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Book Review: Great House, First Take

Great House is a riveting read. I spent the last 3 days scraping out pockets of time I could barely afford, and found myself wishing conversations shorter just so I could submerge myself in the story.

When I came to the last page of the book unknowingly - I was reading it on my phone via Libby - I swiped left and nothing budged, I swiped 2 more times for good measure. Still no budge. Needless to say there was no satisfying conclusion, with loose ends hanging like Tzitzits on the body of the plot. I almost felt like I had been on a 500 page ride, led on by a writer who just wanted to show off her literary skills, without concern for closure.

But I suppose that would be an aftertaste from downing a glass on wine in 2 gulps, so I shall try my best to savour the experience as I write.

The book begins with Nadia, a 50+ year old writer recounting how she got hold of an enigmatic desk, before eventually giving it away. It is this ominous desk that ties all the characters together, however obliquely.

Nadia's tale is littered with failed relationships, mental breakdowns; if her recollection was a living room, the desk is a centrepiece the other furniture is centred around. Spatially insignificant, structurally immoveable. Remove the desk and risk fracturing the story. Some mystery shrouds the reader early on, she addresses her audience "Your honour" who is otherwise, completely silent. As she recounts, unintelligible fragments of present day intersperse her soliloqy, and the reader is transported to and fro the different realities.

In the next chapter, the narrative voice switches to Aaron, an elderly Israeli lawyer who has just lost his wife. He muses angrily about death and painm Most of his frustrstion is directed at his son, Dov, who he cannot understand but desperately yearns to. In subsequent chapters, we are introduced to 2 more narrators - 4 in total, to whom the desk becomes or is important. They tell their story in portmanteau style, each narrator occupying a different timeline, converging only on the subject matter of the desk.

The ending was like a slow fade, that never really fades out, another play on memory perhaps?

[canary2]

Subject: Paper Marche

If I were to make it in the art world, I think I would be a paper marche artist. You know, paper marche. Tearing little bits of things from magazines and newspapers. Photographs, reports, articles all sorts of crestive work. A few scraps from this, a few more from that, forming an entirely new work of art. I wouldn't call it plagarism if it resembles nothing of the original.

There was this one time we had to write a letter to Dunamis, inspired by Pauline letters to the various churches; and somehow out of a mix of sheer lack of time and lack of self esteem, I felt I couldn't put my own words into my own words, that own words sat better in other peoples words. Well, maybe they werent my own words to begin with. Anyway, with the skill of a world renown paper marche artist, I concocted a word marche with stripped from the likes of Henri Nouwen, CS lewis, St Augustine (not proud to admit) and came up with a letter to Dunamis:

[canary2]

Subject: Writing

I'm going to start writing. Wince. At this point a flood of fears has already started to seep through my initial resolve. What do I write next? What if I start the sentences with "I" or "I think" too often? What do I write next - oh I said this already - and how do I structure my thoughts so I don't sound like a lunatic. What am I even to write? - I forgot. Point form is a comforting thought but that would be too quick a defeat.

I decided for the umpteenth time today that I do not want to be the kind of person that withdraws from things she is not good at, because then I would never properly learn anything that was worth learning. Or whatever that was learnt would just be function of an inherited, diminishing curiosity; and that is debasing my humanity to pure animal instinct.

Also, I know I have bursts of energy towards new things or things left untouched for a considerable period of time (I've tried to pick up the piano seriously at least 4 times over the span of 25 years). Its not good to be very easily distracted by shiny new things but I suppose there is something valuable about trying old things anew again. And again. Hope, perhaps? And humility. The older I get, the more hope and humility would be required. Now thats something worth relearning.