Powell’s Books - Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
I am digging, digging, digging Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. I’m on page 83.
Yes, it is faintly plotted, even by the standards of literary fiction. But Tom Clancy doesn’t have to write every novel.
She combines what I like most about Hemingway with what I like most about Updike: a restraint that allows the world to be luminous, careful observation and charismatic details, a willingness to let the prose be the plot–i.e., the engine of discovery.
She’s not precious at all: “She was an old woman but she managed to look like a young woman with a ravaging disease.” But there is an enchantment to this writing that I think is spiritual. See quote in post below.
She also sets up women in jeopardy–through death, through floods, through isolation, and the nearly complete absence of men–and that serves to pull the story taut.
