Outside A Dog

Every so often I come across books like Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson that make me wish I was back in school while reading it so that I could have that “Aha!” moment when someone explains everything that I’m obviously missing. Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautifully written book, but maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I read it.

Ruthie and her sister, Lucille, are left on their grandmother’s doorstep in a small town when they are young, shortly before their mother drives off of a bridge into a lake — the very same lake where Ruthie and Lucille’s grandfather met his death when their mother was fifteen. Their grandmother raises them until she passes away, and when she does, her sisters-in-law are recruited to take care of the girls until their aunt, Sophie, can be located and become the girls’ guardian. Sophie is a bit eccentric, and her behavior indicates that she’s spent part of her life as a transient, living her life by the timetables of the trains. Both girls embrace Sophie at first, but Lucille eventually rebels and insists on ‘proper’ meals and habits and activities for the family — eventually moving out — while Ruthie is much more accepting of her aunt’s different way of living.

And really, that’s about it. The plot meanders along, but at least it does so in a beautiful fashion.

“And any present moment was only thinking, and thoughts bear the same relation, in mass and weight, to the darkness they rise from, as reflections do to the water they ride upon, and in the same way they are arbitrary, or merely given. Anyone that leans to look into a pool is the woman in the pool, anyone who looks into our eyes is the image in our eyes, and these things are true without argument, and so our thoughts reflect what passes before them.” (pg. 166)

While it’s not my cup of tea, I can see where this book would captivate those readers who will sit and appreciate the slow pace and gentle buildup and the evolution of Ruthie’s character.