Vol. 3, Number 2	Summer 2000

 

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It is a story many of us have read before: a young, well-educated woman reaches the age by which she once planned to be in proud possession of an exhilarating and glamorous job, a traffic-stopping physique, and a modern-day Mr. Darcy. Observing the woeful absence from her life of these most basic female needs, she decides that the adulthood to which she has so long aspired is a less-than-desirable state of affairs. Things, being generally quite bad, stay that way for a while before getting worse. Then they get better.

Saving Agnes, British author Rachel Cusk’s debut novel, follows this rather familiar pattern, but even readers who could paper an entire flat with the pages they have read about neurotic, disillusioned twenty-somethings (à la Bridget Jones) would do well not to miss it. Cusk charts her protagonist’s evolution from an increasingly hysterical frustration with herself and those around her to a restrained and believable salvation. Her taut prose sympathetically captures the perspective of an intelligent, vulnerable woman, and she balances affection for her characters with a shrewdly ironic acknowledgment of the absurdity that sometimes touches their lives. Cusk’s combination of insight and wit makes for a novel that is hilarious and, despite its superficial resemblance to other works, thoroughly original.

Our would-be heroine is Agnes Day-attractive, talented, Oxford-educated, and absolutely miserable. Agnes hates her name, her body, and her job, and she would hate men, too, if only she could get rid of the idea that a perfect relationship would solve her problems. A self-described “schizophrenic commuter,” she has spent her life “trudging back and forth between how things were and how she wanted them to be.” As a girl, Agnes assumed that the merger of these two worlds would come automatically with age; as a reluctant and jaded adult, she numbs herself to the pain of shattered idealism by assuming a defensive, self-deprecating cynicism. Agnes’ sensitive disposition, which is nearly poetic in its perception of natural metaphor, can turn a simple subway trip into a wistful musing on the terrible loneliness of the world, and a brief bus ride into a frenzied reflection on cultural diversity and human strife. By punctuating Agnes’ attempts at sarcasm with moments of extreme and poignant sensitivity, Cusk creates a beautiful and convincing portrait of a woman whose notion of the way things ought to be has given her a need for something perfect in which to believe.

It is Agnes’ exhaustion of possible objects for this belief that makes her world-weary and in need of salvation. Cusk reveals that, growing up, Agnes endured bouts of idolatry toward God, then an idealized and unattainable version of herself, and, most recently, a man named John. Having always placed utter faith in the future, mere survival in the present is almost more than Agnes can handle after her difficult break-up with John. By interspersing accounts of disappointing encounters between Agnes and her current nameless lover with unexpected and jewel-like descriptions of her memories of John, Cusk gives the reader a sense not only of how completely Agnes depended on him while they were together, but also of how unexpectedly he slips into her thoughts now that they are not.

In Agnes’ loved ones, Cusk has created a supporting cast of quirky and likable characters whose seeming control of their lives sustains Agnes’ conviction that the world is keeping from her a vital secret. Her flatmates are good examples: liberated Nina, who comes naturally by the cheerful cynicism and flippant feminism that Agnes is so unable to adopt and who seems to understand Agnes better than Agnes herself; and delicate, mathematical Merlin, whose mysterious blossoming into sexual and professional confidence is a constant reminder to Agnes of the disastrous nature of her own romantic and vocational exploits. As Agnes grows ever more frustrated with her peers, she becomes alienated and confrontational.

In describing Agnes’ increasingly aggressive interactions with those around her, Cusk distances herself from her heroine and displays an extremely deft comic hand. And, while the juxtaposition of Agnes’ poignant private reflections with her hysterical confrontations is amusing, the novel’s real humor lies in its intricately crafted dialogue. If the characters’ endlessly witty conversations seem at times unrealistic, it is only because they are too tight and clever to be true: while channel-surfing, Merlin describes a game show as “‘Large spinning wheel, ugly spectacle of human greed and suffering,’” and Nina counters with, “‘Documentary on rise of capitalist economies. Same thing.” Amidst the jokes, however, shine instances of poignant exchange; Cusk demonstrates not only a wonderful ear for the rhythm and diction of funny speech, but also an awareness of the potential for close friends to come together in moments of intimate understanding.

Considering the novel’s title, few will be surprised to learn that Agnes is, in the end, saved. Cusk’s orchestration of this salvation is commendably original. Instead of resorting to abrupt or formulaic plot developments, Cusk creates a smooth series of believable circumstances and restrained revelations by which her heroine is able first to accept, and finally even to like, herself and her life. We leave Agnes feeling that she will survive, and that her survival will be all the more solid for its independence from the rather outdated forces of unlikely coincidence and eighteenth-century male perfection. &