I am honestly not quite sure what to think of Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. The plot, for me, is confusing and I end up forgetting what I just read. So far into chapter 6, I’m not actually sure what is going on in the book. I know the girls are in school and by the lake a lot. For some reason, I don’t feel like I’m reading much about human relationships and connections in the book. The book seems flat and empty, almost without emotion. I’m not sure if everytime I look at the book the cover inspires the flat/dead feeling I get from reading the book, or if the actual plot itself is confusing and doesn’t really have a point. Not that I have anything wrong with reading a book without an actual plotline, but it definitely makes it harder to read and remember what I read.
However one thing I really like about this book is the writing style and descriptive qualities. The most interesting thing about this book is how Robinson manages to describe everything in long sentences and weird metaphors. As seen on page 87-88, “The snow is too slight to conceal the sibs and welts, the hollows and sockets of the earth, fixed in its last extreme. But in the mountains, the earth is most ceremoniously buried, with all its relics, against its next rising, in hillock and tumulus.”. That is so interesting!!! I never would have ever thought to write something like that. It took me several tries to understand what the sentences actually said, but once I read it over for the fifth time the actual content of the sentences made sense. Fortunately, this is something Robinson does a lot through the first few chapters we have read.
However, one instance where Robinson does not use much detail or description is the dialogue between Lily and Nona on page 37. This is the instance where the girls are somewhere listening to Lily and Nona’s conversation. Robinson presents this conversation as a string of small factual sentences often repeating each other. For me, this passage made me feel part of the book. Much of this book sounds like story telling from the excess facts/details the narrator gives us, but this passage threw me into the book and made me experience the story first hand. While reading this section, it feels as if I am somewhere in that house listening closely to my relatives talk about me. This conversation also is quite humorous in my opinion. I think it’s just from the extent of this conversation, but I picture two old ladies gossiping and often just repeating what the other has said. It’s so classic of grandparents to repeat each other like that, it just made me smile and chuckle a bit. The conversation is also two pages long, which I find to be the most hilarious of all. Two pages filled of grandma conversation, most of which is totally pointless. Ugh, loved that.
I agree that the Lily-Nona dialogues are some of the funniest passages in the book, and we maybe wish that Robinson would do this kind of writing more often. (Maybe a couple more scenes with Lily and Nona before Sylvie arrives?) You're right that Robinson eschews her typically more descriptive style in these sections, letting the elderly aunts speak for themselves (as overheard by Ruth and Lucille upstairs). But she does frame the whole dialogue with one of my favorite metaphors in the novel: their conversation "seemed then and always to be the elaboration and ornamentation of the consensus between them, which was as intricate and well-tended as a termite castle" (30). Each short sentence or exclamation in this "monologue-dialogue" could be viewed as one more grain of sawdust being added to that so-well-tended castle, arranging everything just so.
ReplyDeleteThis is relatable. Especially during the beginning, I felt the novel wasn't going anywhere. The lack of dialogue made my eyes skip around the page and not really pay attention. Although I do admire Robinson's quirky sentence construction, it actually made it harder for me to focus on the story.
ReplyDelete