Status
Available
Genres
Publication
New York : W. W. Norton & Co., 2010.
Description
Connected solely by a desk of enormous dimension and many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away, three people--a lonely American novelist clinging to the memory of a poet who has mysteriously vanished in Chile, an old man in Israel facing the imminent death of his wife of 51 years, and an esteemed antiques dealer tracking down the things stolen from his father by the Nazis--struggle to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.
Media reviews
Tegelijk zijn het dergelijke zwaar aangezette scènes die de roman doen overhellen naar kitsch. Vooral omdat Krauss je niet de kans geeft om er zelf conclusies uit te trekken. Ligt het sentiment er al vrij dik bovenop, ze smeert er nog een laag bij door steeds te spreken van ‘tremendous guilt’
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en ‘crushing sadness’. Er wordt hier zo veel verteld over gevoelens dat er weinig daadwerkelijk te voelen valt. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member mrstreme
"...Every Jewish soul is built around a house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last
Great House isn't about a house per se. Rather, it's the story of people with a deep and tormented history - who individually represent a sliver of their collective past, but together, form a congruous whole. In this story, a desk is the connecting theme - an assuming piece of furniture that began in the office of a Jewish man in Budapest and made its way around the world, touching and affecting the lives of many people.
In this story, we meet a writer who lives in New York, an antiques dealer and his family from Jerusalem, a retired prosecutor and his son from Israel and a British couple. With one exception, the desk spends time with each person - often carrying good luck but painful memories too. As the story progressed, you follow the journey of the desk and the people who sat at it. In time, you see the other connections between each one.
Nicole Krauss is a gifted storyteller who is not afraid to take her readers on a journey that can be complicated and arduous. Indeed, Great House is not the easiest book to read with its swirling storylines and flowery language. It requires concentration as you learn about these characters whose lives are separate but connected. Each story could stand alone, but when placed together, they evoke a deeper meaning.
Great House will probably be revered by fans of literary fiction. It would make a compelling book for discussion, especially if led by the right moderator. In the end, I am glad I took the time to read this book - and sure that I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
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holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again..." (page 279)Great House isn't about a house per se. Rather, it's the story of people with a deep and tormented history - who individually represent a sliver of their collective past, but together, form a congruous whole. In this story, a desk is the connecting theme - an assuming piece of furniture that began in the office of a Jewish man in Budapest and made its way around the world, touching and affecting the lives of many people.
In this story, we meet a writer who lives in New York, an antiques dealer and his family from Jerusalem, a retired prosecutor and his son from Israel and a British couple. With one exception, the desk spends time with each person - often carrying good luck but painful memories too. As the story progressed, you follow the journey of the desk and the people who sat at it. In time, you see the other connections between each one.
Nicole Krauss is a gifted storyteller who is not afraid to take her readers on a journey that can be complicated and arduous. Indeed, Great House is not the easiest book to read with its swirling storylines and flowery language. It requires concentration as you learn about these characters whose lives are separate but connected. Each story could stand alone, but when placed together, they evoke a deeper meaning.
Great House will probably be revered by fans of literary fiction. It would make a compelling book for discussion, especially if led by the right moderator. In the end, I am glad I took the time to read this book - and sure that I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
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LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
Great House is now the second book by Nicole Krauss that I’ve read, having previously read The History of Love. I continue to be impressed by this author’s writing. In Great House, Nicole Kraus explores many ideas in labyrinthine and mysterious ways through beautifully crafted individual
Novels that take a bit of work such as this one often have me complaining. This book, however, did not leave me time to do so as I was completely captivated page after page. Having lived in Israel in the 1970’s, I knew the Jerusalem of that time. I also was well aware of the concurrent turbulence in Chile and the protests of young Jewish South Americans. I could have jumped into this book and befriended its characters. I also know what it feels like to be older and look back at that time. You could say I lived this story. The only thing that was missing is that, while living in Israel, I did not have that wonderful desk!
There is one part of the story that had me laughing out loud (although there is no humor per se in the story). I was listening to an audio version of this novel, and found that there were a few lines in Hebrew. The lines were supposed to have been said in a European-accented Hebrew. The accent was *distinctly* American! I had to replay those lines a few times just for the laughs.
I’m thoroughly glad that the author was rewarded with an Orange Prize nomination, a well-deserved kudo for this wonderful book. For sure, I’ll be greatly anticipating future novels by this talented writer.
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stories woven into a greater whole. The thread which we know will connect these stories is a multi-drawered antique desk, believed to have once been owned by Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. We also figure out that the individual stories will have some connection with one another so we read with careful eye to catch whatever those links might be. Not only is this novel superbly plotted, but also the writing is gorgeous.Novels that take a bit of work such as this one often have me complaining. This book, however, did not leave me time to do so as I was completely captivated page after page. Having lived in Israel in the 1970’s, I knew the Jerusalem of that time. I also was well aware of the concurrent turbulence in Chile and the protests of young Jewish South Americans. I could have jumped into this book and befriended its characters. I also know what it feels like to be older and look back at that time. You could say I lived this story. The only thing that was missing is that, while living in Israel, I did not have that wonderful desk!
There is one part of the story that had me laughing out loud (although there is no humor per se in the story). I was listening to an audio version of this novel, and found that there were a few lines in Hebrew. The lines were supposed to have been said in a European-accented Hebrew. The accent was *distinctly* American! I had to replay those lines a few times just for the laughs.
I’m thoroughly glad that the author was rewarded with an Orange Prize nomination, a well-deserved kudo for this wonderful book. For sure, I’ll be greatly anticipating future novels by this talented writer.
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LibraryThing member alaskabookworm
There’s not much I can add to what other reviewers have so eloquently written about Nicole Krauss’s brilliant new novel, Great House. This is a very densely written and structurally complex book; its symbols and imagery are subtly but tightly woven into the novel’s fabric.
Great House is an
I was just as baffled (though also intrigued and enchanted) as many other readers seemed to be with the complexities found in Great House. One thing I’m sure of: Krauss has written a book that she does not intend to be simply read. She has no intention of spoon-feeding her reader. What she has crafted here, is a story whose ideas need to be chewed and gnawed on and digested. Great House is a book that should be read carefully and meditatively, studied and pondered. It should probably be read more than once.
However, in spite of Krauss’s masterful prose and puzzle-like storyline, her devices might not be enough to sustain this story as an enduring literary work. For about a day after I finished Great House, I thought about it a lot. Krauss’s prose is beautiful and immensely quotable. I enjoyed that so many of her characters were introverts; as one myself, I experienced a lovely sense of being understood as a person. I thought she did an interesting, though limited, job exploring the complexities of intimate relationships; loss and grief. I spent time thinking about how all the plots and characters fit together. Now, a week out, I’m not sure what’s left. When it comes right down to it, not much of the story really sunk below the surface; I don’t think it’s a book that will stick with me for the long term.
Great House is an
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exploration of the Jewish Diaspora. There are several story-threads, each of which is loosely connected. The characters are finely drawn examinations of isolation, exile, and grief; each character’s story is told as a sort of a self-contained confessional. I couldn’t help but think: this is a story for introverts about introverts. You notice as you read this book, that many of Krauss’s characters are writers: poets, novelists, historians, or writer-wannabes. The mental footwork of understanding the places where the individual story-threads and characters connect is left largely to the reader with a maze of “bread crumbs” scattered throughout the narratives. This is what is both most satisfying and challenging about reading Great House. Each page is chock full of meaningful fragments; enough hints and illuminations scatter throughout the book that an entire picture emerges.I was just as baffled (though also intrigued and enchanted) as many other readers seemed to be with the complexities found in Great House. One thing I’m sure of: Krauss has written a book that she does not intend to be simply read. She has no intention of spoon-feeding her reader. What she has crafted here, is a story whose ideas need to be chewed and gnawed on and digested. Great House is a book that should be read carefully and meditatively, studied and pondered. It should probably be read more than once.
However, in spite of Krauss’s masterful prose and puzzle-like storyline, her devices might not be enough to sustain this story as an enduring literary work. For about a day after I finished Great House, I thought about it a lot. Krauss’s prose is beautiful and immensely quotable. I enjoyed that so many of her characters were introverts; as one myself, I experienced a lovely sense of being understood as a person. I thought she did an interesting, though limited, job exploring the complexities of intimate relationships; loss and grief. I spent time thinking about how all the plots and characters fit together. Now, a week out, I’m not sure what’s left. When it comes right down to it, not much of the story really sunk below the surface; I don’t think it’s a book that will stick with me for the long term.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Several years ago I read [The History of Love], the second novel by Nicole Krauss, and was impressed enough to pick up this her third, even before it became a National Book Award finalist. Highly structured, the novel tells the stories of various people who all seem to have something to do with a
The book opens ominously. In a section called "All Rise", a woman is addressing "your honor" and describing her past relationships, how she came in possession of a large desk, and what happened to the previous owner of the desk. But on the second page is a paragraph set off from the rest:
She washed the blood from my hands and gave me a fresh T-shirt, maybe even her own. She thought I was your girlfriend or even your wife. No one has come for you yet. I won't leave your side. Talk to him.
