still, somehow, believed in it despite having proved that everything about it was illusory."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 11

"I was surprised to find myself not especially sure-footed in this exercise."

When we're done with these books, will we all see the literal and metaphorical coexist everywhere we go?
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#HenryVIII_2025

Cromwell:
My Lord of Winchester, you are a little,
By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been: 'tis a cruelty
To load a falling man.

(V.2.107-111) - Arden 3rd
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 10

"I said that I didn't believe people could change so completely, could evolve an unrecognisable morality; it was merely that that part of themselves had lain dormant, waiting to be evoked by circumstances."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Yes, and pathetic. But we haven't entered his interiority. We only see his performance of himself so far.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Aphoristic lines like this are typically signposts offering clear insight into the worldview of the author or protagonist. We’re conditioned to treat them as miniature truths, endorsed by the author. But Cusk deliberately unsettles that expectation. The protagonist isn't proclaiming; just listening.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Is it a kind of “myth” of domestic family life? Unattained. Are they museum pieces of some past/alternate identity?
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 9

"The bunk beds, in other words, stood for the concept of children generally rather than for any child specifically."

I'm fascinated by this sentence—a casual little drip-drop of semiotics in our story. Signifier and signified. What's she trying to tell us?
thomasliam300.bsky.social
Yes. The second-to-last line in the chapter is so good.

"I kept looking for something else, a clue, something rotting or breeding, a layer of mystery or chaos or shame, but I didn't find it."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
It can be somewhat disconcerting. So many of the characteristics, quirks, faults, imperfections, mistakes she reveals, I see shadows of in myself. Only excellent and subtle writing can do this.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
And it's such an elegant phrase - poetic but precise.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
I love this. She takes this seemingly obvious, heavy-handed metaphor and makes it brilliant, ironic. Flips it on Ryan - his symbol of change becomes a symbol of Sisyphian stagnation.
thomasliam300.bsky.social
#RachelCuskTogether

Day 8

"As he spoke I saw the imaginary staircase rising in front of him once more, stretching out of sight; and him climbing it with a book suspended tantalisingly ahead of him."
thomasliam300.bsky.social
And this self-preservation habit is echoed by his taking the seat against the wall.