Thursday, May 10, 2012

Home by Marilynne Robinson

As a comment on the back cover of Home by Marilynne Robison says ‘this book is unforgettable’ … and because it is absolutely just that it was so worth reading again. I have no doubt I will read it a third and maybe a fourth time one day.

Words of praise for Robinson's acute and quiet observation of sibling, parochial and prodigal life include moving, profound, luminous. It is all that but for me reading it for a second time it was her language that thrilled. Her way with words means she describes the ordinary so that meaning arises as naturally as steam from a kettle. She weaves this essential aspect of a long novel into the weft of dialogue and interior thoughtfulness that lay out her character’s emotions like raw fish on a slab. You can smell as well as see their feelings. You can touch the shape of the shifts in their lives.

Within the pages of Home Robinson writes

‘Maybe sorrow or guilt is simply to be accepted as absolute, like revelation’

‘You get used to kindness. After a while you being to count on it. You miss it when its gone.’

‘Looking for you was sort of the next best thing to finding you.’  

I rest my case. See more at http://www.virago.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781844085507

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