Obviously something has happened, but the reader is given no other hints.
In the second section, titled "True Kindness", an angry father has an ongoing internal monologue about his relationship with his second son, someone he has never understood, and who has suddenly reappeared in his life.
The third section, "Swimming Holes", is conversational, again from the first person perspective, this time the voice of a retired professor, whose wife is a reclusive writer. He talks of his inability to break past her reserve, despite their long and loving marriage, and how, by protecting her privacy, he may have been deceiving himself.
The last section in the first half is "Lies Told by Children", and is told from the perspective of an outsider: a woman who has fallen in love with a man who lives with his sister in a big house and is completely cowed by his domineering father.
Each of these stories is revisited in the second half, although not in the same order. By the end, the reader is allowed to see how the stories interconnect. But as I said, the plot was not the hook for me. I kept reading because of the language and the ideas about knowing oneself and others. The author is able to speak in the voices of different people very convincingly. But I finished the book several days ago, and I still don't know what to make of it, not even whether or not I liked it. The key to the book (which is in no way a spoiler) lies in the last few pages, when one of the characters refers to a Jewish story about the creation of the Talmud in a school referred to as the Great House
...after the phrase in Books of Kings: He burned the house of God, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.
Two thousand years have passed, my father used to tell me, and now every Jewish soul is built around the house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself. Perhaps that is what they mean when they speak of the Messiah: a perfect assemblage of the infinite parts of the Jewish memory. In the next world, we will all dwell together in the memory of our memories. But that will not be for us, my father used to say. Not for you or me. We live, each of us, to preserve our fragment, in a state of perpetual regret and longing for a place we only know existed because we remember a keyhole, a tile, the way the threshold was worn under an open door.
Or a desk.
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certain desk. Each person's story is told in a distinctive voice, and the stories intertwine and merge until the reader at last sees the connections between them. Honestly I found this confusing until the end. For me, the more interesting aspect was the author's multifaceted approach to the subject of loneliness and alienation. How two people can live together without ever knowing each other, whether those people are husband and wife or parent and child,and whether it is possible to even truly know oneself. Especially if that person is a writer and in the habit of excluding the real world to create imaginary ones.The book opens ominously. In a section called "All Rise", a woman is addressing "your honor" and describing her past relationships, how she came in possession of a large desk, and what happened to the previous owner of the desk. But on the second page is a paragraph set off from the rest:
She washed the blood from my hands and gave me a fresh T-shirt, maybe even her own. She thought I was your girlfriend or even your wife. No one has come for you yet. I won't leave your side. Talk to him.
Obviously something has happened, but the reader is given no other hints.
In the second section, titled "True Kindness", an angry father has an ongoing internal monologue about his relationship with his second son, someone he has never understood, and who has suddenly reappeared in his life.
The third section, "Swimming Holes", is conversational, again from the first person perspective, this time the voice of a retired professor, whose wife is a reclusive writer. He talks of his inability to break past her reserve, despite their long and loving marriage, and how, by protecting her privacy, he may have been deceiving himself.
The last section in the first half is "Lies Told by Children", and is told from the perspective of an outsider: a woman who has fallen in love with a man who lives with his sister in a big house and is completely cowed by his domineering father.
Each of these stories is revisited in the second half, although not in the same order. By the end, the reader is allowed to see how the stories interconnect. But as I said, the plot was not the hook for me. I kept reading because of the language and the ideas about knowing oneself and others. The author is able to speak in the voices of different people very convincingly. But I finished the book several days ago, and I still don't know what to make of it, not even whether or not I liked it. The key to the book (which is in no way a spoiler) lies in the last few pages, when one of the characters refers to a Jewish story about the creation of the Talmud in a school referred to as the Great House
...after the phrase in Books of Kings: He burned the house of God, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.
Two thousand years have passed, my father used to tell me, and now every Jewish soul is built around the house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself. Perhaps that is what they mean when they speak of the Messiah: a perfect assemblage of the infinite parts of the Jewish memory. In the next world, we will all dwell together in the memory of our memories. But that will not be for us, my father used to say. Not for you or me. We live, each of us, to preserve our fragment, in a state of perpetual regret and longing for a place we only know existed because we remember a keyhole, a tile, the way the threshold was worn under an open door.
Or a desk.
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LibraryThing member spounds
I hate books that I finish and then have to go to the Internet to have them explained to me. The good news is that I am in good company--nobody seems to be able to explain this book. Given that, maybe I can relax a bit.
The dust jacket says that the stories in this book are told by narrators who all
The writing is beautiful--similes and metaphors par excellence, but after awhile all the narrators start to sound alike, none has their own voice, and it seems to be more about the writing than about the stories.
I found several reading group guides with lists of questions--very few of which I could answer--and I think that that is what the author was after, a story with no real ending, no neat lines, a story that you can fill in the details as you will,. I don't have time for that. So why do I keep trying to figure out the answers?
The dust jacket says that the stories in this book are told by narrators who all
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have a connection with the same hulking desk. When I read that I imagined a work similar to People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, but the desk here doesn't take the central role that the Haggadah does in that one. Instead the desk is almost a side note, or maybe a subtle, oboe counter line, to the intimate melody that each of the narrators plays as they tell their stories.The writing is beautiful--similes and metaphors par excellence, but after awhile all the narrators start to sound alike, none has their own voice, and it seems to be more about the writing than about the stories.
I found several reading group guides with lists of questions--very few of which I could answer--and I think that that is what the author was after, a story with no real ending, no neat lines, a story that you can fill in the details as you will,. I don't have time for that. So why do I keep trying to figure out the answers?
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LibraryThing member emilyannward
I loved The History of Love, so I had to check this out. After a long waiting list at the library, I finally got to pick up this book.
It's hard to explain the plot of this book in just a few sentences. There is a collection of characters: a writer who lives a reclusive life, a father who was too
I can't deny Nicole Krauss has a way with words. She pulls me into the minds of her characters. She speaks about the human state with such effortlessness and brings all the sorrow and joy and mystery and loneliness and community of life into her pages.
That said, I guess I'm a stickler for tradition. This novel reads more like memoirs from four different people who happen to be connected by a desk. It's great writing, but I was left wondering, 'What's the common thread? What binds all of these people together?' Some of them love the desk, some of them hate it, some don't even know it exists.
I loved the characters and their stories, but I'm okay with the fact that I don't read novels like this often. I feel like they're stories I can only take every now and then because if I read novels like this consistently, I'd probably get bored or, worse, I'd start talking in sweeping generalizations that don't really make sense but sound pretty anyway, and my writing would start getting really long-winded, like this sentence, and all my paragraphs would be a page or more long.
Regardless, this book comes recommended from yours truly, if you have the patience for it. This is the kind of book that's a special treat, a gem, even, but I'm still glad it's not the norm for novels today.
It's hard to explain the plot of this book in just a few sentences. There is a collection of characters: a writer who lives a reclusive life, a father who was too
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hard on his son, a student who falls in love with the son of an antique's dealer, and more. They're all connected by a desk, an old piece of furniture that looms in their lives.I can't deny Nicole Krauss has a way with words. She pulls me into the minds of her characters. She speaks about the human state with such effortlessness and brings all the sorrow and joy and mystery and loneliness and community of life into her pages.
That said, I guess I'm a stickler for tradition. This novel reads more like memoirs from four different people who happen to be connected by a desk. It's great writing, but I was left wondering, 'What's the common thread? What binds all of these people together?' Some of them love the desk, some of them hate it, some don't even know it exists.
I loved the characters and their stories, but I'm okay with the fact that I don't read novels like this often. I feel like they're stories I can only take every now and then because if I read novels like this consistently, I'd probably get bored or, worse, I'd start talking in sweeping generalizations that don't really make sense but sound pretty anyway, and my writing would start getting really long-winded, like this sentence, and all my paragraphs would be a page or more long.
Regardless, this book comes recommended from yours truly, if you have the patience for it. This is the kind of book that's a special treat, a gem, even, but I'm still glad it's not the norm for novels today.
