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Housekeeping is a novel by Marilynne Robinson. It is slow-paced. The characters are different and certainly were not raised in a normal household. The setting was in the far west town of Fingerbone, Idaho. The story has some tragic history with the grandfather and the mother. The sisters weren‘t especially close once they grew up. 3/5

It feels a bit daft bailing at 71% and it‘s such a slim novel too but I really don‘t care about the characters anymore or how it ends 🤷‍♀️ I thought the portrayal of the characters loneliness was done well and the atmosphere of it but I wasn‘t a fan of the writing or the (lack of) story. #readyourkindle

I‘ve been intrigued by this author for a while but something was stopping me. I should have listened to the stop sign 😆. I‘ve read the reviews, I kind of get the idea; the loneliness, transience and potential beauty of it. For me though, I didn‘t understand it one bit! I read a review that said “this is literature so high you‘ll get a crick in your neck…” which made me both laugh and rub my sore neck. I‘ll leave it at that…

I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book, but I don‘t know if I would recommend it to everyone. The writing is lyrical and beautiful, there is much symbolism and metaphor, and many passages that ring true. There are also complicated sentences that sometimes require multiple readings before they make sense, and at the end, I felt the worldview presented was bleak rather than hopeful. #audiobook #housekeeping #2023

📖 Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
🖊 Haruf, Kent
🎬 Hunt for the Wilderpeople
🎙 Holiday, Billie
🎶 Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

#ManicMonday #LetterH
@CBee

So this was the first novel by Marilynne Robinson, of Gilead fame, and wow this was one heck of a book! Gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and a rather quirky coming of age tale. Would definitely recommend. For my full thoughts, see my review here:

https://youtu.be/j9L8A9K8Vok

If the TOB had been around in 1980 (81?), this would have been selected. What a weird odd story!! Not what I expected; cannot wait to watch the movie 🎥
I can‘t give it 5 slices of pie because it just confounded me at the last page but now, as I think about it, (and I realize she hd some very worthy pie mentions, ahem), I just may bump it up to a FIVE. Definitely a PICK 👏 But what WAS this? Mental health in families? Living on your own terms?!

“…watching and listening with the constant sharp attention of children lost in the dark “

(What we do to children. Adults don‘t/can‘t make sense of it, either!)

“…we were lost in a landscape that, with any light at all, would be wholly familiar.” (Would it?!)

“… she would have glanced up sometimes at the snow, which was the color of heavy clouds, and the sky, which was the color of melting snow, and all the slick black planks and sticks and stumps that erupted as the snow sank away.”

Push to finish to count in July? Or savor and enjoy the crafting, imagery, pacing, and character development. Yes, to that. ❤️

Ruth and Lucille are raised by a strange collection of women, including their Aunt Sylvie, a wild soul who knows nothing of children. The writing is lyrical & paints a vivid portrait of a girl's youth spent waiting for the next person to leave her.

“Why must we be left, the survivors picking among the flotsam, among the small, unnoticed, unvalued clutter that was all that remained when they vanished, that only catastrophe made notable?”

Crystalline perfection. Ruth and her sister Lucille arrive in Fingerbone, Idaho to be cared for first by their grandmother, then their great-aunts, and finally their eccentric aunt Silvie. The stunning prose in this quietly moving book is like the ice holding our weight as we gaze down into the depths of its perceptions about family, loneliness, love, and loss. Therese Plummer narrates this 40th Anniversary edition of the audiobook beautifully.

Robinson‘s writing had me calling my niece (who read this novel with me) to swoon over passages. It‘s elegant and luxurious prose, like moving at dusk through long garden walks. Long scenes feel short; they resonate & leave me musing. 2 orphaned sisters welcome an itinerant aunt to their house. Trust, belonging, & memory all come into question. Ruthie feels pulled between her clashing sister & aunt. The language entranced me as much as her story.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

#3books #ihated. I finished all 3 but don‘t know why. Housekeeping is an unpopular opinion, I know.

#3Books.....#WithAOneWordTitle
@OriginalCyn620 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Read them all this year and thought they were all wonderful

The love of family is so complicated. The Greeks had a word for it - storge - that meant “natural bond.” To me, Robinson explores in this book what happens when that natural bond is ruptured, either by life or ourselves. And what it‘s like when that bond is not there naturally, and when surprisingly, it is.

This was the first Marilynne Robinson book I‘ve read and her writing blew me away. And such a sad, beautiful story about family, belonging, existing within/outside of society and its expectations. @Cinfhen I agree with your review! Thanks again @merelybookish for the copy and telling me I need to read Marilynne Robinson. 😊

Such a somber story. A study of loneliness, isolation~ yearning for belonging. Two sisters left to the care of their eccentric aunt/ all 3 unmoored.
Evocative writing, lyrical prose, quiet and meditative. #ReadingUSA2020 #Idaho

My iPad lost power so Im switching to a Kindle book 📚 #ReadingUSA2020 #Idaho So far I‘m getting Olive Kitteridge vibes and I couldn‘t be happier. It‘s my first time reading Marilynne Robinson🧡

Robinson is undeniably a wonderful and empathetic writer of stunning prose. This story explores how grief and tragedy can impact a family, even through generations, and how people respond in myriad ways to it. This is also a story about female relationships within a family. The book is marked by the almost complete absence of any male characters. The one who does appear is clearly apologetic for having to be there. 4 ⭐️ #hoopla

Just the kind of exquisitely written, dark, moody, immersive book I love. I can‘t believe I‘ve only just read this for the first time. Robinson‘s language, imagery, characters. All of it is perfect.

