The Writer's Life 3/27 - Housekeeping

Imagine a first book being nominated for a Pulitzer. Such was the case with Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, which I just finished. Although it did not cop that prestigious prize, it was named Best First Novel by the Hemingway Foundation. It is a first account of a pre-teen whose mother may have committed suicide and whose grandma dies, leaving her and her older sister briefly in the care of the elderly sisters of the grandmother, then shunted to a quietly eccentric aunt. The elder eventually rebels and moves in with a teacher. The protagonist shares much in common with the aunt and stays, although one expects her to flee the harsh climate of the small town in the Pacific Northwest, where her grandfather, who died in a train wreck, built a house. I love works that attempt to get at the mystery of life. The protagonist’s musings often hit home. Just as often, they lost me. I failed to grasp what she was trying to say. Of course, this may have been due to a weak attention span on my part. Here are excerpts I admire: “For why do our thoughts go to some gesture of a hand, the fall of a sleeve, some corner on a particular anonymous afternoon…? What are all these fragments for, if not to be knit up finally?” I often wonder why I remember seemingly meaningless bits from the past. I used to think they might have occurred before or after a significant event. I now suspect they are simply physiological. Late in the narrative, the girl muses: “Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unwilling…” And: “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.” 25 years after the publication of Housekeeping, Robinson was awarded a Pulitzer in 2005 for Gilead. She has written four novels in all, and four works of non-fiction, and accumulated many awards along the way. Readers are still discovering Housekeeping. Its sales rank at Amazon, where more than twelve million books are listed, is 4925^th at last check -- 45 years after its publication. 403 users have rated it, forging to a consensus of 3.8 out of five. I rate it 3.5. I wish there was more detail about the aunt’s experiences. To my surprise, there was a film adaption in 1985. Unfortunately, it is not available at Netflix.

Last night Movies!, 113 on Cablevision, ran Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), a comic take on the early days of flight. A beautiful actress appeared briefly in multiple roles, a running joke. I had no idea who she was. I guessed Gemma Jones. It was Irina Demick, who amassed 19 credits from 1959-1972, then disappeared. There is little information on her. She was married for more than a decade, and divorced, no children. She simply faded from the scene and died at 67 in 2004. Here’s a pic:

My thanks to Dmitriy, who bought A Hitch in Twilight, and to the other kind folks who made purchases on this dank day, and to Lev, who donated more than 50 books, most in excellent condition, all but two marketable.

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/pdxwsnt

Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp

Vic's Horror Screenplay: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3f

Vic's Blog: http://vicfortezza.blogspot.com/

Vic's Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/