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LibraryThing member browner56
A reclusive writer turns her back on friends and lovers to work at the imposing desk loaned to her by a Chilean poet who later disappears during the brutal Pinochet regime. Two siblings try their best to cope with the psychological scars imposed by their domineering father, a man who specializes in
What do these four plotlines, which represent the narrative force that underscores ‘Great House’, have in common? The desk, for one thing; it is both a physical presence that connects all of the stories—although one only tangentially—as well as a metaphor for the constant sense of loss that pervades the novel. They also feature protagonists who suffer life-long isolation—often self-imposed—from even the most basic forms of human kindness and spend a considerable amount of time trying to reconstruct memories of their past. (In fact, the “great house” of the title refers to Old Testament admonishment to rebuild the lost Temple of Jerusalem from the collective memory of the Jewish people.)
I found this to be a very hard book to review, if for no other reason than it was not an altogether enjoyable book to read. Unlike her earlier novel ‘The History of Love’, in which Krauss covers very similar themes but with occasional touches of humor and joy, this work is wholly devoid of anything that might relieve the unrelenting emotional pain her characters experience. Further, while each story differs in its details, they share a soul-crushing melancholy that becomes a little monotonous by the end. Still, Kraus is a remarkably talented writer and this is a book full of compelling and hauntingly beautiful images that deliver a powerful final message. While reading this one was hardly a feel-good experience, it is also one that I suspect will stay with me for quite awhile.
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retrieving the personal effects of victims displaced by the Holocaust. A husband who has suffered through an unrequited love for his emotionally distant wife uncovers a heartbreaking secret as her mind starts to slip near the end of her life. Estranged from his youngest son for many years, a father makes a bitter, angry and ultimately futile attempt at reconciliation before he dies.What do these four plotlines, which represent the narrative force that underscores ‘Great House’, have in common? The desk, for one thing; it is both a physical presence that connects all of the stories—although one only tangentially—as well as a metaphor for the constant sense of loss that pervades the novel. They also feature protagonists who suffer life-long isolation—often self-imposed—from even the most basic forms of human kindness and spend a considerable amount of time trying to reconstruct memories of their past. (In fact, the “great house” of the title refers to Old Testament admonishment to rebuild the lost Temple of Jerusalem from the collective memory of the Jewish people.)
I found this to be a very hard book to review, if for no other reason than it was not an altogether enjoyable book to read. Unlike her earlier novel ‘The History of Love’, in which Krauss covers very similar themes but with occasional touches of humor and joy, this work is wholly devoid of anything that might relieve the unrelenting emotional pain her characters experience. Further, while each story differs in its details, they share a soul-crushing melancholy that becomes a little monotonous by the end. Still, Kraus is a remarkably talented writer and this is a book full of compelling and hauntingly beautiful images that deliver a powerful final message. While reading this one was hardly a feel-good experience, it is also one that I suspect will stay with me for quite awhile.
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LibraryThing member bookczuk
Made it to page 180 before I abandoned this book. Everyone was just so miserable, that even had this been the absolute best writing in the world, it wouldn't have saved it for me. Even Pandora got a little bit of hope in the bottom of the chest of troubles. So far, Kraus has had one home run for me
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(The History of Love) one where the book got walked to first base, and this one, which struck out in 3. I think it's time to remove the "favorite author" tag. Show Less
LibraryThing member lyzadanger
Squirreled around the bedside and my library desk, scraps of paper--some crumpled upon subsequent realization of their inaccuracies--are covered with lines and arrows, webs and dates, as I attempted to flowchart the real, temporal lives of the emotionally-related characters in Krauss' new novel,
At the center of Krauss' dreamy network of multi-generational yearning is an desk, a heavy and many-drawered behemoth that characters pursue, sometimes for a lifetime, striving for a piece of representational furniture that, for more than one of them, brings with it destruction, death.
We first hear of the desk in reference to a romantic and slightly mythical Chilean writer who falls fatally afoul of the Pinochet regime. Well, not exactly, chronologically, first according to my notes and arrows. But I'll leave it as a repeat exercise for future readers to uncoil this chain. It's a fun knot to untie. Also in the peripheral running for the desk is an obsessed Israeli antique furniture dealer (that he lost his parents and their belongings to Nazi horror is continually relevant). His reclusive and sexually-charged son and daughter--someone said "Nabokov" in reference to this book, and in these housebound, profligate, slightly incestual waifs it seems most evident--gain the obsession of (young) female literary person Izzy. Also in the mix is the slightly overlapping (older) female literary person Nadia and (yet older, and more interesting) female literary person Lotte Berg, her adorable (if typical) doddering old British husband; further afield, a wistful and senescing father, his successful but damaged aloof son: they don't touch the desk, but drawing indirect connections between them and its impact can be engrossing.
Kruass gives us this desk, and the direct implication that it is carries heavy meaning. She also gives us her shattered characters and their gaping souls. Though the vignettes of humanity-dense interactions between her characters are vivid and, on occasion, cathartic, we never know this desk well except for the dent it leaves. It goes as far as to make some of the characters outwardly, presciently nervous:
"This desk was something else entirely: an enormous, foreboding thing that bore down on the occupants of the room it inhabited, pretending to be inanimate but, like a Venus flytrap, ready to pounce on them and digest them via one of its many little terrible drawers."
Despite the human foibles the desk elicits, and the dark destruction it metaphorically wreaks, it is, still, furniture. We're given the literary instruction to envision it as laden with symbolism, as dense enough to serve as a point of orbit for the disparate experiences of her characters. Made of earthly, wooden stuff, though, it seems at times too blatant, too extant, too physical to carry out its existential task. The core of the novel carries with it an ethereal, spiritual sense of connection, grief, love that seems too light, fleeting and internal for something so blunt and, well, real, to carry.
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"Great House." Krauss gives her psychological all here, with characters so resonating with loneliness, misery and guilt that reading it almost hurts the reader back. It leaves one with a residual psychical hangover not unlike that groggy confusion after waking from a lossful dream. She leaves it to you--a compelling task, if you are caught up in the aura of the book--to search for clues, to unwind the complexity of the ways these sad lives touch each other: reality is your job, meaning is hers.At the center of Krauss' dreamy network of multi-generational yearning is an desk, a heavy and many-drawered behemoth that characters pursue, sometimes for a lifetime, striving for a piece of representational furniture that, for more than one of them, brings with it destruction, death.
We first hear of the desk in reference to a romantic and slightly mythical Chilean writer who falls fatally afoul of the Pinochet regime. Well, not exactly, chronologically, first according to my notes and arrows. But I'll leave it as a repeat exercise for future readers to uncoil this chain. It's a fun knot to untie. Also in the peripheral running for the desk is an obsessed Israeli antique furniture dealer (that he lost his parents and their belongings to Nazi horror is continually relevant). His reclusive and sexually-charged son and daughter--someone said "Nabokov" in reference to this book, and in these housebound, profligate, slightly incestual waifs it seems most evident--gain the obsession of (young) female literary person Izzy. Also in the mix is the slightly overlapping (older) female literary person Nadia and (yet older, and more interesting) female literary person Lotte Berg, her adorable (if typical) doddering old British husband; further afield, a wistful and senescing father, his successful but damaged aloof son: they don't touch the desk, but drawing indirect connections between them and its impact can be engrossing.
Kruass gives us this desk, and the direct implication that it is carries heavy meaning. She also gives us her shattered characters and their gaping souls. Though the vignettes of humanity-dense interactions between her characters are vivid and, on occasion, cathartic, we never know this desk well except for the dent it leaves. It goes as far as to make some of the characters outwardly, presciently nervous:
"This desk was something else entirely: an enormous, foreboding thing that bore down on the occupants of the room it inhabited, pretending to be inanimate but, like a Venus flytrap, ready to pounce on them and digest them via one of its many little terrible drawers."
Despite the human foibles the desk elicits, and the dark destruction it metaphorically wreaks, it is, still, furniture. We're given the literary instruction to envision it as laden with symbolism, as dense enough to serve as a point of orbit for the disparate experiences of her characters. Made of earthly, wooden stuff, though, it seems at times too blatant, too extant, too physical to carry out its existential task. The core of the novel carries with it an ethereal, spiritual sense of connection, grief, love that seems too light, fleeting and internal for something so blunt and, well, real, to carry.
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LibraryThing member jasonlf
I thought Nicole Krauss' The History of Love was one of the best new novels in the last decade. Unfortunately, I didn't think Great House was nearly as good, but it was still a worthwhile read.
Great House is told through four alternating stories that shift back and forth over the course of five
The disappointment was twofold: (1) the different overlapping stories don't come together in a satisfying resolution, in retrospect it clearly wasn't the author's intention that they do, but it still made it all feel less coherent and (2) there was something hollow and empty about the characters, again appears to have been the author's intention, but greatly at odds with the life-filled characters in The History of Love.
