Outline

Outline unfolds in linear time; the chronology is uncomplicated. Its seemingly unfussy opening sentence immerses the reader, without preamble, in the narrator’s life. These deliberate stylistic choices are an early indication of one of the book’s core themes: The Difficulty of Defining the Self. The narrator’s self is self-effacing, attempting to remain somewhat anonymous. The narrator simply wants to be and record, which is why she does not even reveal her name until late in the novel. It is only in Chapter 9 (out of 10) that the name “Faye” appears casually, never to be mentioned again. 

The book’s central question is whether such a self is achievable or tenable in the long term. In the quest for locating the diffuse, amorphous, and blank self, the novel eschews many conventional narrative choices, such as the use of active dialogue. As this section shows, all the dialogue in the text is reported speech. None of it happens in real time; it is Faye telling the reader what she and the other characters said.

Cusk does not provide much information about Faye herself, except through hints and inferences. Faye, too, does not offer too many opinions about the characters around her, letting their words, actions, and demeanors illustrate their personas. Most of the characters, with the exception of the neighbor and Anne, can be seen as talking at Faye rather than with her. For example, Ryan’s speech to Faye in Chapter 2 pours out as a monologue about his life. It is only at the end of the chapter that he half-heartedly asks Faye about what she might be writing. The text suggests that the reason characters speak at Faye is because she is so self-effacing at this point: She has assumed the role of an eternal listener. Another possibility is that Faye is so good a listener that she draws people to reveal themselves. A third possibility could be that Faye, the novelist, is keen to listen and record because she is taking notes for her next work. Thus, by structuring the plot as a series of reported events, the novel invites many readings about its characters.

Other characters also grapple with losing, finding, and transforming themselves. For instance, Ryan describes how, in Tralee, he felt that his selfhood was preordained by fate, while in the US, he learned that the self can be willfully constructed. Ryan used the treadmill as a metaphor for his upward climb to a new self, with the act of transforming his body distancing him from his old Tralee self. However, even the self he gained in the US has now changed, as he tells Faye. When he reads his stories from that time, he feels that “it’s like looking at old photographs of yourself. There comes a point at which the record needs to be updated” (45). Similarly, most characters in the book are seen as struggling to define themselves, suggesting that the very concept of a singular, authentic, immutable self is improbable.

As Ryan’s character shows, Cusk frequently uses humor and irony in the novel to satirize contemporary life. Ryan’s last question to Faye is an ironic take on his self-centeredness. The billionaire is also satirized, described in paradoxical terms as “a billionaire […] with […] liberal credentials” (3). The billionaire wants to develop an energy-saving wind farm that will sustain the community of people running it. His purpose appears noble, yet Faye adds the aside that the farm will be off a stretch of land where the billionaire “incidentally” has a house (4). It is implied that the billionaire will acquire the entire stretch of coast from where the farm is being monitored, which shows that his liberal credentials are not as liberal as projected. Similarly, the billionaire meets Faye for the purpose of launching a literary magazine, but the topic never comes up during the lunch meeting at the London club.

While Faye gives out little information about her own life, one concrete detail that asserts itself early on is her children, which becomes part of an important motif in the text (See: Symbols & Motifs). In Chapter 1, she tells the neighbor about her younger son’s habit of getting lost by immediately moving away from the place where one is supposed to meet him at. The son’s frustration with the mother, his inability to be patient, highlights a personal tie that the author cannot avoid. As if to underscore this point, Faye gets a text from her son while she is talking with Ryan, in which the son asks about his tennis racket. Texts and calls from Faye’s sons are a recurring motif in the novel, symbolizing the real, solid aspects of her life making themselves heard in her current, disjointed state.

An important theme explored in this section is The Roles of Storyteller and Listener in Shaping Narratives. When the neighbor tells Faye the story of his life, he cherry-picks details to give the story a certain color. Faye senses this and intervenes, questioning the neighbor’s uncharitable portrayal of his second wife. The neighbor changes his story in response to Faye’s question, ultimately including the detail that his second wife did not abandon him on the island but had to move because her mother had been taken sick. Thus, Faye’s question and the neighbor’s addition of the detail show that a story is created by both the teller and the listener.

The novel also shows how the teller’s biases control the narrative. Faye is an example of this bias. Her portrayal of the neighbor in this section is positive and warm—she even finds his silvery hair intriguing. In the mid-air—and thus within a floating, indeterminate state—she finds a sense of camaraderie with her elderly neighbor. On the other hand, Faye’s portrayal of Ryan is colored by her dislike of some of his mannerisms, such as his habit of looking at attractive women or his defensiveness. Thus, even Ryan’s good looks appear “uneasy” to Faye. Earlier, she had tenderly noted that she did not judge the neighbor for reading Wilbur Smith since she is past literary snobbery. However, in an ironic sequence, Faye reveals that she can indeed be snobbish: She sarcastically wonders to herself if Ryan will call his next thriller Surface Tension since he has been talking a lot about tension and thrillers. In this way, Faye’s narration provides subtle clues into her own feelings, values, and contradictions.

Another break from storytelling conventions is that nothing much happens in the plot in terms of the dramatic arc of introduction, climax, and resolution. The structure of the novel is more episodic, with the plot moving in a straight line from chapter to chapter, almost like pitstops on a journey. The literary style nearly follows the picaresque, the early modern form of the novel wherein characters travel from adventure to adventure. In Outline, the adventures involve characters telling their life stories.