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Housekeeping: A Novel
Housekeeping: A Novel
Housekeeping: A Novel
Audiobook5 hours

Housekeeping: A Novel

Written by Marilynne Robinson

Narrated by Becket Royce

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

An unabridged audio edition of Marilynne Robinson's classic work Housekeeping, on the 25th anniversary of its first publication.

Winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award

A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's 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, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother.

The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, 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 transcience.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 1, 2005
ISBN9781593978419
Housekeeping: A Novel
Author

Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping, and four books of nonfiction: When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam, and Absence of Mind. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

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Reviews for Housekeeping

Rating: 4.082278481012659 out of 5 stars
4/5

158 ratings108 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Robinson's award-winning debut novel is an unusual, sometimes poetic story of a strangely dysfunctional family of two sisters and their long-lost aunt who returns to take care (?) of them after two older relatives are unable to cope. As much as I wanted to like this, I guess I am always looking for faults in books so highly praised, and this one, despite some good writing, has a real hole at its center. In her quest to present the story of characters who feel disconnected from the rest of the world, Robinson has failed to instill any real believability--just oddness. This is attractive to a point, and the book's ending is quite affecting, even moving. But despite the short length of the novel, reading it is a slow careful process because sometimes the author gets so carried away in her dense language that it requires re-reading to get the sense (if there is any) out of the passage. There is a lot of heart and soul here, but I guess I am a reader who demands a little more sustenance for the brain. Of course, I am male, so maybe I just don't get it at all!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Beautiful prose.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I actually really enjoyed this book. Its slow pace and lyrical quality worked really well for me over the weekend, when I read it in kind of a trance. However, in places the language is almost too beautiful, in a way that was cut off from real experience, and in a way that started to bug me. The book was told from the point of view of Ruthie, but Ruthie could not have had some of those observations, so it was more like Marilynne Robinson pasting on incredibly lyrical (and sometimes over-written) prose into the book and calling it Ruthie's narration. It didn't bother me till the end, and I truly did enjoy most of the book. The story itself isn't very convincing, and seemed more like an excuse to ruminate or to "write" -- in that pure form of writing for writing's sake. Again, I enjoy that kind of writing most of the time, so that was mostly a good thing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story of two sisters, told from the viewpoint of one of the girls. Orphaned when their mother committed suicide and again when their grandmother died. Two elderly great aunts came to try to take care of them, but they were too old and set in their ways. So in steps their very eccentric Aunt Sylvie. That's the simplistic version of the story. But this story about an eccentric family with perhaps a history of mental illness is so much more than that. The story is as much about the town of Fingerbone and the lake and what defines normal and what defines a family and what is love. It's not a book to rush through. I found myself re-reading sentences because of their poetic beauty. I was reading this while I was going through pre-op and post-op procedures at a hospital. It held my attention so thoroughly that several times when I was called from the waiting room, I didn't hear them calling my name. When I was young I used to be able to dive into a book as if I was entering another world. I can't remember the last time I was able to do that, but this book had me completely absorbed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    2 young girls are abandoned with an eccentric aunt when their mother suicidally drives her car off a cliff. Poverty reigns in this house and small town.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A well written tale of two sisters raised by various relatives in a small town in Idaho. This is a highly acclaimed novel and the writing proves that the praise is justified. I read Gilead and enjoyed that a bit more, maybe because it was more identifiable for me. In that novel a father writes a letter to his son about the things he needs to know in life. In this, Robinson's first novel , Ruth narrates what her life was like being raised by her mother, then her grandmother, then some great aunts and finally her mother's sister, the eccentric Sylvia. Ruth and her sister Lucille at first enjoy the freedom afforded them by this carefree adult but later grow apart in their attitude towards the "housekeeping" of Sylvie, and Lucille moves out and on. Ruth connects more with the wandering spirit of her aunt and stays with her. They travel on the lake and fall away from the normal routines of day to day existence. The life in Fingerbone is centered around a glacial lake which had claimed both her grandfather and her mother and it seems that only by crossing this lake will Ruth be able to escape the judgement of the town. I like the lines of the following review and would never have come up with the "deep undertow of transcience" but I guess that's why no one's asking for my reviews. 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 transcience.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is powerful, sad, but at times a little slow. Take in small doses. It is beautifully written, IMO a great example of a strong "character" novel as opposed to something that is more plot based.