Great House is told through four alternating stories that shift back and forth over the course of five
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decades and four continents. The closest thing to a fixed point between the stories is a large antique wooden desk which makes it way from person to person. The other backdrop is history: the Holocaust, Israel's wars, Pinochet's coup, although we don't see any of these events, we just hear about how they have affected characters and the large desk that runs through all of them.The disappointment was twofold: (1) the different overlapping stories don't come together in a satisfying resolution, in retrospect it clearly wasn't the author's intention that they do, but it still made it all feel less coherent and (2) there was something hollow and empty about the characters, again appears to have been the author's intention, but greatly at odds with the life-filled characters in The History of Love.
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LibraryThing member tibobi
The Short of It:
With its winding, spinning narrative, Great House manages to pull you in, only to be pushed away with a firm hand later.
The Rest of It:
I have mixed feelings about Great House. The story centers around a desk as it travels from owner to owner. To some, the desk is just a mere vessel
Krauss weaves in and out of different narratives going back and forth in time. The structure of the novel is quite complex and takes some time to get used to. It took many passes at reading the novel for me to get a feel for her style. I find this to be the case with most Literary Fiction, but with Great House, the extra effort didn’t reward me in the way that I expected it would. The story fell flat and the some of the characters lacked depth.
The one storyline that I was very taken with, is the one where Lotte’s husband finds out that his wife has secrets. I was completely absorbed by that story, but with the weaving narrative, once you find yourself absorbed, you are then suddenly pushed back into a different narrative. This gave the novel a disjointed feeling. Not to say that the transitions weren’t smooth, they were, but it’s like watching a riveting TV show while your children are yapping incessantly at you. You simply want to go back to the story… not be pulled away from it and forced to look elsewhere.
After re-reading the last third of the novel three times, I did experience the sense of loss that I felt the author was trying to convey. The desk becomes a Jewish symbol of survival and serves as a reminder of love and loss. The last third of the book is very powerful and thought-provoking but the novel as a whole felt a bit jagged around the edges. I didn’t feel that the stories were fully explored and it left me with an empty, unfinished feeling.
I read this for the 2010 Indie Lit Awards and although I do have some issues with how it was pieced together, I appreciate the complexity of the novel itself.
With its winding, spinning narrative, Great House manages to pull you in, only to be pushed away with a firm hand later.
The Rest of It:
I have mixed feelings about Great House. The story centers around a desk as it travels from owner to owner. To some, the desk is just a mere vessel
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to write letters at. To others, it is a more important piece, vital to the creative writing process. This wooden desk is quite unique, in that it contains 19 drawers which allow the owner to secret away little bits of life. Large and imposing, this desk seems to loom over its owners when they are in possession of it, and remind them of their past lives when it’s gone.Krauss weaves in and out of different narratives going back and forth in time. The structure of the novel is quite complex and takes some time to get used to. It took many passes at reading the novel for me to get a feel for her style. I find this to be the case with most Literary Fiction, but with Great House, the extra effort didn’t reward me in the way that I expected it would. The story fell flat and the some of the characters lacked depth.
The one storyline that I was very taken with, is the one where Lotte’s husband finds out that his wife has secrets. I was completely absorbed by that story, but with the weaving narrative, once you find yourself absorbed, you are then suddenly pushed back into a different narrative. This gave the novel a disjointed feeling. Not to say that the transitions weren’t smooth, they were, but it’s like watching a riveting TV show while your children are yapping incessantly at you. You simply want to go back to the story… not be pulled away from it and forced to look elsewhere.
After re-reading the last third of the novel three times, I did experience the sense of loss that I felt the author was trying to convey. The desk becomes a Jewish symbol of survival and serves as a reminder of love and loss. The last third of the book is very powerful and thought-provoking but the novel as a whole felt a bit jagged around the edges. I didn’t feel that the stories were fully explored and it left me with an empty, unfinished feeling.
I read this for the 2010 Indie Lit Awards and although I do have some issues with how it was pieced together, I appreciate the complexity of the novel itself.
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LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Using a desk to symbolize the soul of Judaism, Nicole Krauss writes about post holocaust Jews living in Europe and Israel, their suffering, their lack of emotional connection, their overly emotional connections, and their attempt to adjust to human life after living through inhumane times.
LibraryThing member echaika
Nicole Krauss is an accomplished writer. Of that, there is no doubt. Her prose flows, even in a so-so work like this one. The problem here is that, although the prose flows, it just flows. This novel has multiple narrators speaking to an unspecified you, a Your Honor,and a son. However, the tone,
An even bigger problem for me is that none of the narrators or other characters in this book is at all likeable. The least offensive is pitiable. All the narrators are incapable of real connection with anybody else. With two exceptions, they are virtally devoid of emotional attachment to another human being. One of the exceptions seems happily married, but he kvetches constantly about one son he never could "understand." The other one, the one he terms "normal," he doesn't seem to care much about. The other exception involves siblings who are in a virtually incestuous relationship with each other, but tied to an authoritarian, aloof father who seems barely human.
Ostensibly, the book is in that genre in which the history of an object forms the narrative framework. In this instance, it is a desk. We meet its various owners, which is the way this this genre organizes its plotlines. The problem is the desk is just a big desk. It has no magic to it, and except for its bulk seems to make no difference in anybody's life. Towards the end of the book, there is a paragraph by one narrator about how much the desk meant to her, but, since she never said anything about it after she returned it to its previous owner early in the novel, this paragraph doesn't ring true. Moreover, we never do find out how one of the desk owners got it in the first place. One of the narrators never even owned the desk, so why he's floating around this novel, I never figured out. When the ostensibly original owner of the desk finally gets it, he doesn't exhibit any joy or satisfaction in finally getting it. He just considers it an affirmation that he's a genius at getting what he's after. Since he is otherwise a loathsome human being, the reader is not likely to care about that. It was just something of his father's, a man we know nothing of except he was caught in the Holocaust and was a briliant scholar. Since his son never carried on his father's life work, getting the desk seems a poor memento of the father's life.
Oh, at the very end, we do find out why one narrator kept saying, "Your Honor." However, not only is it impossible that any judge in any court of law would have listened to this woman's overlong story of her failed life, the reason she's before the judge has nothing to do with the rest of the novel. It's an intrusive element apparently to add a little plot twist.
I recommend Krauss's The History of Love, but this? Well, it will help a rainy afternoon pass by.
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no matter who is speaking or about what, remains the same. There are no distinguishing features between the narrators. Since the chapter titles don't include the narrator's name, that doesn't give the reader much help in figuring out who is currently talking. You figure it out by the names the narrator uses and the like. An even bigger problem for me is that none of the narrators or other characters in this book is at all likeable. The least offensive is pitiable. All the narrators are incapable of real connection with anybody else. With two exceptions, they are virtally devoid of emotional attachment to another human being. One of the exceptions seems happily married, but he kvetches constantly about one son he never could "understand." The other one, the one he terms "normal," he doesn't seem to care much about. The other exception involves siblings who are in a virtually incestuous relationship with each other, but tied to an authoritarian, aloof father who seems barely human.
Ostensibly, the book is in that genre in which the history of an object forms the narrative framework. In this instance, it is a desk. We meet its various owners, which is the way this this genre organizes its plotlines. The problem is the desk is just a big desk. It has no magic to it, and except for its bulk seems to make no difference in anybody's life. Towards the end of the book, there is a paragraph by one narrator about how much the desk meant to her, but, since she never said anything about it after she returned it to its previous owner early in the novel, this paragraph doesn't ring true. Moreover, we never do find out how one of the desk owners got it in the first place. One of the narrators never even owned the desk, so why he's floating around this novel, I never figured out. When the ostensibly original owner of the desk finally gets it, he doesn't exhibit any joy or satisfaction in finally getting it. He just considers it an affirmation that he's a genius at getting what he's after. Since he is otherwise a loathsome human being, the reader is not likely to care about that. It was just something of his father's, a man we know nothing of except he was caught in the Holocaust and was a briliant scholar. Since his son never carried on his father's life work, getting the desk seems a poor memento of the father's life.
Oh, at the very end, we do find out why one narrator kept saying, "Your Honor." However, not only is it impossible that any judge in any court of law would have listened to this woman's overlong story of her failed life, the reason she's before the judge has nothing to do with the rest of the novel. It's an intrusive element apparently to add a little plot twist.
I recommend Krauss's The History of Love, but this? Well, it will help a rainy afternoon pass by.
