Over the Clover

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson

★★★

Housekeeping does not have much in the way of plot, but it certainly is haunting. It is rightly considered a modern classic for its beautiful, poetic language.

I love the title of this book too. We have so many underlying notions about that word--many of those preconceptions come up in this book.

I kept thinking of The Secret Life of Bees (a book I particularly loathe) while reading this. In that book the main characters are also females in a situation that is a bit out of the mainstream, but that's where the similarity ends. Housekeeping is powerful where the other book is cheesy. This book deals with loneliness, expectation, and waiting and results in with a life-usually-does-not-give-you-what-you-expect ending. The Secret Life of Bees has an everything-works-out-in-the-end-if-you-just-believe-hard-enough ending.

Generally, books about women with female characters and a domestic plot line are more like Secret Life of Bees. I am glad Marilynne Robinson was able to give us something else.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights (Signet Classics)

Emily Brontë

★★★★

Wuthering Heights was not at all what I expected again. It happened earlier this year when I read Madame Bovary, but I think I am even more surprised at this one. Just as I walked around after seeing Last Tango in Paris saying, "how messed up are we collectively to begin to think that was a love story?" I can't help but feel similarly. While Wuthering Heights is not as messed up as Last Tango, there is no romance in this book. None. And whatever love is between Catherine and Heathcliff, it's dangerous and unhealthy--apparently not so much for themselves as for everyone else they encounter, however.

No, this book is a revenge tale. And the most disturbing one I have ever read.

And reading it alongside Of Mice and Men only solidifies the notion of "the best laid plans." If only Earnshaw Senior had not picked Heathcliff up from the side of the road...how different the lives of the characters would have been.