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Beautiful, descriptive writing. Recommended for anyone who enjoys language.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow did I enjoy this book. Usually I find blurbs printed on covers completely useless, but Doris Lessing's on my copy ("I found myself reading slowly, then more slowly - this is not a novel to be hurried through, for every sentence is a delight") to be perfectly accurate. Another of those books that, once read, made me wonder why I had waited so long.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love books where nothing is wasted. This is a quiet book, unambitious in scope, but brilliantly written. It's a women-centered coming of age book. The title alone is worth an essay. The author takes a few strong images: trains, water, houses, etc. and weaves them together into a tight, sometimes devastating package. The morally ambiguous character of Sylvie is especially unforgettable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Housekeeping is remarkable in a number of ways, and it's quite simply one of those rare books that I cannot understand why a person wouldn't like. Its appeal seems completely universal to me, and the characters and prose so rich that I can't imagine not being engrossed in it.I read Gilead before I read Housekeeping and they are alike in the fact that they both demand to be read slowly and savored. During a typical week I'll read 2-3 novels, but Marilynne Robinson writes a narrative that is so both incredibly complex and inspiringly precise that I can't help but slow my reading to a snail's pace and breathe in every word.This is an exceptionally beautiful book about longing, loss, abandonment, the human condition, and so much more. I'm tempted to say that the real heart of this book can't quite be put into words, but clearly it can because Marilynne Robinson has done so.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After reading Gilead a few years ago, I should've known to buy a copy of this before I started reading it. I wanted to underline the entire book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of two girls, abandoned by a series of family members, one after the other. There are definitely themes of neglect and depression, of eccentricity and of living outside societal norms. This book is as much about the story as it is about the atmosphere and the disconnect between society and those who live outside it. I should have liked it more, I think, but in the end I didn't.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is precisely the sort of book that usually sucks me in from page 1. Ruth and Lucille's mother abandons them, leaving the girls in their grandmother's care. When the grandmother dies, their great aunts take over, followed by their aunt Sylvie. Sylvie has a mysterious past, having disappeared from the family herself several years earlier. She's either going to save the day, or be a less than optimal influence on her young charges. It doesn't take long before you know the direction this will take.The writing is gorgeous and lyrical. The characters are interesting; no, they are downright odd. The plot is deceptive, dark, and disturbing. And yet, I never became emotionally invested in the novel. This book is highly acclaimed by many people with similar reading tastes, so I can only conclude it was a case of "right book, wrong time." Perhaps I just couldn't give it the concentration it deserved.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In "Housekeeping" Marilynne Robinson establishes herself as the very best of living American authors. This novel perches on the fraught balance between living and dead, drowning and flying, orthodox and outcast.In a lonely town in the Far West, where "the history of the world happened elsewhere," there is a house owned by Sylvie and Ruth's family. Sylvie is Ruth's aunt and is very little more than a drifter. Lucille is Ruth's younger sister and she occupies the house. This remote town sits on the shore of Lake Fingerbone, a deep and dark expanse of water that has claimed, in circumstances dark or disastrous or both, the lives of some of Ruth's forebears, including her mother. Sylvie comes back to the house with Ruth, but has no intention of staying. In one of the book's very significant episodes she and Ruth try to traverse the railroad track that spans the lake, and although this attempt fails, we know where Sylvie's heart, and eventually Ruth's too, lie. They want to traverse Fingerbone (to abjure working their fingers to the bone, as it were), take to the road, and see what tomorrow brings. They ultimately do not want the anchor of the house. Lucille, the orthodox member of the family, cannot understand the impulse, and is completely willing to settle down and make a go of things. Every feeling we get from this character is that she will succeed at it.This was my introduction to Ms. Robinson, and I was completely stunned, awestruck. Her striking gift with words is well-known (see "Gilead" and "Home" and assorted non-fiction), but it's her gift with the larger issues in her stories that sweeps me away here. She poses an age-old question: how do you measure success in life? Are our hopes for material success doomed endlessly? Is an orthodox career through life as heavy as a lake, as suffocating as a bottomless body of water?This is one of the best books I have ever read, or will ever read. Ms. Robinson fills me with wonder at her conception and her execution. Read it for the thrill of having a classic in the author's lifetime.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Terrific book, beautifully written.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is the kind of book that high school English teachers and maybe even some college professors like to make their students read, or rather over-read. The supposed symbolism in here is never ending, the most obvious of which being "What does the lake represent?". I was fortunate enough that I did not have to read this for class, and therefore could attempt to enjoy it. Notice, I say "attempt". My teachers and professors of yesteryear kept creeping into my head when I would read over a section whispering, even shouting in my head, "What does it mean? What does it symbolize?".

