Housekeeping Audiobook By Marilynne Robinson cover art

Housekeeping

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Housekeeping

By: Marilynne Robinson
Narrated by: Becket Royce
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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.©1980 Marilynne Robinson; (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC Literary Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction World Literature
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Critic reviews

"So precise, so distilled, so beautiful that one doesn't want to miss any pleasure it might yield." (The New York Times Book Review)
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This was a brilliant book, well written, narrated superbly. It is not the type of book a casual reader would enjoy however. The vocabulary was excellent and the pace was fast. I think I would have preferred to read this, but I was not disappointed in the listen.

Brilliant

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I agree with Emily's review below--this is a fascinating novel of abandonment, loss, mental illness, and mystically merging with nature. I was so moved by the descriptions of the area where the girls lived with their grandmother, the huge lake, the mountains, the woods, the cold and snow. It took me a while to figure out it was in Idaho somewhere. Sylvie and Ruthie spend so much time outside, in all kinds of weather, even spending the night on the lake's edge and then in a small boat in the middle of the lake in the middle of winter. They seemed to want to merge with nature, like the drowned grandfather and mother. There were comical scenes among the tragic, like when the ladies drop by to counsel Sylvie on how to keep house and raise Ruthie. That advice was not going to be taken, not by these two birds of a feather. Their outsiderness was sad, but at least they had each other. Unlike some others, I thought the narrator did a great job with this very literary novel. The language is beautiful, dense and flowing, full of mystery and allusion. I have also listened to Gilead by this author but did not like it anywhere near as much as Housekeeping, though Gilead won awards. Marilynne Robinson writes masterfully of troubled families through generations. She is one of my favorite authors.

Into the mystic

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What did you love best about Housekeeping?

How deceiving it is with its haunting message and surprise ending

What other book might you compare Housekeeping to and why?

I can't think of anything off hand as it's so unique

Which character – as performed by Becket Royce – was your favorite?

Sylvie

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Life wasn't meant to be straight

Any additional comments?

Some say the narrator was distracting - and I can understand why, as she is rather 'sing song' and very happy, probably too happy. But that's the point, I think. Even though it's a haunting story, Sylvie is a transient but happy with her lot and although the circumstances for the girls might be grim, there is a solution! Being happy go lucky and not weighed down with responsibilities might seem careless to some, but the very fact that there are choices in life is the point of the story. To have narrated this story with a more grave or solemn voice would have taken away the light heartedness intended, in my opinion. Maybe a more 'wistful' reading, without so much 'sing song' would've made it better?

Strange title for a strange story, but necessary

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I never quite caught on to what was real in this book. I just listened for the second time.

What?

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Beautifully written -- lyrical, one might say -- with a story that unfolds as quietly and unexpectedly as a flower. It's suddenly there, and you know so much about the characters' lives without being aware of that unfolding. The reader has an exceptionally pleasant voice, and a style of delivery perfectly suited to the material. A great experience overall.

Unlike anything I've read before.

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