Great House
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For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the
… More »For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944. Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?
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From the Globe & Mail Oct 18 2010: Nicole Krauss finds the novel a good fit [Author Interview] By JOHN BARBER "There is nothing else in life, no other art really, that allows us something that literature does, which is to step in this most intense way into the path, into the river of another's life, to embody another person's inner life. It's a kind of connectedness that is so deep and allows for a kind of empathy and the development of compassion that again doesn't happen so easily elsewhere."
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Add a CommentStories - a woman author in New York, a couple in London, a family in Jerusalem - all connected by a desk, which is a symbol of loss. Underlying Holocaust theme. At times, difficult to maintain the relationship amongst the narratives. An interesting writer.
Beautiful phrasing that rings true. Wonderful writing.
A dark, sombre read. Beautifully written and surprisingly absorbing.
Nicole Krauss hit the big-time with The history of love and this book deserves to sell as well. The book begins in 1972 with the break-up of a relationship and an American writer living in an empty apartment. She takes temporary possession of some furniture belonging to a Chilean poet, furniture that includes a desk that she then works at for the next 25 years. When the poet's daughter appears asking for the desk back, her life spins out of control. In London and Jerusalem other characters gain and lose people and things. The themes of possession, inheritance, change and loss are big ones but they are handled with assurance and grace.
The author of The History of Love continues her exploration of Jewishness, loneliness, and the threads connecting people across generations, weaving together fragments of four novellas all linked to a massive old desk of mysterious provenance. From the Globe and Mail Monday October 18: Nicole Krauss finds the novel a good fit By JOHN BARBER "Nicole Krauss's third novel, Great House, is a nominee for this year's National Book Award in the United States. But it has already clobbered all comers in the all-important review sweepstakes, eliciting a virtual orgy of approval among early readers."