Great House [Hardcover]

 

 

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"Great House" is unashamedly literary in style and while undoubtedly not everyone's cup of tea, it's hard not to admire the cleverness of Krauss. It also covers such broad issues that it's not the easiest of books to sum up in a few words. Certainly, to enjoy this book you will need to have a tolerance for cerebral fiction. You will also need to appreciate the role of the book in commenting on aspects of the human condition rather than just telling a good story. This is most certainly not a plot driven book. You should also be prepared that the stories told are unremittingly dark, sad, and almost oppressively depressing. But while all of this sounds negative, the payoff is a book of exceptional cleverness and shot through with lovely and often beautifully observed writing about the human condition and in particular about memory. It would be wrong to say that it's cerebral with no heart: there's plenty of emotional heart here, but unless you buy into the cerebral game, then it's a book that will infuriate you before you reach it.

Effectively four short stories, each split into two parts, which echo into each other and overlap in different ways. Each is told from the first person perspective. It's fair to say that there isn't always as much distinction between the tones of voice as might be ideal. Some of the overlaps are obvious, or become obvious, others are more fleeting and subtle - mere suggestions. You pick up echoes of your own memories of earlier stories as the second halves unfold - they don't always come fully formed but often as fragments of a larger story - much like memory.

At the heart of the book is a great desk which both stands for the Great House symbolism of the Jewish concept, but also a term used by Freud to describe the workings of memory. It's the latter that works best for me, but Jewish readers may well get even more from the first reference as I'm sure some of the deeper symbolism went over my head a bit. The ownership of this desk though is just the link to bring the stories together and what each really explores is memory and stories - it's notable how many of the characters are writers or poets.

The stories include a reclusive writer in New York who inherits custody of the desk from a Chilean poet who is returning to fight the Pinochet regime, a London-based widower grieving for the loss of his wife (also a writer) whose life has a secret revealed to him only in his wife's Alzehimer's, a recently widowed Israeli frustrated at the lack of communication from his son, and finally another London-based story of Isabel's relationship with the strange Yoav and his equally mysterious sister, Leah both under the gaze of their furniture collecting father.

Yet none of these stories are told in a straightforward way. Krauss allows her narrators to fly around in time and to go off at tangents as they recall their stories.

If you read Krauss' last book, The History of Love then you will have a sense of her methods of story telling. If you didn't enjoy that, you will positively hate this! While there were moments of levity and lightness in The History of Love, there are none here. It's all pretty grim stuff but there is a certain beauty in the stories. Loss is a recurring theme though so it's always going to be quite dark.

It's not perfect, as I've tried to show, but it's a book that works on so many levels that the cleverness of the ideas carries through. I loved it and will certainly re-read it at a later date. If books that make you think, "I'm sure there's more to this than I'm getting" frustrate you, then this is not a book for you. But it's a book that made me think and I found involving as I tried to pin the threads together. Ideally, I'd give it four and a half stars (just some levity would have made all the difference, as would more differentiation between the narrative voices) but if you are up for a challenging book, then it has a huge amount going for it.

This is one of those books which I think you'll either love or hate. Unfortunately for me, I found this to be one of the most depressing books I have ever read and one which I really struggled to finish, (but ultimately did so after a long, hard slog).

Linked by a mysterious desk, several characters describe their completely soul destroying lives in endless dark description. This is truly a book which emphasises the black, emptiness of depression and loss and one which I found very difficult to read. I couldn't relate to the characters, became disinterested and therefore found the descriptive prose akin to wading through treacle. Whilst the characters revealed more of their secrets as the book progressed, I found myself caring less and less about what happened to them.

Make no mistake, this book is extremely well written and the descriptive prose is some of the very best I have read; but if the subject matter doesn't grab you from the off (as it didn't with me), then the book becomes difficult, repetitive and tiresome.

This is a modern fictional novel which may possibly polarise opinion. The author's power to describe and set a scene is excellent, but the book is so slow, fragmented and shrouded with depression that it makes this comparatively small book appear to be so much longer than it actually is.

Have a look at the book's synopsis and some of the other reviews before you make a decision to buy or not. I didn't enjoy it, but others have done and will continue to do so.

Just be wary, this is not a light hearted read!

Despite it's undoubtedly beautiful prose this is a lazy book, told in a number of almost identical voices and set in a number of parts of the works that the author has visited, though God knows I'd be amazed if she had ever been to Liverpool.

I realise that authors write what they know but New York, Jerusalem, London and Oxford are the well trodden settings for this book. Nearly everyone seems to be a writer. Has the author no imagination? Can she not try to write about other people, other places?

And as for Liverpool. If you ever visit the Anfield area of the city and find someone like the character portrayed in this book who speaks as if she has just finished her masters degree in comparative english literature and social psychology, I suggest you too have ventured into a neverland. I don't think Nicole Krauss can imagine how the other 99% live and talk.

Two things in particular are lacking. The relentless highbrow references get rather wearying and whilst I don't expect everyone to be name checking the X Factor or tabloid newspapers throughout, there is not a single reference to popular culture in the entire book.

The Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran once notoriously said that " there are no jokes in Islam", this book suggests that there are none in Judaism either, which Larry, Bette, Joan and I know to be untrue. Shakespeare managed humour. Why doesn't Nicole have a try?

Come on Nicole - let your hair down a bit. Live a little and laugh a bit more. The human condition is not as bleak as you seem to think it is and it can be examined in other more entertaining and well-rounded ways.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Why is this good?
This is not good. I hate it when I get fooled by good reviews. Where are these people getting this. I think another reviewer said 'unrelenting'. Yes. Read more

Published 27 days ago by J. Reynolds

4.0 out of 5 stars Great House by Nicole Krauss
This is a complex web of 4 stories with a large, antique desk providing the link between them. We follow the lives of a New York writer who is lent the desk by a young, Chilean... Read more

Published 2 months ago by iandliz

4.0 out of 5 stars 'Great House' - great read
This beautifully written book is well worth reading even though all is not clear at the end! This provoked a lot of thought and discussion at out Book reading group meeting but we... Read more

Published 4 months ago by sv

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime
I have to say that I am baffled by some of the other reviews here. I know I am intelligent and I read a lot but I don't think that I am that much more intelligent or well read... Read more

Published 4 months ago by LizWilliams

4.0 out of 5 stars Less than the sum of its parts?
Haunting, evocative but in some ways problematically opaque exploration of memory, trauma and loss, and the role which physical objects can play in these experiences... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Owlette2008

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for me
I read this book as a chosen book for a book group. It was not a book I would have chosen and I doubt that I would have read the whole book if it was not for the book group. Read more

Published 5 months ago by jane

5.0 out of 5 stars A great novel
I am very impressed by this book. I have read the authors husband's books. I like them but this is a very good novel or story. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Lena Heinemann

2.0 out of 5 stars I tried my best
This book felt like hard work!

If I was going to try and pin down the crux of the book I would say it is was the struggle with being a writer (I didn't understand the... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Katy

3.0 out of 5 stars A book to concentrate on
Four stories which have been linked together, with the stories overlapping throughout the book. Based around the owners of an antique writing desk
A book which needs... Read more

Published 6 months ago by S. A. Broadhurst

2.0 out of 5 stars Distant, introspective and fundamentally disappointing
I adored The History of Love for it's intricately woven tale of loneliness and love across the ages, transmitted through words. Read more

Published 6 months ago by marty mcfly

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