Housekeeping

Some months ago I read Marilynne Robinson's second novel, Gilead, and really loved it. I knew that it had been eighteen years since she published this one, her first, and I acquired it some time ago, but the time never seemed right to read it. Now I have, though it has taken me quite a long time to get through it. Not, I hasten to say, because I didn't like it. On the contrary, it is a truly remarkable novel, but one that you can't rush. In fact I found a few pages a day were enough. I've been thinking for a few days now about how to write about in on here and am still not sure. I can tell you the story, but that will not begin to give you a sense of what is so extraordinarily impressive about it.
Anyway, Housekeeping is the story of a family, told by a young girl, Ruth. Set in a remote town called Fingerbone, it begins with past generations -- the grandfather, who died when his train was derailed and sank to the bottom of the nearby lake -- the grandmother, who brought up her three daughters alone -- the mother, one of those daughters, who married and moved away to Seattle, only to return years later with Ruth and her sister Lucille, and then, leaving them with her mother, drove to the lake a drowned herself. The two girls, brought up first by their grandmother and then by two great aunts, end up in the care of their aunt Sylvie. Now their lives, always unusual, become increasingly stranger and stranger, as Sylvie has a complete disregard for conventions and rules. Lucille, unhappy with the disorder and confusion, moves out, and Ruth is left behind, increasingly influenced by her eccentric foster mother.
So what is so great about this novel? The language is wonderful, the images are beautiful, and the atmosphere created by these things is extraordinarily seductive. In fact I found the experience of reading it was more like reading a poem than a novel, though the narrative itself is also fascinating and I became increasingly anxious to know what would become of Ruth, Lucille and Sylvie. I suppose you could describe it as sad, but I'm not sure that I found it so. I'm not at all surprised that the Observer put it on the list of the best 100 novels of all time -- I would probably put it among the best ten I've ever read. Amazing.