Today in isolation book shopping, I ordered cheap used copies of all four of Marilynne Robinson's novels. The next book in the series, Jack, comes out in September. Thought I would try to be ready to read it.
Anyone have a writer who you expect to love so much that you're almost scared to read them? That's Robinson for me.

This is why I hate rating books; when I first picked up Housekeeping a few months ago I was SO bored. But picking it up and starting all over, I loved it. I almost flipped back to the front to read it again.

Oh my gosh she CRUSHED them
I would have tried to hit her with the dictionary too!

(See previous)

Do you get emotional over things that happen in books?

Ruthie, the narrator of this book finds an old dictionary of her grandfather's who passed before she was born. In it he had pressed a bunch of flowers, categorizing them alphabetically; Rose's under R, Queen Anne's Lace under Q, etc.

Her sister takes the book and shakes it until all the flowers are out of the book. Now, I am a romantic, sentimental sort and this is killing me 😅😅

This has been that rare kind of book I actually avoid picking up to read because I don't want it to end.

Admittedly, about 80% of the reason I got this book is because it looks so cute. It's small (hand for comparison) and hard cover. Anyhow, the book seems very good so far. There's a lot to choose from in the series, though, if this one isn't for you.

Currently reading

Reading this book was like walking in a dream, riding the emotional waves of life. Beautifully written!

#7days7covers Day 5

Atmospheric

#home #quotsymay19

I‘ve actually posted this quote before for a different prompt but I love it too much not to use it again.

#mrsrobinson #marchintothe70s

#QuotsyJan19 Day 13: A #sister is a light in a darkened place. Marilynne Robinson is the reason I fell in love with literary fiction. I will have to re-read this book at one point.

Read it slowly, for the language and the imagery. 🏚👩‍👧‍👧🧳🧳🌧🚞🔥❤️

"To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it..."

#constantcraving #TimbitTunes
@Cinfhen

I read and disliked this in college. But for Matt Nathanson's book club, I'll try again.

This was an absolutely wonderful book and I loved it but I do wish I‘d read it slower and not as an audiobook. It was so rich and slow with so many layers I think I kind of ‘wasted‘ it by zooming through it - I loved the characters and the show build, everything about marilynne robinson was perfect as always. Definitely one I need to reread

Fitting one more in before the south bank festival this weekend! I adored Gilead so so so much I can‘t wait to read something else by her.

Beautifully written.

First post! I recently bought 40 books at my local bookstore's Buy 10 used books, get 10 free sale and just finished up my first of the 40. This book is SO my jam. Melancholy with a smidge of hope (honestly just a smidge.) And really beautiful and reflective writing. It was not a read that I sped through (I mean. I still finished it in 4 days but needed the reflection time in between.) This is my first by Robinson and I'm looking forward to more!

For me this was a completely beautifully written book that was also terribly dense and not very compelling to continue reading. I found the setting and characters dispiriting. But it is skillfully done and I can only imagine how many of the biblical references alone I missed.

The toddler enjoyed flipping through it!

#wish #quotsymarch18
Wonderful writing in this book. Dark, melancholy and claustrophobic story.

#QuotsyMarch18 Day 21: This was my first Marilynne Robinson and it tasted of loss, grief, and the #Wish for that which is forever gone - executed in the subtlest, almost dead-pan fashion that makes every single shade of emotion even more keenly felt.

"The force behind the movement of time is a mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is known to be an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. So memory pulls us forward, so prophecy is only brilliant memory—there will be a garden where all of us as one will sleep in our mother Eve, hopped in her ribs and staved by her spine."

"Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it."
~Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

#bookish #booklover #marilynnerobinson #bookworm

The two sisters have family but their mother is gone . Family members step up to take them in , but rarely is there guidance, more like “benign neglect “. Sparse prose matches the landscape of Fingerbone , Idaho. I think it‘s an important book, but perhaps because it‘s melancholy so palpable,not as in love with it as some other readers are.

#currentread #riotgrams so I posted a while ago about focusing on books I own , out the window with that!I think I read the LeGuin years ago, before I was keeping a reading list, it‘s a way to dealing with missing her already.Both are library books.

#tracks #nuyear
Train tracks feature a lot in this claustrophobic, dark book. I read this as I was doing a lot of work with an English Professor at the time and she said I HAD to read it, so I caved in eventually and did. I did like it - but not world changing for me!
The song though 💜❤️ one of my favs-
https://youtu.be/ZWqssarCY_k
This from his ‘farewell gig‘ in 1981. Watch til the end, that pensive, god what I have done look 💔