Blurb:
A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger
sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their
competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally
of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small
Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their
grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a
cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and
extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of
human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward
adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the
dangerous and deep undertow of transience.
Review:
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson, is a powerful
novel for its look inside the emotions, thoughts and dreams of young Ruth, in
whose voice the story is told. It is a solemn tale, yet whimsical in its
details. It is uniquely descriptive with unusual depth into the outer
surroundings as well as the inner facets of its characters. It is fiction;
however, in my own assessment, much of it must have been truthfully experienced
in order to have been written because it contains an on-going element of
incipiency totally unnatural to novels, which for the most part rise and fall
with a smoothness of waves in creation. Robinson’s scenes are vivid—mostly
depictions of winter and dimness, with every minute component seen and unseen
in these conditions. Somewhat down-played in the plot is the magnitude of sacrifice
Ruth’s aunt is willing to make to change the very fiber of her own being in
order keep Ruth with her, but this makes sense because the story is told from
Ruth’s perspective, whose awareness was muted to some extent by her internal
struggles.
I did not closely identify with
Robinson’s characters, but found them to be extremely interesting in their
differences from myself. I consider this a well-written and remarkable book,
and I highly recommend it.
Length:
219 Pages
Prices:
Print:
$15.00
Digital:
$9.99
Thanks
for visiting. Rose & Rochelle
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