''The Country Life'' is a 1997

comedic Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

novel by

Rachel Cusk Rachel Cusk (born 8 February 1967) is a British novelist and writer. Childhood and education Cusk was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon to British people, British parents in 1967, the second of four children with an older sister and t ...

that draws on

Stella Gibbons Stella Dorothea Gibbons (5 January 1902 – 19 December 1989) was an English writer, journalist, and poet. She established her reputation with her first novel, ''Cold Comfort Farm'' (1932) which has been reprinted many times. Although she ...

's ''

Cold Comfort Farm ''Cold Comfort Farm'' is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb. Plot summary Following ...

'' and

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted i ...

's ''

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...

''. It won a 1998

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awa ...

Description

The novel is a

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

that draws on both ''

'' by

and ''

'' by

. Stella Benson, the first-person narrator, abruptly abandons her life in London to take a position as carer to Martin, the wheelchair-using teenage son of the wealthy and eccentric Madden family, in a farm near a small village in rural

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

. The novel details the many mishaps of her first week at the farm, and develops her relationships with Martin and his family, particularly his mother and handsome older brother. Stella appears to unearth secrets from the Madden family's past, though her reliability as a narrator is called into question, and her own reasons for fleeing London are explored.

Reviews and critical studies

The novelist and academic Lisa Zeidner, in a review for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', writes that the novel "boasts pitch-perfect tonal control and humor of such sly subversion that the novel's premise transcends mere skit", adding that "The pleasure of 'The Country Life' derives from how skillfully Cusk draws us into 'the solipsistic cabbage patch' of Stella's consciousness." Emma Hagestadt, in a review for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', describes the novel as "rustic satire" where "it's sometimes hard to spot the joke", and writes: "Cusk's loaded sentences can be a joy or a stumbling-block, depending on your state of mind. Stella's every sensation is logged, and every nuance of every encounter calibrated, but it's the kind of analysis that can often make you gasp. Cusk is at her best at capturing the psychological make-up and mannerisms of particularly unpleasant people." James Urquhart, in a review for the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', calls the novel "richly comic", writing that "Domestic strains are Cusk’s speciality, and the prickly intimacy that Stella develops with Martin is both charming and slightly edgy. Naïve introspection and formal language give her the unsettling presence of a

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

heroine adrift in a

Magnus Mills Magnus Mills (born in 1954 in Birmingham) is an English fiction writer and bus driver. He is best known for his first novel, '' The Restraint of Beasts'', which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and praised by Thomas Pynchon. Background Magn ...

fable, one in which the social landscape is always slightly out of kilter." ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' calls the novel "a touching, hilarious narrative" and praises Cusk's "marvelous knack for revealing character in a few deft lines of dialogue". ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' describes it as " tty, sharp, strangely good-natured". Claire Lowdon criticises the novel in ''

Areté ''Areté'' was an arts magazine, published three times a year, edited and founded in 1999 by the poet Craig Raine. The magazine aimed to give detailed coverage of theatre, fiction, and poetry, while also serving as a platform for new writing in ...

'', writing that "Too often readers are dazzled by difficulty, automatically assuming that if the prose is opaque, then it must be terrifically clever. But difficulty does not entail good writing, just as baroque contortions do not necessarily entail comedy. Cusk is guilty of both charges." Two critical studies of the novel concentrate on its treatment of

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

themes. Nicolas Pierre Boileau draws parallels between Stella and the protagonists of Cusk's two earlier novels, '' Saving Agnes'' and ''The Temporary'', stating that all three are "young, successful female characters that, for some reason, have failed to live up to society's expectations and end up as marginal, yet conventional women." He highlights the isolation caused by Stella's failure to identify with the novel's other female characters, writing that "Humiliation, disgust and the corporeality of womanhood are broached ... in a way that tends to attack most foundations of feminism by turning it into an ideology that is blind to the intimate, individual nature of woman's experience". Katja May takes an

ecofeminist Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in h ...

approach, considering that ''The Country Life'' uses "popular discourses about nature and women in order to convey late-twentieth-century women's struggle to live up to traditional ideals of femininity".

Awards

''The Country Life'' won a 1998

, and was selected as one of the Notable Books for Adults of 2000 by the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Country Life, The (novel) 1997 British novels Picador (imprint) books Novels by Rachel Cusk