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LibraryThing member Sara_Anderson
Loved this book. Krauss' way with language is, as we've come to expect, masterful. This book has a heavier feel to it than "The History of Love," which had moments of heartbreak but whose main character Leo was poignant but incredibly comical, too. "Great House" is darker throughout. We see the
She explains the book's title near the end of this beautiful book, in what is one of the most beautiful descriptions I've ever read of the concept of negative space:
"Day and night the scholars argued about the laws, and their arguments became the Talmud, Weisz continued. They become so absorbed in their work that sometimes they forgot the question their teacher had asked: What is a Jew without Jerusalem? Only later, after ben Zakkai died, did his answer slowly reveal itself, the way an enormous mural only begins to make sense as you walk backwards away: Turn Jerusalem into an idea. Turn the Temple into a book, a book as vast and holy and intricate as the city itself. Bend a people around the shape of what they lost, and let everything mirror its absent form. Later his school became known as the Great House, after the phrase in Books of Kings: He burned the house of God, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.
Two thousand years have passed, my father used to tell me, and now every Jewish soul is built around the house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself."
~-Nicole Krauss, Great House, 2010 (p. 279)
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interior landscapes of its main characters are often bleak, windswept places. Still, there's beauty in that which is scoured. She explains the book's title near the end of this beautiful book, in what is one of the most beautiful descriptions I've ever read of the concept of negative space:
"Day and night the scholars argued about the laws, and their arguments became the Talmud, Weisz continued. They become so absorbed in their work that sometimes they forgot the question their teacher had asked: What is a Jew without Jerusalem? Only later, after ben Zakkai died, did his answer slowly reveal itself, the way an enormous mural only begins to make sense as you walk backwards away: Turn Jerusalem into an idea. Turn the Temple into a book, a book as vast and holy and intricate as the city itself. Bend a people around the shape of what they lost, and let everything mirror its absent form. Later his school became known as the Great House, after the phrase in Books of Kings: He burned the house of God, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.
Two thousand years have passed, my father used to tell me, and now every Jewish soul is built around the house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself."
~-Nicole Krauss, Great House, 2010 (p. 279)
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LibraryThing member SirRoger
The story of this novel unfolds in four pieces. Each is presented in the first half of the book and then revisited in the second half. This gives the book the feel of a collection of short stories that, by the end, reveal their connections and become a tightly woven whole.
The main connecting
First, in Krauss' beautiful and natural language, and her particular knack for metaphor:
"Weisz stood in the tiled entryway in polished shoes holding a walking stick with a silver handle, the shoulders of his wool overcoat shiny with rain. He was a diminutive man, smaller and older than I'd imagined, scaled back in all dimensions as if occupying space at all were a compromise he'd accepted but refused to embrace."
"But my time [with the therapist] was up, and I was excused from the need to answer. At the door we shook hands, a gesture that always struck me as strangely out of place, as if, with all one's organs spread on the table and the allotted time in the operating room almost up, the surgeon were to wrap them each neatly in plastic wrap before putting them back and hurriedly sewing you up again."
Second, in the emotional lives of the characters. Each character had his or her own personal flaws and tragedies to deal with, and the weight of their own memories to bear. All throughout, and completely without warning, some facet of the character's emotional tragedy would mirror or resonate with one of my own. None of the people in the book is like me, and yet the fact that I can relate to all of them is a symptom of Krauss' masterful character development.
Great House is a beautiful book, and I recommend it highly.
The main connecting
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element is a writing desk. It is an enormous, unusual, asymmetrical desk with many drawers that seems to have power over those whose lives it enters. And while a large part of the momentum of the book is wrapped up in discovering how this desk connects all these people, (a couple of writers, a furniture dealer, a lawyer, and their families) for me even greater rewards were found in two other elements of the novel. First, in Krauss' beautiful and natural language, and her particular knack for metaphor:
"Weisz stood in the tiled entryway in polished shoes holding a walking stick with a silver handle, the shoulders of his wool overcoat shiny with rain. He was a diminutive man, smaller and older than I'd imagined, scaled back in all dimensions as if occupying space at all were a compromise he'd accepted but refused to embrace."
"But my time [with the therapist] was up, and I was excused from the need to answer. At the door we shook hands, a gesture that always struck me as strangely out of place, as if, with all one's organs spread on the table and the allotted time in the operating room almost up, the surgeon were to wrap them each neatly in plastic wrap before putting them back and hurriedly sewing you up again."
Second, in the emotional lives of the characters. Each character had his or her own personal flaws and tragedies to deal with, and the weight of their own memories to bear. All throughout, and completely without warning, some facet of the character's emotional tragedy would mirror or resonate with one of my own. None of the people in the book is like me, and yet the fact that I can relate to all of them is a symptom of Krauss' masterful character development.
Great House is a beautiful book, and I recommend it highly.
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LibraryThing member Bellettres
Too confusing to be anything close to a favorite, but Nicole Krauss certainly does know how to use language to evoke a variety of feelings, memories, and experiences. Just couldn't warm up to the characters or their stories.
LibraryThing member bc104
This is a 2010 National Book Award finalist that I just couldn't bring myself to love. There is a sense of satisfaction in putting together the stories which revolve around a looming massive desk with many drawers. I just felt that the individual stories were not that satisfying on their own.
LibraryThing member perpetualpageturner
I have been dying to get my hands on this book as I'm a huge of fan of Nicole Krauss (and her hubby Jonathan Foer Safran). I honestly didn't even know what this book was about but I immediately added it to my TBR list as soon as I knew about it.
Krauss writes an interwoven novel of four different
This novel, although History of Love is still my favorite, does not disappoint. It is honest, beautiful and at times heartbreaking. It isn't just Krauss's ability to construct an intricate story the way a great craftsman would a building; it is also the way that her beautiful prose can resonate in the deepest caverns of your bones setting aflame some feeling that you have known that you have felt before but have never been able to put into words. It is haunting in the way that deja vu always is.
Great House, like The History of Love, contains some of the most heartfelt character development I've seen in novels. The observations of the human condition are spot-on and the characters just come alive in all their despairs and hopes. It is one of those books that remind you just how fragile and complex humanity is. The theme of loss is ever present in this novel--the loss of loved ones, of possessions, of the world you knew and the loss of something that might have never been at all. The desk, to those connected to it, represents some semblance of permanence as they grapple with how how to deal with loss and how to reassemble ourselves---a process I am sure we all can relate to.
I only had a few problems with the novel. Some places were kind of slow in certain storylines. I think she did a good job weaving the stories together but sometimes I got bored with a storyline or forgot something from another. I also felt like I still had a few questions after the novel that I didn't feel were addressed. I felt they were important so it kind of irked me. Another thing that was hard for me was that I felt like Krauss maintained the same tone throughout each story. I got a good sense of the characters and who they were but I never get a sense for the "voice" that was telling the story. I don't know if that makes sense but it does in my head.
One thing I really appreciated about this novel is that even though the storylines were bound together by this desk, these people were not strongly linked. Sometimes you read a novel where people were bound by a person or event and then you have five random people all coming together all linked by this one thing and it seems like it was just fate for them to find each other. I liked that there were brushings with people but they were sometimes far removed from the actual person. You'll see what I mean when you read it.
I'd recommend it to most people--especially those who already love Nicole Krauss or fans of her husband. If you haven't read anything by Nicole Krauss, I'd recommend you reading The History of Love first and then this one.
Krauss writes an interwoven novel of four different
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story lines of individuals and families who are inextricably bound together by a enormous desk with many drawers that bears a heavy history of its own, similar to the histories of those whose hands this desk has passed through. The people in the story are deeply affected by this desk in negative and positive ways, even after the desk has left their possession, and the mysteries and memories of previous owners echo in the deep recesses of these ominous drawers just waiting to be released.This novel, although History of Love is still my favorite, does not disappoint. It is honest, beautiful and at times heartbreaking. It isn't just Krauss's ability to construct an intricate story the way a great craftsman would a building; it is also the way that her beautiful prose can resonate in the deepest caverns of your bones setting aflame some feeling that you have known that you have felt before but have never been able to put into words. It is haunting in the way that deja vu always is.
Great House, like The History of Love, contains some of the most heartfelt character development I've seen in novels. The observations of the human condition are spot-on and the characters just come alive in all their despairs and hopes. It is one of those books that remind you just how fragile and complex humanity is. The theme of loss is ever present in this novel--the loss of loved ones, of possessions, of the world you knew and the loss of something that might have never been at all. The desk, to those connected to it, represents some semblance of permanence as they grapple with how how to deal with loss and how to reassemble ourselves---a process I am sure we all can relate to.
I only had a few problems with the novel. Some places were kind of slow in certain storylines. I think she did a good job weaving the stories together but sometimes I got bored with a storyline or forgot something from another. I also felt like I still had a few questions after the novel that I didn't feel were addressed. I felt they were important so it kind of irked me. Another thing that was hard for me was that I felt like Krauss maintained the same tone throughout each story. I got a good sense of the characters and who they were but I never get a sense for the "voice" that was telling the story. I don't know if that makes sense but it does in my head.
