{"id":795451,"date":"2026-07-31T13:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/795451\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T13:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:14:12","slug":"is-natalie-portman-really-the-star-of-rachel-cusks-life-of-m-i-read-the-book-its-something-much-weirder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/795451\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Natalie Portman really the star of Rachel Cusk\u2019s Life of M? I read the book. It\u2019s something much weirder."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Do you want to know the\u00a0real\u00a0scuttlebutt about Natalie Portman and Rachel Cusk\u2019s new novel,\u00a0Life of M<\/a>,\u00a0the book that is supposedly based on Portman herself? You can read about the\u00a0\u201duncanny<\/a>\u201d\u00a0similarities between Portman and Cusk\u2019s title character, M,\u00a0all<\/a>\u00a0over<\/a>\u00a0the<\/a>\u00a0internet<\/a>, and about how the novel apparently amounts to a\u00a0\u201dliterary assassination<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0so I won\u2019t summarize those points here. Since the rumors about M\u2019s inspiration have made their way from publishing-circle dinner parties to online hearsay, commenters have barely been able to contain their thrilled titillation over the idea that an acclaimed novelist is dishing the dirt on her movie-star friend, a supporter who has previously recommended Cusk\u2019s titles. But, for those hungry for juicy morsels of gossip within the pages of the novel, I have disappointing news: The truth about\u00a0Life of M\u00a0is that the book isn\u2019t really about Natalie Portman at all.<\/p>\n

Cusk is an experimental novelist, one known for incorporating elements from her own life into her fiction, and\u00a0Life of M, which comes out on Aug. 25, is particularly tricksterish piece of work in that respect. From the beginning of the novel, Cusk hints broadly at the dubious veracity of her (unnamed) narrator\u2019s account of M\u2019s life. In the first sentence, the narrator recalls telling M that\u00a0\u201cI was thinking of writing her autobiography.\u201d An autobiography is, of course, written by its own subject, and since the narrator isn\u2019t offering to work as M\u2019s ghostwriter but to produce the book entirely on her own, the statement is nonsensical. M finds it funny.\u00a0\u201cWould you make it all up?\u201d she asks her friend. That\u2019s the first clue that the novel\u2019s initial, scandal-greedy readers have failed to pick up on.<\/p>\n

The first chapter of\u00a0Life of M\u00a0provides some background on the friendship between M and the narrator, in which M relates some of the bizarre and lamentable aspects of her fame and profession, including a starring role in a film at the age of 13 that\u00a0\u201cended her childhood.\u201d (This scans with Portman\u2019s feature-film\u00a0debut\u00a0in the 1994 movie\u00a0L\u00e9on: The Professional, directed by the notorious creep Luc Besson.) M tells the narrator that she prefers to use what power her fame has given her to make her life as\u00a0\u201cnormal\u201d as possible. Nevertheless, when the pair arrange to meet for coffee in a hotel garden, only to find the garden closed for the winter, the staff readily reopens it just for them.\u00a0\u201cThis was how people and things behaved around her,\u201d the narrator observes.\u00a0\u201cReality became malleable, was always giving way and changing its rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n By Rachel Cusk. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.\n <\/p>\n

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Until the final chapter of the novel, M and the narrator won\u2019t meet again. Instead,\u00a0Life of M\u00a0alternates between scenes from the lives of both the narrator and\u00a0\u201cM.\u201d That\u2019s\u00a0\u201cM\u201d in quotes because by the time the reader gets to that last chapter, it has become increasingly apparent that the passages describing M\u2019s life are, for the most part, mere speculation on the narrator\u2019s part. After the first chapter, the narration switches from first-person singular to first-person plural, as the narrator moves through obsessions familiar to readers of\u00a0Cusk\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0previous<\/a>\u00a0novels<\/a>: frustration over the inauthenticity of contemporary life, the instability of identity, and a sort of neurasthenic aestheticism that makes simple activities like going to a museum distressing if the other visitors respond to the art in a too-boisterous manner.<\/p>\n