    I couldn't get into, no matter how much I tried. I picked it up because it was on a list of 30 or so books college students should read, once graduated, to help them realize or even combat different feelings that would become more pronounced when they leave school; this one was on loneliness. As I was quite lonely through out my senior year due to numerous factors including a difficult Div 1 competition schedule and since hanging out with anyone I was close to up there now requires weeks of planning now that we aren't a few apartments away, I figured I'd try it. Let me tell you. It does not help. I've gotten past my loneliness, but it had nothing to do with this book. If anything, loneliness is only emphasized, perhaps even glorified. I can't quite explain it.

    Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. The characters can lead to aggravation, at best and I just feel as though there's not enough to it. Again, I'm not sure how to explain it. I only know that it feels like it's missing something.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although, I thought the writing was quite beautiful I could not get interested in the book. Every time I picked it up I wanted to take a nap. Perhaps it was because it seemed to melancholy. I prefer a more character and plot driven book. All that said I can see why some people would really enjoy reading this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I just finished reading "Gilead" and found it to be brilliant and beautiful so I searched out a library copy of Housekeeping. I'm so sorry that I was disappointed. I could just never get interested in these people. The premise of what "homelife" should be compared with what it often is could have been an interesting one, but I just could not connect. I'm sure the author is an exceptional writer and well worthy of respect. I hope she doesn't wait so long to write again; in spite of not liking this one, I would want to read more of Robinson
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A haunting book about family and the meaning of home. Two girls are abandoned by their parents and raised by relatives in a small isolated town in Idaho. The unusual writing style is almost poetic, often dream-like. Not for everyone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I chose this because I adored Gilead... But a completely different book altogether. Some very poetic writing, but I also struggled for much of the way through the plot. Beautifully developed characters, but too much descriptive pieces sometimes.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I fell in love with this book over 30 years ago when I was working on my English degree. I was thrilled to find it as an audiobook and enjoyed it just as much the second time. Robinson does such a wonderful job of getting the reader/listener absorbed into the unique world of the main characters that it’s difficult to leave them behind at the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A beautiful read. I thought I had read the book, but I realized that I had just repeatedly watched the movie. Still one of my favorites. But this is really an amazing first novel--or novel generally.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ...and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long.
    Lush and spare at the same time, worth the patience required.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    first line: "My name is Ruth."More than the characters, settings, or plot, I love the language of this book. Robinson has filled this novel with so many beautiful descriptions, numerous paragraphs that read like mini-essays.Here is one of my favorites, a passage that somehow manages to be both aching and hopeful:"There is so little to remember of anyone -- an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Evocative writing - train falling in the lake, suicide by car into the lake, escaping town along the railway bridge over the lake. An eccentric family delicately portrayed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A bit torn here. Yes, it is literature (capital L, please) and the writing is stunning, though some would say overdone in places. My issue is with the unrelenting bleakness of the landscape, both physical and mental. I think the book wants to be both a philosophical treatise and a novel and it didn't work for me at the very end when Robinson goes on for pages in a Biblical rant.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Just couldn't love it. Much of what happens remains opaque to me. Shame, I thought it was going to be a lost classic, but it was hard going and not especially rewarding.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While she does stray into the overly-self-conscious magical realism that is infecting much of American literature, she does it so incredibly well. Scenes from this strange book will stick in your head long after you put it down.