Housekeeping: A Novel
Registered by NancyNova of Lansdale, Pennsylvania USA on 1/7/2010
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
4 journalers for this copy...
unregistered rabck from prettynpink, registered and added to the TBR pile
change status. Pulled to read for the states challenge
rabck from prettynpink, registered; definitely a mood read. Very dense on prose and description. Ruthie lives with the grandmother and sibling. Then when grandma dies, Aunt Sylvie moves in to care for the girls. But she's a transient & drifter, and their life, which was odd anyway, becomes even more so. Sister Lucille moves in with classmates in town and tries to become "normal". But Ruthie drifts away with Sylvie, into Sylvie's transient world, finally escaping town riding the rails.
Journal Entry 4 by NancyNova at ~ RABCK ~, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA on Saturday, May 31, 2014
Released 9 yrs ago (5/31/2014 UTC) at ~ RABCK ~, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- USA
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
A wishlist book. Enjoy!
Arrived while out of town on vacation. Thanks heaps for the RABCK and please let me know if there's anything I can send it return!
I adored reading this. It is what my husband calls "a writers' book", one for people who love words and phrases. Not a lot happens plot-wise, but the descriptions and phrases are just amazingly beautiful. The characters are anything but stock and the plot is simple but deep, personal, and touching. It is about people, relationships, and loss, yet also about finding oneself and being content in the world. It is not at all one I would recommend to just anyone due to the slowly evolving plot, but I found it an absolutely delicious reading experience. It has definitely whetted my appetite for more by this author.
I was contacted about a trade for this book and will put it in the mail as soon as I have a shipping address. I believe it's off to Hawaii for you, little book! Happy travels! (Counts as part of the -Keep Them Moving- release challenge.)
Arrived safely in the mail today. Thank you for sharing this!
Every now and then, you run across someone whose life is vastly different from yours and you wonder how their life turned out that way. This book is an exploration of one such life, a "show, don't tell" story.
Narrator Ruthie and her sister Lucille are abandoned at their grandmother's house by their mother, who cares for them several years before passing away. They are then looked after by a pair of spinster great-aunts until their aunt Sylvie is tracked down and arrives to take over. A poignant study of neglect and abandonment and keeping a family unified.
Off as a surprise to fulfill a wish.
Every now and then, you run across someone whose life is vastly different from yours and you wonder how their life turned out that way. This book is an exploration of one such life, a "show, don't tell" story.
Narrator Ruthie and her sister Lucille are abandoned at their grandmother's house by their mother, who cares for them several years before passing away. They are then looked after by a pair of spinster great-aunts until their aunt Sylvie is tracked down and arrives to take over. A poignant study of neglect and abandonment and keeping a family unified.
Off as a surprise to fulfill a wish.
Aloha, Grace! Thank you so much for this wonderful wishlist surprise. I suspect it's going to leapfrog a whole passel of others patiently waiting their turn and go high on the TBR list. I've heard great things about this book and this author and I'm looking forward to seeing what I think.
Is there anything I can send you in exchange? If so, please just say the word.
Many thanks again for this generous RABCK!
Is there anything I can send you in exchange? If so, please just say the word.
Many thanks again for this generous RABCK!
This wonderfully written book was my introduction to Marilynne Robinson, and it definitely made me want to read more of her. I appreciated the mood, setting, and characters in this work particularly. The setting was so richly-drawn that it almost served as an additional character. There are some really delicious passages in which the use of language is simply wonderful.
Readers of literary fiction who don't mind novels without rip-roaring page-turner plots will likely find much to love and appreciate here.
Readers of literary fiction who don't mind novels without rip-roaring page-turner plots will likely find much to love and appreciate here.
Reserving for the General Literature VBB.
Description from Amazon:
"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."
Description from Amazon:
"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."
Removing as unselected from the General Literature VBB and making available.
Journal Entry 13 by ReallyBookish at Giant Food in Horsham, Pennsylvania USA on Wednesday, January 10, 2018
I hope the finder enjoys the book!