At first, the\u00a0\u201cwe\u201d in these chapters seems to be the narrator and her partner, who has a health crisis at the beginning of the book. Later, the\u00a0\u201cwe\u201d apparently refers to a solitary woman, or perhaps two women\u2014namely the narrator and the imaginary version of M she has concocted for the M passages in the novel. These passages almost always begin with the words\u00a0\u201cIt is a\u201d followed by the name of a setting: a brasserie, a posh members-only spa, a Mediterranean villa, a wooden schooner, a corporate conference room, an acting class. These settings are described in minute detail, descriptions that occasionally dip into clich\u00e9s right out of the most voyeuristic travel writing or promotional brochure:\u00a0\u201crichly embroidered curtains\u201d in a stately home or a minimalist interior design that\u00a0\u201casserts simplicity as the ultimate luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to the attention the novel lavishes on these settings, the scenes that play out in them tend to be sketched rather than dramatized. M, for unknown reasons, submits to being scolded by some guy for unspecified shortcomings. She gets a massage with an actress friend. A journalist interviews her in a trendy restaurant in the unnamed European city where she lives. She attends an art opening for an artist she once patronized. None of these scenes have anything to do with or even mention M\u2019s intimate relationships. Her children are referred to glancingly, and no marriage or romantic partnership ever comes up. As gossip goes, even if these passages were really about Portman, who tends to keep her personal life private, they\u2019re pretty thin gruel.<\/p>\n

The narrator of\u00a0Life of M\u00a0mostly seems interested in M\u2019s hopeless desire to make contact with\u00a0\u201creality,\u201d her unsureness about who she truly is, the impossibility of\u00a0\u201csincerity,\u201d and her abiding sense that she is mere performing herself. Anyone who prides herself on the refinement of her taste as much as Cusk does would know that making observations like these about an actor is banal, as is a line comparing M\u2019s home in the city to a\u00a0\u201cbig doll house, with her as the doll inside it.\u201d And anyone who has read even a little of Cusk\u2019s previous work will recognize that these concerns map suspiciously closely to Cusk\u2019s own preoccupations with artificiality.<\/p>\n


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The novel\u2019s final chapter confirms those suspicions. Suddenly, the narration reverts to first person, as if the narrator were snapping out of a reverie in which her own identity had merged with M\u2019s. M has read the\u00a0\u201cproject\u201d and declares it\u00a0\u201churtful,\u201d complaining that not only had she never been to any of the places so painstakingly described in the chapters we have just read, but she has also never done any of the things the narrator has reported. The narrator seems surprised that anyone would think otherwise.\u00a0\u201cThe character was invented by me,\u201d she explains. So if that character has any faults,\u00a0\u201cthen it\u2019s me that it\u2019s true of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about your private life,\u201d the narrator goes on.\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about your character.\u201d She hadn\u2019t even googled M, just\u00a0\u201cwatched your films, like anyone can,\u201d a statement that, upon reflecting on the preceding chapters, seems perfectly accurate. Fantasizing a version of M based on her movie roles allowed the narrator to\u00a0\u201cgo and live in someone else,\u201d the way she imagines an actor like M does in her own work. Ironically, the character she created to live in had exactly the same problems Cusk\u2019s main characters usually have, only with more money and power.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Theo Nash
\n As a Classicist, I\u2019ve Defended Emily Wilson\u2019s Odyssey Translation. I Can\u2019t Defend Her Review of Nolan\u2019s Movie.
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<\/a><\/p>\n

The final sentence in\u00a0Life of M\u00a0is so bizarre and disorienting it throws even these revelations into chaos. As the writer departs, M stops her at the door, announcing there\u2019s something she\u2019s always wanted to ask her. Then M smiles\u00a0\u201cwarmly and almost goofily,\u201d and says,\u00a0\u201cThis might sound stupid, but I\u2019ve been wondering. Are you a guy or a girl?\u201d Since Rachel Cusk is quite obviously the latter, what can this possibly mean? Only that Cusk is screwing with us and perhaps suggesting that not only is M not Natalie Portman, but the narrator isn\u2019t even Cusk.<\/p>\n

Life of M\u00a0is a narrative hall of mirrors that only a fool would confuse with a thinly veiled roman \u00e0 clef about a celebrity. To my mind, only one true mystery remains: Was Portman in on it? Is she just pretending to be offended for a lark, or in a bid to drive interest in her friend\u2019s book? As of this writing, neither woman has made a public statement on the matter, but I\u2019m not sure if we can believe either one of them when they do.<\/p>\n

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