One thing I really appreciated about this novel is that even though the storylines were bound together by this desk, these people were not strongly linked. Sometimes you read a novel where people were bound by a person or event and then you have five random people all coming together all linked by this one thing and it seems like it was just fate for them to find each other. I liked that there were brushings with people but they were sometimes far removed from the actual person. You'll see what I mean when you read it.
I'd recommend it to most people--especially those who already love Nicole Krauss or fans of her husband. If you haven't read anything by Nicole Krauss, I'd recommend you reading The History of Love first and then this one.
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LibraryThing member suetu
A repository for human sadness
I read The History of Love back in 2006. That was the beginning of my crush on Nicole Krauss. After that, I back-tracked and read her almost-as-delightful debut novel, Man Walks into a Room. Suffice it to say, I’ve been looking forward to Great House for a long time.
If you flip through the pages of the book, you’ll notice something right away. The text is dense. There is virtually no white space on the pages, just long, almost unbroken paragraphs that make up a series of monologues. Or perhaps “confessions” is the more accurate word. The novel is structured in two parts. Each of those parts is comprised of four lengthy monologues—with the exception of the novel’s powerful final pages.
The book opens with 50-something Nadia, a solitary novelist living in New York. She is explaining her life to someone she addresses as “Your Honor.” Next we are with Aaron, an elderly Israeli reflecting upon the death of his beloved wife and his strained relationship with his son, Dov. Next is Arthur Bender—British and proper, the insecure husband of Holocaust survivor Lotte Berg, a woman with secrets. And finally we hear from Izzy, the youngest and sexiest of the narrators. Izzy is recounting a very slightly surreal love affair. In the second portion of the book, we spend some time with each of them again.
There is much talk amongst readers about a desk being the object that connects these diverse characters through distance and time. That’s not actually true. There are connections of varying subtlety, and the desk is one part of what connects some, but not all, of these characters. As Lance Armstrong might say, “It’s not about the desk.” It’s not even about the connections, really. Or, at least, I don’t believe that’s the point.
I got to know these characters reading Great House. I learned what propelled them, who they loved, what made them hurt. Especially what made them hurt, because there’s a lot of pain and sorrow and regret in these pages. These narrators are not cute, not joyful, and often not even very likeable. Nadia describes herself as “a person who was always falling through the ice, who had the opposite effect on others, immediately making them raise their hackles, as if they sensed their shins might be kicked.” And just as I began to warm to Aaron, it became clear that he was something of a monster. These are confessions. They are at times difficult to read. You won’t always understand the actions of the characters, but you will believe them. And you will feel their pain and the power of their stories and the beauty of Nicole Krauss’s words.
I read The History of Love back in 2006. That was the beginning of my crush on Nicole Krauss. After that, I back-tracked and read her almost-as-delightful debut novel, Man Walks into a Room. Suffice it to say, I’ve been looking forward to Great House for a long time.
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Truthfully, this latest novel is my least favorite of the three. You’ll note that I still awarded it five stars. I don’t think Nicole Krauss is capable of publishing a novel worth less than five stars. Her writing is gorgeous. And her insight into complex emotional lives is dazzling. It’s not that Great House isn’t, well, great, but it is challenging.If you flip through the pages of the book, you’ll notice something right away. The text is dense. There is virtually no white space on the pages, just long, almost unbroken paragraphs that make up a series of monologues. Or perhaps “confessions” is the more accurate word. The novel is structured in two parts. Each of those parts is comprised of four lengthy monologues—with the exception of the novel’s powerful final pages.
The book opens with 50-something Nadia, a solitary novelist living in New York. She is explaining her life to someone she addresses as “Your Honor.” Next we are with Aaron, an elderly Israeli reflecting upon the death of his beloved wife and his strained relationship with his son, Dov. Next is Arthur Bender—British and proper, the insecure husband of Holocaust survivor Lotte Berg, a woman with secrets. And finally we hear from Izzy, the youngest and sexiest of the narrators. Izzy is recounting a very slightly surreal love affair. In the second portion of the book, we spend some time with each of them again.
There is much talk amongst readers about a desk being the object that connects these diverse characters through distance and time. That’s not actually true. There are connections of varying subtlety, and the desk is one part of what connects some, but not all, of these characters. As Lance Armstrong might say, “It’s not about the desk.” It’s not even about the connections, really. Or, at least, I don’t believe that’s the point.
I got to know these characters reading Great House. I learned what propelled them, who they loved, what made them hurt. Especially what made them hurt, because there’s a lot of pain and sorrow and regret in these pages. These narrators are not cute, not joyful, and often not even very likeable. Nadia describes herself as “a person who was always falling through the ice, who had the opposite effect on others, immediately making them raise their hackles, as if they sensed their shins might be kicked.” And just as I began to warm to Aaron, it became clear that he was something of a monster. These are confessions. They are at times difficult to read. You won’t always understand the actions of the characters, but you will believe them. And you will feel their pain and the power of their stories and the beauty of Nicole Krauss’s words.
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LibraryThing member bookworm12
Krauss' latest book is split into four separate points-of-view and each of these has two sections in which to tell their story.
First there is All Rise, where a lonely author tells the story of a huge desk she inherited from a Chilean poet. She's spent her whole life choosing a life of work over
True Kindness delves into the delicate relationship between estranged parents and their kids. A father, newly widowed, can't understand his introverted, sensitive son and struggles to come to terms with their complicated past.
In Swimming Holes, we read of a husband who loves his wife, even though she keeps him at arm's length. He's an outsider who understands little of his wife's past and because of that we discover things with about her along with him.
The final section, Lies Told By Children introduces us to Isabel, who tells us of her lover Yoav and his sister Leah who live a strange, secluded life under the thumb of their controlling father.
All of the stories are loosely connected by a mammoth desk with many drawers and a past as complicated as its many owners'.
I didn't feel as investing in these character as I did with The History of Love and I don't think the story is as well-constructed. But in the end it didn't really matter. I loved it, because I love her writing. She manages to convey a mood or mental state in such a deeply poetic way that's intoxicating.
I can sink into Krauss' writing like a warm bath, it's all-encompassing. When I'm reading something by her I sometimes forget the plot for a minute and get carried away by the magic of her words. Almost every line makes me want to reach for a highlighter. I love dipping into each of the characters' lives and seeing the world through their eyes and I know I'm going to continue reading everything she writes.
'Our kiss was anticlimactic. It wasn't that the kiss was bad, but it was just a note of punctuation in our long conversation.'
'Sometimes politeness us all that stands between oneself and madness.'
First there is All Rise, where a lonely author tells the story of a huge desk she inherited from a Chilean poet. She's spent her whole life choosing a life of work over
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human connections and now she feels lost. True Kindness delves into the delicate relationship between estranged parents and their kids. A father, newly widowed, can't understand his introverted, sensitive son and struggles to come to terms with their complicated past.
In Swimming Holes, we read of a husband who loves his wife, even though she keeps him at arm's length. He's an outsider who understands little of his wife's past and because of that we discover things with about her along with him.
The final section, Lies Told By Children introduces us to Isabel, who tells us of her lover Yoav and his sister Leah who live a strange, secluded life under the thumb of their controlling father.
All of the stories are loosely connected by a mammoth desk with many drawers and a past as complicated as its many owners'.
I didn't feel as investing in these character as I did with The History of Love and I don't think the story is as well-constructed. But in the end it didn't really matter. I loved it, because I love her writing. She manages to convey a mood or mental state in such a deeply poetic way that's intoxicating.
I can sink into Krauss' writing like a warm bath, it's all-encompassing. When I'm reading something by her I sometimes forget the plot for a minute and get carried away by the magic of her words. Almost every line makes me want to reach for a highlighter. I love dipping into each of the characters' lives and seeing the world through their eyes and I know I'm going to continue reading everything she writes.
'Our kiss was anticlimactic. It wasn't that the kiss was bad, but it was just a note of punctuation in our long conversation.'
'Sometimes politeness us all that stands between oneself and madness.'
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LibraryThing member ReadHanded
Originally posted on Read Handed.
The element of Great House by Nicole Krauss that struck me most was the structure. Krauss uses five narrators in the novel, alternating four of the five throughout, and bringing in the fifth at the very end. The narrators aren't all telling the same story and none
"was made of dark wood and above the writing surface was a wall of drawers, drawers of totally impractical sizes, like the desk of a medieval sorcerer" (pg. 83).
Krauss does not make any of the connections for us. The links between the very different narrators are subtle and require a keen reading to root out. I got many of them, but I don't think all. I love when authors have enough faith in and respect for their readers to put down the spoon and let us feed ourselves.
