John has served his sentence… I wonder if this dark book is Faye’s sentence for the transgression (as she sees it) of oblivious immersion she describes to Paniotis and her “criminal” (in her mind) treatment of Gerard. #rachelcusktogether

Ah, Tony, not helping matters. He's sheepish after seeing Paula and confesses to his "strategy." Faye senses he's imposing his interpretation on events he doesn't understand, which suggests to me that Paula controlled the exchange. But it doesn't make me feel better about him. #rachelcusktogether

When re-reading, I'm always struck by what has stayed with me from a book--in this case, Pavel's (homesick) fascination with the arrivals gate at Heathrow. #rachelcusktogether

At least Paula makes no pretense; her malice is naked. #rachelcusktogether

"Without children or partner, without meaningful family or a home, a day can last an eternity: a life without those things is a life without a story...no narrative flights, no plot developments, no immersive human dramas-to alleviate the cruelly meticulous passing of time." Yikes #rachelcusktogether

"His head on its still-narrow neck came out of the top, so that it looked almost dissociated from the mass beneath it... It was a photograph of a tormented child imprisoned in a great rock of flesh." Frightful. #rachelcusktogether

"'You're like a teenager,' he said." What? #rachelcusktogether

"He introduced himself--his name was Oliver--and said that he had spent nearly the whole event watching us sitting there in our wet clothes and thinking about the issue of humiliation..." I can't help but find some deadpan humor in this.. #rachelcusktogether

"He had a loud voice and manner which looked always to be on the verge of some clumsiness or mishap but which in fact was rapidly and pointedly satirical, so that you'd been accurately mocked before you even realized you'd been seen." Julian. #rachelkusktogether

"Some of these roots had penetrated to the surface: their blind, snake-like forms, thicker than a human arm, lay impacted in the stone." Trees are dramatic in this volume. (Also "penetrated to the surface" is an interesting, paradoxical phrase.) #rachelcusktogether

Literally "shattering" conclusion to chapter 3. I had forgotten it, but remembered the instant the boy appeared with his mother. I was incensed at their departure without so much as an apology (or even paying for the haircut?). Poor Dale. #rachelcusktogether

"Once you put people in a position of power over other people, he said, there's no knowing what they'll do." True. #rachelcusktogether

"The people below had evidently remained unreconciled to the fact of others living above their heads." Uh-oh #rachelcusktogether

The description of the garden is at once dismal and desperate: "an apple tree that drooped amidst its own rotted, fallen fruit," other trees "frozen in postures of madness and distress," "sick-looking grey pigeons," and the "shrivelled, hobbling dog" peeing on the steps. 😬 #rachelcusktogether

Gerard, like Paniotis, thought Faye was living the perfect life. Faye herself, now that this life has been "jettisoned," again describes a sense of being punished, perhaps with more reason when it comes to Gerard. But he is similarly surprised--and also rejects the idea. #rachelcusktogether

Anne's crisis is frightful. She has lost "a native language of self." Words have become labels that reduce/nullify things and people, rather than bringing them to life. #rachelcusktogether

I'm interested in how Cusk returns to the title word here in the last chapter. It appears on the first page with respect to the billionaire's narrative, a (confident) outline of his life; now Anne feels herself to be a negative outline created by another person's narrative. Hmm. #rachelcusktogether

"If a man had a nasty side...She didn't want it roaming unseen in the hinterland of the relationship: she wanted to provoke it... Melete laughed. 'According to that logic...there can be no relationship at all. There can only be people stalking one another.'" #rachelcusktogether

Christos' story is my favorite...his phobia of dancing cured by 50s garb and the Lindy Hop. "I found myself not falling but flying, flying up and up, around and around, so fast and so high that I seemed to fly clear even of my body itself." #RachelCuskTogether

The faithless husband belting Carmen in the shower. 🤣 Gotta love it (unless you're the wife). #rachelcusktogether

I was surprised when the narrator said she liked Angeliki at the end of ch. 5. She seemed to be presented as insufferable, dominating the conversation and the ordering of the food (then eating so little of it). But I realized it was partly Paniotis' attitude I was reacting to. #rachelcusktogether

"That time spent swimming in the waterfall belongs nowhere: it is part of no sequence of events, it is only itself..." A spontaneous swim, intense and refreshing, after Paniotis and his children's harrowing experience. This has stayed with me. #rachelcusktogether

"I replied that I wasn't sure it was possible, in marriage, to know what you actually were, or indeed to separate what you were from what you had become through the other person. I thought the whole idea of a 'real' self might be illusory..." #rachelcusktogether

I feel rather ambivalent about Paniotis' account of his publishing downfall. It sounds as though he was not able to meet his contractual obligations for (advance) payments, in which case I can't blame the writers for being upset. It's not just the money but the trust. #rachelcusktogether

I like her reading of the scene in Wuthering Heights too, the "fatal...subjectivity" of Catherine and Heathcliff's perception of the Lintons. No one, arguably, sees what's really there (whatever that means). Even the people in the scene perceive it subjectively. #rachelcusktogether

"What was striking was the sheer negative capability of their former intimacy... And what is astonishing is how much detail it gathers to itself, so that nothing remains untouched by it...maddened by detail, they erupted into physical violence. Hmm. The minutiae of ire. #rachelcusktogether

