Housekeeping

I am a huge fan of Marilynne Robinson's book, Gilead, so Housekeeping has always been a book that I have wanted to read.

Now I have. I am sad to say that it isn't a new favorite.

Housekeeping is the story of two sisters who grow up with a succession of poor mother figures. One of the sisters, Lucille, adjusts to the lack of structure in her life by assimilating to the larger culture. The other sister, Ruth, adjusts by taking on a nomadic life.

I was struck by the loneliness of the characters, and to their inability to form deep relationships with others.

It was not a read that I enjoyed or would share with others.

Housekeeping was hauntingly beautiful. I was moved at every page and impressed with Robinson's ability to take such control of the reader throughout. The book felt like the kind of overcast day that blocks all color from even sunset and sunrise—yet I found myself wanting to experience more and more of it, despite its dark tone.

Favorite passage:
Chapter 2, page 34

The town itself seemed a negligible thing from such a distance. Were it not for the clutter on the shore, the flames and the tremulous pillars of heat that stood above the barrels, and of course the skaters who swooped and sailed and made bright, brave sounds, it would have been possible not to notice the town at all. The mountains that stood up behind it were covered with snow and hidden in the white sky, and the lake was sealed and hidden, yet their eclipse had not made the town more prominent. Indeed, where we were we could feel the reach of the lake far behind us, and far beyond us on either side, in a spacious silence that seemed to ring like glass.

I expected to love this novel, and perhaps expectations are to blame. It is amazing on a sentence level. The prose is exquisite and superbly creative with language – quite like Cormac McCarthy at times in its stripping away of the physical world in exploration of what lies beneath. In spite of this stripping away of the physical world, Robinson still creates a solid sense of place; her fictional town of Fingerbone and its lake were fully crafted and central to all that happens in the book. But unfortunately the story never goes anywhere. The cast is slim, and the few characters who move at all could be said to drift more than they arc.

Given her significant power with language, I'm sure I'll read Robinson again, whether Gilead or some of her well-regarded non-fiction.

Pretty much every sentence in this is perfectly crafted. How the hell did she do that.

Beautiful writing but a painfully slow story line for me.

This book is Very Literary with beautiful writing and sparse plot. Themes of loneliness, isolation, family ties, and a strong sense of place. I don't know if I necessarily enjoyed the reading, but could see the excellence of Robinson's craft.

As a writer, every time I read Marilynne Robinson, I am equal parts inspired and discouraged, because her prose and character development are so amazing and I'll never be that good. Most will never be that good.

“Housekeeping” is an expertly crafted tale of abandonment, isolation, and transience. It is captivating but something you'll want to read slowly to savor every word, phrase, and description.

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of the United States of Books Project.
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It's time for my home state here in this little series we're doing: Idaho, featuring the book Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Set in the fictional town of Fingerbone, in the Northern part of the state, about 50-60 miles from the Canadian border (not information from the book, that's just me trying to orient those of you looking at a map).

Lucille, and her older sister Ruth, are raised in the same house their mother grew up in. We're told straight away that following their mother's death they lived with their grandmother, then her two sisters, and finally their mother's younger sister. The circumstances surrounding these transitions are revealed gradually – none of the adults in their lives were cut out for parenting (Grandmother was at one point, and probably would've sufficed if she hadn't died).

This is not a plot-driven book, and it's hard to talk about what plot there is without telling you everything – so I'll be vague. Ruth tells us about her grandfather's death; them coming to live in his old house; life with grandmother, great-aunts, and aunt; and then things really start happening as she and Lucille enter adolescence and I'm not going to ruin anything by finishing this sentence properly. On page 27, I wrote “this text is so beautiful, I don't care what happens, I'm going to love this book.” Thankfully, I was right – because once things happened, I really didn't like it – but I loved reading the book. There are other characters in the book, but they're of so little importance, I'm not going to say anything beyond acknowledging their existence. The focus is on the girls, their family and the really old house i which they all reside.

