Housekeeping<\/a>, an enduring treasure:<\/p>\n \u201cGrave without being heavy, Housekeeping <\/em>remains Robinson\u2019s most lyrically beautiful book. The text weaves together gothic tropes, mystic invocations of Scripture, and rapturous accounts of the Idaho wilderness, as well as the various pains and confinements of teenage girls growing up in the middle of nowhere. Fingerbone, the town the sisters inhabit, is said to be \u2018chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere.\u2019 . . .\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the internal evidence, one could reasonably suppose that the story is set somewhere in the early-to-mid 1950s, but a precise date is never given. Indeed, for the most part, Housekeeping reads like an uncannily realistic piece of folklore\u2014a tale that doesn\u2019t quite belong to the normal course of time, full of solemn omens and proclamations. \u2018If one is lost on the water, any hill is Ararat,\u2019 declares Ruth. \u2018And below is always the accumulated past, which vanishes but does not vanish, which perishes and remains.\u2019 In the hands of a less talented artist, this mixture of high-wattage prose and extreme spiritual earnestness could fall flat. What protects Housekeeping <\/em>from bathos, though, is how painfully exact it is about the types of human sorrow it has in mind\u2014namely, the unclosing wounds of loss, and the sense in which there is not a home on earth that isn\u2019t haunted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are all these fragments for, if not to be knit up finally?\u201d That question from Housekeeping haunts Robinson\u2019s other novels, and is a clue to the Robinson\u2019s depiction of \u201ca longing for wholeness and repair that has no answer in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson\u2019s\u00a0Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson\u2019s first novel,\u00a0Housekeeping, an enduring treasure: \u201cGrave without being heavy, Housekeeping remains Robinson\u2019s most lyrically beautiful book. The text weaves together gothic tropes, mystic invocations of Scripture, and rapturous accounts of the Idaho wilderness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marilynne-robinson"],"yoast_head":"\n
Housekeeping<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Housekeeping\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leithart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@PLeithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/\",\"name\":\"Housekeeping\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\"},\"description\":\"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Housekeeping\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\",\"name\":\"Leithart\",\"description\":\"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\",\"name\":\"Peter Leithart\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Peter Leithart\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Housekeeping","description":"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Housekeeping","og_description":"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/","og_site_name":"Leithart","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","article_published_time":"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00","author":"Peter Leithart","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@PLeithart","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter Leithart","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/","name":"Housekeeping","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d"},"description":"The TLS reviewer is supposed to be reviewing Marilynne Robinson's Lila, but along the way gives a lovely description of what makes Robinson's first","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/housekeeping-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Housekeeping"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/","name":"Leithart","description":"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d","name":"Peter Leithart","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Peter Leithart"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3021"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}