The first narrator in the book ("Your Honor") is possibly the most complex. She is a middle-aged, divorced writer who for years has been caretaker to an old and massive desk. A friend of a friend, Daniel Varsky, entrusts it to her in the 1970s when he leaves New York to return to his native Chile, where he is later taken by Manuel Contreras' secret police. She tells her story in the second person, seemingly addressing a patient, just called "Your Honor", badly injured in the hospital. We have no idea who he is or what type of relation he might have to our narrator. For him, she chronicles her story of divorce, mental illness, and emotional attachment to a piece of furniture she never thought of as her own, but that still broke her heart to give away when a young woman claiming to be Varsky's daughter shows up for it.
The second narrator ("True Kindness"), an older man in Israel with two grown sons, also speaks in the second person, but in this case, we know who we are supposed to be. He speaks to his younger son, Dovik, with whom he has never been close and could never understand. When his wife dies, he discovers that Dovik has abruptly quit his high profile job in London. Dovik moves back in with his father, who tries to finally connect with him before it's too late.
The third narrator ("Swimming Holes") is a retired professor living in London caring for his mysterious and ailing wife. When she dies, he discovers a secret she has kept hidden from him for 50 years and tries to reconcile the woman he knew and loved with a new picture of her that emerges.
The fourth narrator ("Lies Told by Children") is a woman recounting her experiences in graduate school with a strange family. She dates Yoav, the son, who lives in a large house with his sister, Leah. Their father, an antiques dealer, travels around but lives mostly in Israel. Mr. Weisz is trying to recreate his father's study with exactly the furniture it contained before the Gestapo arrested his parents and sold their possessions. The elusive piece is a large desk with many drawers.
The last narrator comes in only at the very end of the novel. To avoid spoilers, I won't say too much else about him.
Krauss gives each narrator a recurring heading to delineate who is speaking in each chapter, but the headings are hardly necessary. Each narrator has such a distinct voice and circumstance that it would be almost impossible to confuse one with another.
The writing is fantastic. I underlined many, many passages that stood out to me, either for the message they communicated, or the beauty of the syntax. Here are some examples:
"She had a limp, water on the knee, I think, a cup of the Danube that sloshed around as she thumped from room to room with her mop and feather duster, sighing as if freshly reminded of a disappointment" (pg. 111).
"Something in me naturally migrated away from the fray, preferring the deliberate meaningfulness of fiction to accidental and unaccounted-for reality; preferring a shapeless freedom to the robust work of interacting that demanded having to yoke my thoughts to the logic and flow of another's" (pg. 43).
"But the lesson didn't come easily to you, and you never accepted it in the end. You shot yourself in the foot, and then you spent years trying to account for the pain" (pg. 56).
"Not that she expected me to understand. More than anyone I've known, Lotte was content to live in a perennial state of misunderstanding" (pg. 85).
"The only exception was books, which I acquired freely, because I never really felt they belonged to me. Because of this, I never felt compelled to finish those I didn't like, or even a pressure to like them at all. But a certain lack of responsibility also left me free to be affected. When at last I came across the right book the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it" (pg. 127).
In all, Great House was excellent. It took me a few pages to get into it and adjust to the narration (as I mentioned, the narrator of the first chapter is the most complex and therefore the most challenging), but once I did, I was engaged and mesmerized by the writing and the stories.
The element of Great House by Nicole Krauss that struck me most was the structure. Krauss uses five narrators in the novel, alternating four of the five throughout, and bringing in the fifth at the very end. The narrators aren't all telling the same story and none
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knows the others, but the stories intertwine in subtle ways. Usually that happened by way of an old desk: the narrator owned it, or knew someone who owned it, or wanted to find it, or had it unknowingly change his life. The desk was enormous and"was made of dark wood and above the writing surface was a wall of drawers, drawers of totally impractical sizes, like the desk of a medieval sorcerer" (pg. 83).
Krauss does not make any of the connections for us. The links between the very different narrators are subtle and require a keen reading to root out. I got many of them, but I don't think all. I love when authors have enough faith in and respect for their readers to put down the spoon and let us feed ourselves.
The first narrator in the book ("Your Honor") is possibly the most complex. She is a middle-aged, divorced writer who for years has been caretaker to an old and massive desk. A friend of a friend, Daniel Varsky, entrusts it to her in the 1970s when he leaves New York to return to his native Chile, where he is later taken by Manuel Contreras' secret police. She tells her story in the second person, seemingly addressing a patient, just called "Your Honor", badly injured in the hospital. We have no idea who he is or what type of relation he might have to our narrator. For him, she chronicles her story of divorce, mental illness, and emotional attachment to a piece of furniture she never thought of as her own, but that still broke her heart to give away when a young woman claiming to be Varsky's daughter shows up for it.
The second narrator ("True Kindness"), an older man in Israel with two grown sons, also speaks in the second person, but in this case, we know who we are supposed to be. He speaks to his younger son, Dovik, with whom he has never been close and could never understand. When his wife dies, he discovers that Dovik has abruptly quit his high profile job in London. Dovik moves back in with his father, who tries to finally connect with him before it's too late.
The third narrator ("Swimming Holes") is a retired professor living in London caring for his mysterious and ailing wife. When she dies, he discovers a secret she has kept hidden from him for 50 years and tries to reconcile the woman he knew and loved with a new picture of her that emerges.
The fourth narrator ("Lies Told by Children") is a woman recounting her experiences in graduate school with a strange family. She dates Yoav, the son, who lives in a large house with his sister, Leah. Their father, an antiques dealer, travels around but lives mostly in Israel. Mr. Weisz is trying to recreate his father's study with exactly the furniture it contained before the Gestapo arrested his parents and sold their possessions. The elusive piece is a large desk with many drawers.
The last narrator comes in only at the very end of the novel. To avoid spoilers, I won't say too much else about him.
Krauss gives each narrator a recurring heading to delineate who is speaking in each chapter, but the headings are hardly necessary. Each narrator has such a distinct voice and circumstance that it would be almost impossible to confuse one with another.
The writing is fantastic. I underlined many, many passages that stood out to me, either for the message they communicated, or the beauty of the syntax. Here are some examples:
"She had a limp, water on the knee, I think, a cup of the Danube that sloshed around as she thumped from room to room with her mop and feather duster, sighing as if freshly reminded of a disappointment" (pg. 111).
"Something in me naturally migrated away from the fray, preferring the deliberate meaningfulness of fiction to accidental and unaccounted-for reality; preferring a shapeless freedom to the robust work of interacting that demanded having to yoke my thoughts to the logic and flow of another's" (pg. 43).
"But the lesson didn't come easily to you, and you never accepted it in the end. You shot yourself in the foot, and then you spent years trying to account for the pain" (pg. 56).
"Not that she expected me to understand. More than anyone I've known, Lotte was content to live in a perennial state of misunderstanding" (pg. 85).
"The only exception was books, which I acquired freely, because I never really felt they belonged to me. Because of this, I never felt compelled to finish those I didn't like, or even a pressure to like them at all. But a certain lack of responsibility also left me free to be affected. When at last I came across the right book the feeling was violent: it blew open a hole in me that made life more dangerous because I couldn't control what came through it" (pg. 127).
In all, Great House was excellent. It took me a few pages to get into it and adjust to the narration (as I mentioned, the narrator of the first chapter is the most complex and therefore the most challenging), but once I did, I was engaged and mesmerized by the writing and the stories.
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LibraryThing member SilversReviews
An empty apartment, a friend who has furniture to give away, and now a furniture-filled apartment with lots of stories and a wonderful desk.
Then....after twenty-five years, the desk that she loved was being claimed by a relative of its original owner...she knew it would happen one day, but now
After the desk was gone, she got on an airplane to Ben Gurion airport...then the book went to another story. This second story opened with a funeral in progress.
I thought it was going to be a great read since the desk plot sounded intriguing, and the cover caught my interest.
I really was lost reading this book... the beginning was good, but as the book continued, it was very puzzling, and the sections seemed detached from each other. I had no sense of what the author was saying....the narrator talked to a "your honor," and she referred to characters by letters...R and S.
I really didn't enjoy the book because of how each chapter really wasn't connected to the others....not a continuous flow throughout the book.
I do have to say, though, that Krauss is a fantastic author....very deep and descriptive. Krauss’s book was too over the top for me....I don't read fluff, but the book was very profound, complex, and to me disconnected. I enjoy a flowing story that fits together.
I have seen great reviews for the book, but I just couldn't connect or follow the plot.
Best of luck with the book...I am sure it will be a best seller, but I guess I missed the point...I tried but was not able to continue reading it. 2/5.