Thematically, this book is about loneliness, family ties, waiting for someone/something. I'm not sure there's much difference in Ruth's mind between loneliness and waiting (nor am I that sure that there's much difference in my mind between them as I write this). For young girls to have this much upheaval in their parental figure(s), loneliness and loss are going to loom large in their psycho-social development – and they're not going to respond the same way to things. You add some pretty perceptive thoughts about loneliness to Robinson's prose and you've got yourself a winner of a book.

So what do we learn about Idaho here? Nothing. Fingerbone could be any small city/large town in the U.S. There is nothing distinctive Idaho about this book. Well, almost nothing. There's a lot of mentioning of local place names (mostly cities, incidentally, that most non-Idahoans are going to mispronounce) – enough so that we all know that Fingerbone is just Sandpoint's nom de plume, but that's as “Idaho” as we get here. Take out the local names and this could be in any state that has lakes, forests and railroads – which pretty much covers all 50, right? I don't know why Robinson didn't just use the actual town's name – but, whatever. The fact that Entertainment Weekly thinks this novel “best defines” Idaho probably says more about the dearth of books set here than anything else.

Lyrical, haunting, insightful, beautiful – this is prose that'll stick with you. I didn't like the ending, but it worked and was earned, so I can get over it. Don't worry about the story, focus on the telling of it and you'll likely agree, this is stunning stuff.

Short Review: This is Robinson's first novel. The main elements of her writing are here. Atmospheric descriptions, lots of internal dialogue, virtually no plot, lots of insightful character development.

I get way people do not always like Robinson. But even this book, which I didn't love, has lots to recommend about it. But I would not recommend it as the first. Read Gilead or Lila first, if you like those then come back and read this one.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/housekeeping/

At its heart, Housekeeping is a beautiful little story inflated with gorgeous big words. The focus in this novel is definitely on language. While the characters are good and the story certainly stands on its own, the language is what makes this novel striking. At times, the words Robinson uses are perfect; at other times, I think they're a stretch. Nevertheless, the book is lush with language.

What did not work for me at all was the narrative style. It's almost entirely exposition, light on dialogue, lacking scenes. And when I think exposition told from the first person, I think of the oral tale. And Housekeeping, with its fifty-cent words, sounds nothing like an oral tale. The story was very rural, yet the style was all professor. Did the language paint the setting brilliantly? Absolutely. But when it came to the characters and their story, I felt the language failed them. One can tack a lot of words onto a book like this—words like lush and intelligent—but it lacks some of the words that I feel are most important to a story—words like relatable and warm. Housekeeping paints a pretty picture, but it doesn't do much else.

Don't expect too much action in this book, you won't find it. But you'll find lyrical prose, and perhaps even an urge to visit the American northwest.

I was expecting to enjoy this much more than I did, but maybe it was just the wrong time for me. It felt overwritten and boring, although I usually love the kind of thing they call ‰ЫПsumptuous prose‰Ыќ and the kind of stories where ‰ЫПnothing happens‰Ыќ. There were parts I really enjoyed, like the train at the bottom of the lake and all the flooding and the cabin in the woods that had sunk into its cellar and the final efforts at cleaning house. But it felt like it should have been a short story or a novella, not a novel.

Robinson is just great. This early, award-winning effort showed the promise that helped her garner a Pulitzer some 20 years later (for her second novel, Gilead). This book brought to mind many of the fictional and non-fiction efforts that have become my favorites over the years: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Angela's Ashes (and ‘Tis), The Glass Castle (and Half Broke Horses), Breaking the Night, etc. The unifying theme – young people overcoming difficult circumstances (and often less-than-stellar parents) to achieve success on their own terms.

10/09
I re-read this and might bump it up to five stars. Lovely.
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01/07
i started reading this over winter break and i have like... not very much left, but it's so good that i want to make sure i devote proper reading attention to the last bit and i haven't found the chance for that yet :O and by now i've probably forgotten the first half of the book.
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Finally finished it! I loved it, basically. Now I want to re-read it all together, without a big pause in the middle. But it's really less about plot and more about her careful, precise, beautiful prose. A good book to savor.

Robinson achieves something fairly rare in this novel–although her second effort, Gilead is an even more stunning example of it–each character, both large and small, is treated with the utmost compassion. Things move slowly, this being the Midwest, but everything is beautiful. Really, quite a treat.