The Country Life

Reading Group Guide

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. The Country Life could be seen as a modern take on Jane Eyre, as well as on a certain popular type of British novel that extolls the virtues of country living. How does Rachel Cusk play with the themes and plot of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, and with the perceived ideals of a rural existence?

2. What role does Martin play in bringing Stella to a better understanding of herself? How are Martin and Stella alike?

3. Stella tells Martin: “I don’t think that happiness is the be-all and end-all of everything…. I happen to believe that the search for happiness is often itself the greatest cause for unhappiness.” How does the resolution of the novel support or refute Stella’s belief? Do you agree with her assertion?

4. Stella finds Pamela Madden puzzling and intimidating, until she is able to separate “the reality of Pamela’s situation from the manner in which she represented it.” How does this split between reality and appearance manifest itself in the Maddens, in Stella’s own life, and in the novel as a whole?

5. What purpose do Stella’s visits to the postal clerk serve?

6. When she arrives at Franchise Farm, Stella is almost immediately overtaken by all manner of physical calamity and destruction. What does her misfortune say about her, about her surroundings, and about her decision to embark on this new life?

7. Class is often an issue in British life and British fiction. Stella sees her younger brother as a victim of her parents’ social aspirations, while she believes her older brother was made “homogenous” by the same desires. Do the Maddens, and the village, bear out Stella’s sense that class has a dangerous power to destroy individuality, whether literally or figuratively?

8. In what ways is The Country Life a morality story? A farce?

9. “It’s no good saying that if people aren’t perfect you’re not going to love them. That’s what families are all about. They absorb things. They grow round them. They may end up looking all twisted and ugly, but at least they’re strong.” By the novel’s end, do you think Stella would agree with this statement of Martin’s?