Arlington Park

Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk is depressing. It makes me not want to have kids. It was dreary.

It's set in a single day in a suburb in England. It covers the lives of about five different couples, each with children. The husbands work while the wives mostly stay at home with the children. It's told from the women's perspectives.

"And what was it all for? What was the point of it? In what sense did the girls, even the scientists, profit from their hard work and their grades? Sooner or later they would meet a man and it would all be stolen from them. That girl with her chemistry textbooks would meet a man, and little by little he would murder her." (p 160) One of the women feels that her life has been murdered by her husband, and that it doesn't matter which man he is, any man would have murdered her life.

None of these women connect with each other, nor are they really connected to their children. They feel disconnected to the world around them, yet there's no explanation for this other than the tenuous one that it's because they're mothers and they stay at home.

Overall, a depressing book. If I have children, is this what I have to look forward to? This book makes me want to find one that will counteract this feeling.