House without a stop
Haus ohne Halt (Original title: Housekeeping ), also published as The Eye of the Lake , is a novel by the American writer Marilynne Robinson . It was released in 1980. The German translation was published in 1984 under the title Das Auge des Sees by Kiepenheuer & Witsch ; a revised translation was published in 2012 by edition five under the title Haus ohne Halt .
Marilynne Robinson received the Hemingway Foundation PEN Award for her debut novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize . A number of critics rank Haus ohne Halt as one of the literary classics of the 20th century: The British newspaper The Guardian named it one of the 100 greatest novels of all time in 2003 and again on the list of the 100 best English-language novels in 2015 ; in addition, it is also included in the Time selection of the best 100 English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 .
action
The location of the story told from Ruth's perspective is the (fictional) town of Fingerbone in Idaho at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in the 1950s. A deep, dark lake with its annual floods shapes the life of the city and that of the two protagonists Ruth and Lucille. Her lonely grandfather died before she was born when his train fell off a bridge into this lake. Her mother drowns herself in him after leaving her two daughters on the terrace of the grandmother's house. The orphaned girls are first raised by their grandmother. After the grandmother's death, her sisters-in-law Lily and Nona take care of the children; however, they do not feel up to the task and finally entrust the girls to Sylvie, the aunt of the two orphans, who are now adolescent. Sylvie has drifted through North America as a homeless person for years and proves to be unable or unwilling to return to the normality of a sedentary life. While Ruth feels increasingly drawn to the eccentric aunt, who is so much like her mother, the younger Lucille longs for a life of ballet lessons and pretty clothes. She is finally accepted by the home economics teacher at her school. That turns out to be the turning point of the plot. Ruth and her aunt, whose life is becoming increasingly unconventional, come under the suspicious observation of the other residents of Fingerbones. Finally, a guardianship appointment threatens and Sylvie and Ruth leave the place to drift as homeless people.
Characters of the act
Ruth - the narrator of the storyline, who, together with her sister, is brought to Fingerbone by her mother just before her suicide.
Lucille - Ruth's younger sister who opts for a conventional life.
Helen - mother of Ruth and Lucille, who commits suicide by throwing herself in a car into the lake bordering Fingerbone.
Sylvie - Helen's younger sister, who drifted through North America for years and finally returns to Fingerbone to raise her orphaned nieces.
Molly - Helen's oldest sister. Molly left Fingerbone to go to China as a missionary.
Sylvia Foster - Ruth and Lucille's grandmother who lived in Fingerbone her entire life.
Edmund Foster - grandfather of Ruth and Lucille. Growing up in the flat area of the Midwest, wanderlust leads him to Fingerbone on the edge of the Rocky Mountains. He dies in a railway accident before his granddaughters are born.
Lily and Nona Foster - Sylvia Foster's sisters-in-law, who after Sylvia Foster's death initially look after the girls and at the same time look for Sylvia Foster because they feel overwhelmed by this task.
Reviews
In her review for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nicole Henneberg calls the novel a stirring and melancholy song of praise for the fringes of society. From her point of view, by the end of the novel, Ruth has become an impressive and often self-deprecating sister of Huckleberry Finn, who turns her back on the bigotry and self-righteousness of the citizens.
expenditure
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Housekeeping (1980)
- The eye of the lake, German by Sabine Reinhardt; Cologne, Kiepenheuer and Witsch 1984. ISBN 3-462-01655-5
- House without a stop, revised translation by Sabine Reinhardt-Jost; Hamburg, Edition Nautilus, 2012. ISBN 978-3-942374-23-1
Single receipts
- ↑ Guardian: The 100 greatest Novels of all times , accessed July 14, 2014
- ↑ Nicole Henneberg: Marilynne Robinson: House Without Hold - Huckleberry Finn's unruly sister in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 16, 2013 , accessed on July 14, 2014