Ah, the Greek's absurd vanity about his car (and boat)! And his confession of three marriages. "I'm the full disaster." She hasn't even been in Athens 24 hrs. Yikes. #rachelcusktogether

I confess to not liking Ryan much, though he makes an impression. His habit of taking the inside place on the sidewalk and basically acknowledging he is exposing her to vehicular homicide rubs me the wrong way. #rachelcusktogether

I've read Outline twice, yet this first chapter fascinated me all over again. The billionaire and the Greek's stories, the "magic" of distress that brings her children's dropped items back, the armchair in-laws, the exhaustion and expense of a life without limitations... #RachelCuskTogether

"life...had treated them abundantly, and this--he now saw--was what had given him the confidence to break it all, break it with what now seemed to him to be an extraordinary casualness, because he thought there would be more." #Rachelcusktogether

"Lord Widmerpool seemed to enjoy a tussle, then giving in, and being given a penance. Never knew such a man for penances." Ah, what an enigmatic figure was Widmerpool. Plenty of penances (you might say) throughout the books, from bananas to sugar to red paint to stink bombs. #anthonypowelltogether

"Ken's transcendental gifts were not what Scorp wanted him for. I doubt if he possessed any. Not like Gwinnett. It was Ken's will-power." But Scorp's will-power, Barnabas tells us, is "stronger than anything." He subjugated the irrepressible Widmerpool. #anthonypowelltogether

"Fashion, decreeing one kissed almost everyone these days, might not unreasonably have brought that about had she kept herself less erect." Poor Nick. Does he want to kiss her one last time? #AnthonyPowellTogether

Surprised to see Barnabas go from being held all but captive by Murtlock to having his own gallery... and putting together a major retrospective (of Mr. D no less). And Quentin Shuckerly got "battered to death" in Greenwich Village? (Just a parenthetical statement here.) Whoa. #anthonypowelltogether

"...it was clear that Murtlock had moved a long way, in terms of power... Perhaps he had learnt something from Widmerpool, while at the same time subduing him." Hmm #anthonypowelltogether

"In his present mood Widmerpool was capable of exploring in public, in much the same manner that he had been expatiating on them to me, all the mystical implications of Sir Bertram Akworth's youthful desires." #anthonypowelltogether

"I behaved to Akworth in a way I now know to be not wrong...but what must be deplored as transcendentally discordant, mystically in error, in short, contrary to Harmony." Ah, yes. Quite a few things like that happening at the moment. #anthonypowelltogether

Bithel is back--and gets his revenge on Widmerpool via Murtlock. I'm not a Widmerpool fan, but I feel sorry for him here. Even less am I a Murtlock fan. #AnthonyPowellTogether

Fiona and Gwinnett...married? Hmm. Can't say I like it. Her parents are very pleased. Also, Nick actually puts his foot in it (very rare), suggesting Delavacquerie. #anthonypowelltogether

Glad to see Umfraville still alive and kicking, but oh, Matilda! #anthonypowelltogether

Ken and Scorp... "Gwinnett's use of these abbreviated first-names gave an additional grotesqueness to what was already a sufficiently grotesque narrative." Agreed. #anthonypowelltogether

Nick sounds like a headmaster questioning Gwinnett: "How far did they get?" [Resurrecting Trelawney] "Did they have a scrap during the rite?" "What did those consist of?" ["sexual invocations"] #anthonypowelltogether

Widmerpool, Gwinnett, and Murtlock possibly all coming together... yikes. #anthonypowelltogether

Emma chases rapture relentlessly, while Charles, though far from dashing, loves her doggedly and irrationally, and Lheureux ruins them both. Hard to forgive the couple for so completely failing their daughter. I forgot how utterly bleak and galling the end is. :( #Flauberttogether

"Haunting the imagination was the closest we came to acquaintance at that early period." Love this line. Nick is talking about Trelawney as he knew him in childhood, but it describes many associations in life in their entirety. #anthonypowelltogether

"His cherubic side...was a little too good to be true, with eyes like that. In the manner in which he gave you all his attention there was a taste for mastery." Paul Fenneau #anthonypowelltogether

Widmerpool as Orlando... hmm, the hero gone mad. He is the central figure of these books, the Gatsby to Jenkins' Carraway. I was just looking back at Book One, and he is the first character we meet...doing his daily solitary run in bleak December. #anthonypowelltogether

"The transcendent beauty of the performance put on by the Quiggin twins alone absorbed him; as it were levitated him into a world of almost absolute moral and political bliss." Widmerpool transported by a stink bomb (well, "almost"). #anthonypowelltogether

"'Was Gwinnett pleased his book was chosen?' 'Pleased--far from overwhelmed.'" ... 'Gwinnett will be here all right. He writes the letter of a man of purpose.'" Enigmatic, laconic, purposeful: Gwinnett. #anthonypowelltogether

Caught up traveling home...the Magnus Donners Prize is an interesting narrative tool. Matilda has to all but blackmail Nick to get him on the committee, but revisiting the Seven Deadly Sins was fun (Moreland really did shine!), and now Gwinnett is returning as man of the hour. #anthonypowelltogether