Crime Today News
Marilynne Robinson published her debut novel, Housekeeping, in 1980. Then, for the next twenty years, it appeared as though she would write fiction no more. She was interested in nuclear pollution in Britain, she wrote about modern thoughts and thinking, and she was particularly concerned about climate change and the destruction of welfare systems. The world around her was in such a distressful condition that there seemed to be no time to write fiction. Then 2004 arrived, and so did her second novel, Gilead. This was followed by three more novels – Home (2008), Lila (2014), and Jack (2020) – in a (rather) quick succession. Robinson composed hefty titles for her nonfiction writing, but for her novels, one-word titles became her trademark.
Keeping a house
The title of Housekeeping suggests a certain knack for keeping house, or at least of domestcity. However, it is one of the strangest ensembles of family, and the home that they live in is in a derelict condition located in the neglected town of Fingerbone. All in all, there is very little of a house and even littler of its keeping.
Sisters Ruthie and Lucille find themselves in the care of their elderly grandmother after their mother, Helen, disappears – perhaps kills herself – by driving her car over a cliff. The grandmother’s house was built by her husband Edmund, who too “escaped this world” in a very tragic fashion. A train dislodged from the rails and rammed itself into the unsuspecting gentleman. Possibly the most memorable event in Fingerbone’s history, the family, unbeknownst to it, would become a serial victim to other such inexplicable tragedies.
The house is situated at the edge of an enormous, merciless lake – which, many years ago, swallowed the derailed train. Though its remains were undiscovered by the locals, everyone has a vivid theory of what its final moments might have looked like. A few years before the present, the lake would swallow Edmund’s daughter – lost in its depths and still at the wheel. The water, instead of a benign, beautiful presence, is an eternal reminder that this is a family of absentees.
Edmund and Helen are definitely dead, but there are other ghosts that haunt the family. For instance, the sisters’ missing father or their elder aunt who has not been seen in a while. There are suspicions that she might not be in the country at all, but somewhere in the East, serving the unwell and the infirm. The absences inflate like balloons and suck up the very air in the house, still, the mystery surrounding missing persons are private affairs – they need not be spoken about at home, much less be grieved or feared.
The grandmother, Sylvia, who has retired from maternal affection, suddenly finds herself in possession of two young girls. She is resigned in her manners but attentive to their needs. Fingerbone is a lonely place and the house even more so. It is, by design, cut off from the rest of civilisation. With no young person – or anyone else – for company, the girls take to each other as friends in addition to being sisters. Education is sparse and lax, and a great part of the day is spent amusing themselves. The games devised by them are either to be played in the forest or by the lake. Meanwhile, the grandmother cares for them without being vocal about the disappointment she feels in her daughters. They have been careless and selfish, and utterly useless in their roles in the family.
A family of absentees
It is equally the lack of money and the ferocity of natural elements that have ravaged the family home. The winds, cold, the flooding lake, and continuous rain dampen the spirits of its inhabitants too. Calm days are few and far between, the sun is an elusive stranger.
When Sylvia dies – undramatically – the girls are left in the care of her sisters-in-law, Lily and Nona, who are all too eager to wash their hands of the responsibility. Hard of hearing and unrefined in their ways, their inexpertise in any kind of rearing is amply evident. The children get better of them with their youthful ways.
Finally, the arrival of their aunt Sylvie brings some semblance of normalcy to the orphans’ lives. Unmentioned by their grandmother, the aunt is cagey about her past, and her rigid ways make her unpopular with Lucille, who decides to set off on her own. Ruthie, left behind with the apparitions of the past and an impossible aunt, tries desperately to hang on to the idea of family and the home which had sheltered them all. Meanwhile, Sylvie’s discomfitting mannerisms make Lucille all the more determined to fit in with the better-adjusted members of society, to be normal.
Housekeeping resists being understood. The grief in it is almost metaphysical, transcendental. It colours everyone who comes in contact with it. Ruthie reads the Bible like a book of stories, almost believing the parables. If there is despair, there is also redemption. Ruthie crosses literal bridges and purges herself in fire to emerge anew. The novel moulds itself into new shapes for every kind of reader; however, its most sympathetic eyes are turned towards those who slip through the cracks of history, forgotten by their communities, nation, and own families.
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson, Faber and Faber.
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