Rachel Cusk's Second Place is where the search for self starts

Rachel Cusk's Second Place published by Faber and Faber

Second place is a woman’s world. A world that she has conceived, like many of us, through the ways of perception. Not many of us are individuals, though, no matter how much we press ourselves. Perceptions steps in and holler at our each and every intention.

Why or when do we start giving into these ideas about what and how should we as women be is something that may be delayed for some, but it surely shows with much force in the Second Place.

As smoothly as the protagonist tries to chart out a world for herself by living in a secluded place, it seems like she has settled instead of going for what she wanted; much like Madame Bovary at times and much like part of her actual personality. One can never say though. And that is where the problematic of the book lies too. Do we even have a personality if it shatters so easily as one deviating perspective comes in our life? As humans, Cusk deftly says, our lives take meaning from the commentary that is done on it, but then why does she try to erase all that with a force as strong as that of an all-diminishing flood to create an individuality?

To be sure there is an individual, but that individual seems to gain traction of their being front things they desperately want to be aligned with their personality even though they may or may not. M, the protagonist, invites over an ultra-famous though now old artist only to have all the breaks in her personality resurface. She tries to be close to him, leaving her all-natural and close to the real natural world husband. But what does she find? Him tearing mercilessly at her personality. She seems to have fallen in love with the person who instead of appreciating her rite de passage comes clean with all the weaknesses in her being. Whom does then this “so-called” exchange of commentary reflect? M or L.

It is left inconclusive by most standards, but if you want to challenge yourself and all that you have built yourself to be, then the Second Place is where you might start.

Eliot’s poem comes to mind;

“Do I dare disturb the universe?”

Dare and see if you move forward with that reality, truth and the inability of that truth to make things better for you.