19 April 2006
Housekeeping
Housekeeping
is a bleak little novel I picked up to read before Ms. Robinson’s second book, Gilead. It is a youthful angst novel, bleak, and ultimately unsatisfying, like life itself – at least according to an existentialist. 'Not all my songs are sad. Some are hopeless.' - my new favorite Townes Van Zandt quote. Anyway, the few people who strive and try stick out and are pathetic for their efforts. Those who ease into the buffeting stream of life with low or no expectations are pathetic too, but at least they have nothing at stake, and expect no better.
I picked this up and started reading it will ill with the flu in February, and then set it aside before finishing. The oddity of family relations, the roles assumed that become all encompassing, rings true. Who the heck are the strangers I’m intimate with, anyway? Not an unsettling read, unfortunately, but all too familiar. I wish it wasn’t.
is a bleak little novel I picked up to read before Ms. Robinson’s second book, Gilead. It is a youthful angst novel, bleak, and ultimately unsatisfying, like life itself – at least according to an existentialist. 'Not all my songs are sad. Some are hopeless.' - my new favorite Townes Van Zandt quote. Anyway, the few people who strive and try stick out and are pathetic for their efforts. Those who ease into the buffeting stream of life with low or no expectations are pathetic too, but at least they have nothing at stake, and expect no better.I picked this up and started reading it will ill with the flu in February, and then set it aside before finishing. The oddity of family relations, the roles assumed that become all encompassing, rings true. Who the heck are the strangers I’m intimate with, anyway? Not an unsettling read, unfortunately, but all too familiar. I wish it wasn’t.
