I hesitate to recommend Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, because—although it has been almost universally acclaimed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century since it was published in 1980—I found it difficult to enjoy. It is a story of the generational effects of family dysfunction culminating in the emotional and physical abandonment of two young girls. Robinson's main character Ruth reflects on the consequences of the narcissism of parents.
"Then there is the matter of my mother's abandonment of me. Again, this is the common experience. They walk ahead of us, and walk too fast, and forget us, they are so lost in thoughts of their own, and soon or late they disappear. The only mystery is that we expect it to be otherwise."
Although the discerning reader can sense the underpinnings of a biblical worldview (Robinson is a deacon in her congregational church), any redemptive thread is buried in an overwhelmingly depressing plot. From a literary standpoint, it is a masterpiece. Robinson's wordplay will leave the aspiring novelist asking, "Why can't I write like that?" But I found more nuggets of theology in Sheriff Bell's internal diary entries in Cormac McCarthy's macabre No Country for Old Men and in the family tragedy of Leif Enger's transcendent Peace Like a River.
No comments:
Post a Comment