Then....after twenty-five years, the desk that she loved was being claimed by a relative of its original owner...she knew it would happen one day, but now
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that it has happened, she wasn't sure how she felt about it...not having the desk would cause a hole in her life. She couldn't even be there when the original owner's daughter came to pick up the desk, and physical as well as mental things began happening after the loss of her beloved desk.After the desk was gone, she got on an airplane to Ben Gurion airport...then the book went to another story. This second story opened with a funeral in progress.
I thought it was going to be a great read since the desk plot sounded intriguing, and the cover caught my interest.
I really was lost reading this book... the beginning was good, but as the book continued, it was very puzzling, and the sections seemed detached from each other. I had no sense of what the author was saying....the narrator talked to a "your honor," and she referred to characters by letters...R and S.
I really didn't enjoy the book because of how each chapter really wasn't connected to the others....not a continuous flow throughout the book.
I do have to say, though, that Krauss is a fantastic author....very deep and descriptive. Krauss’s book was too over the top for me....I don't read fluff, but the book was very profound, complex, and to me disconnected. I enjoy a flowing story that fits together.
I have seen great reviews for the book, but I just couldn't connect or follow the plot.
Best of luck with the book...I am sure it will be a best seller, but I guess I missed the point...I tried but was not able to continue reading it. 2/5.
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LibraryThing member alana_leigh
As I started to read Nicole Krauss's third novel, Great House, it occurred to me that I 'd never actually read the summary of what the book in my hands was about, nor did I feel a need to do so. Come to think of it, I had *never* read a summary for a book by Krauss, even though I've read all three
I never wanted Great House to end. It was one of those books that you want to savor, so you try and trick yourself by keeping it in another room so you won't immediately rush to it... but it's useless, because all you can do is think about the story being told. The table of contents gives you a good idea of the book's make-up: it is comprised of four separate threads of stories, each of which have a go in part one and part two. The reader is well aware that things will all tie together somehow, but it's the journey to that point which makes everything worthwhile. Each story deals with personal loss, motivation, and the weight of memory. One part features a writer who, in her youth, was entrusted with the desk of a friend of a friend, a poet who then was killed in Chile under Pinochet's regime; years pass and the writer feels as though her very being forms itself to the desk, until one day she receives a phone call from the poet's daughter, asking if she might claim her father's desk. Another thread is told from the perspective of an older man who is coping with the loss of his wife and trying to understand his younger son, with whom he has always had a troubled relationship. The third part focuses on another older man, this one an academic, who has a solitary and secretive wife with her own troubled past, and he comes to realize that she has secrets much larger than he had ever suspected. The final section is told from the perspective of a young American woman at Oxford who embarks upon a romance with young Israeli who lives with his sister; the young American gradually comes to understand these solitary siblings who feel controlled by their frequently-absent yet incredibly domineering father.
All four storylines are vaguely connected by a desk that exerts a pull over those who come in contact with it. I found it fascinating that the article which ties things together is so large... it's not like we're talking about a bracelet that can change hands with ease. A desk (particularly this desk, which is giant and contains many drawers) is something so substantial... a large and weighty reminder of time and owners now gone. I'm not going to give it the plot any other summary than that because that's all you really need. Trust in the genius of Krauss to take you somewhere fascinating. The story travels across the world and, unsurprisingly given Krauss's background, includes very strong elements of Jewish history and culture. Many of the characters in this novel are writers, poets, or academics... most of the characters are heavily invested in careers or studies that focus on words. It's always interesting to see a writer discuss writing through a character... it makes for fascinating observations and you wonder which the author shares (and then you realize that an author can have contradictory feelings about writing at the same time, so perhaps she shares them all). I was pleased to see a brief mention of Brodsky (as I recently learned that Krauss worked with Joseph Brodsky at the end of his life) and hardly a page goes by that I didn't mark for some turn of phrase or sentence that struck me by its insight or beauty. Normally, I'm a person who needs a specific plot or arc to a story, but halfway through this, I wasn't quite sure where we were headed and yet I was happy to float along, carried wherever Krauss saw fit to take me.
If you haven't read The History of Love, then you're missing out. Great House is a fantastic follow-up and further proof that Krauss is one of the best young writers around. Don't try too hard to figure out where the title comes from, as Krauss will let you know in her own good time. In fact, don't even try too hard to figure out all the connections... just enjoy the story as it plays out and appreciate the dawning moments of realization as you connect the dots... a feeling sadly absent in literature that isn't on the mystery shelves. From cover to cover, Great House is magnificent and I certainly hope that it gets the recognition it rightly deserves.
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of her novels. And do you know why? Because Nicole Krauss is one of those authors who could publish a grocery list and I will read it without any hesitation whatsoever. (To be fair, I'd recognize it as a grocery list and not praise it for being "meta" or anything, but I'd still read it.) There are few living authors who get such unwavering approval from me, but I know that within Krauss's work, I will be transported by exquisite language to a scene of such vivid detail and heartbreaking emotion that I will feel as though I have learned some great truth about humankind.I never wanted Great House to end. It was one of those books that you want to savor, so you try and trick yourself by keeping it in another room so you won't immediately rush to it... but it's useless, because all you can do is think about the story being told. The table of contents gives you a good idea of the book's make-up: it is comprised of four separate threads of stories, each of which have a go in part one and part two. The reader is well aware that things will all tie together somehow, but it's the journey to that point which makes everything worthwhile. Each story deals with personal loss, motivation, and the weight of memory. One part features a writer who, in her youth, was entrusted with the desk of a friend of a friend, a poet who then was killed in Chile under Pinochet's regime; years pass and the writer feels as though her very being forms itself to the desk, until one day she receives a phone call from the poet's daughter, asking if she might claim her father's desk. Another thread is told from the perspective of an older man who is coping with the loss of his wife and trying to understand his younger son, with whom he has always had a troubled relationship. The third part focuses on another older man, this one an academic, who has a solitary and secretive wife with her own troubled past, and he comes to realize that she has secrets much larger than he had ever suspected. The final section is told from the perspective of a young American woman at Oxford who embarks upon a romance with young Israeli who lives with his sister; the young American gradually comes to understand these solitary siblings who feel controlled by their frequently-absent yet incredibly domineering father.
All four storylines are vaguely connected by a desk that exerts a pull over those who come in contact with it. I found it fascinating that the article which ties things together is so large... it's not like we're talking about a bracelet that can change hands with ease. A desk (particularly this desk, which is giant and contains many drawers) is something so substantial... a large and weighty reminder of time and owners now gone. I'm not going to give it the plot any other summary than that because that's all you really need. Trust in the genius of Krauss to take you somewhere fascinating. The story travels across the world and, unsurprisingly given Krauss's background, includes very strong elements of Jewish history and culture. Many of the characters in this novel are writers, poets, or academics... most of the characters are heavily invested in careers or studies that focus on words. It's always interesting to see a writer discuss writing through a character... it makes for fascinating observations and you wonder which the author shares (and then you realize that an author can have contradictory feelings about writing at the same time, so perhaps she shares them all). I was pleased to see a brief mention of Brodsky (as I recently learned that Krauss worked with Joseph Brodsky at the end of his life) and hardly a page goes by that I didn't mark for some turn of phrase or sentence that struck me by its insight or beauty. Normally, I'm a person who needs a specific plot or arc to a story, but halfway through this, I wasn't quite sure where we were headed and yet I was happy to float along, carried wherever Krauss saw fit to take me.
If you haven't read The History of Love, then you're missing out. Great House is a fantastic follow-up and further proof that Krauss is one of the best young writers around. Don't try too hard to figure out where the title comes from, as Krauss will let you know in her own good time. In fact, don't even try too hard to figure out all the connections... just enjoy the story as it plays out and appreciate the dawning moments of realization as you connect the dots... a feeling sadly absent in literature that isn't on the mystery shelves. From cover to cover, Great House is magnificent and I certainly hope that it gets the recognition it rightly deserves.
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LibraryThing member Tinwara
The central -rather speechless - character of this novel is a desk. A giant desk. In the first chapter it arrives at the apartment of a New York novelist. Through the following chapters, or stories, we come to know of its past owners, its history, and its future. The desk is the connecting theme
What I liked about this novel were the language used, the idea of a material object as a connecting thread and the structure of the story, that is far from chronological, and leaves much to the imagination of the reader. Still, strangely so, this novel has not made a lasting impression on me. Was it because the main characters were unsympathetic to me? (All of them!) Because there was only whining misery? I can't quite define what was the problem, but it seems to be one of those novel that quickly evaporates from my memory.
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through the chapters/stories, that have their own protagonists, who seldom know each other. What I liked about this novel were the language used, the idea of a material object as a connecting thread and the structure of the story, that is far from chronological, and leaves much to the imagination of the reader. Still, strangely so, this novel has not made a lasting impression on me. Was it because the main characters were unsympathetic to me? (All of them!) Because there was only whining misery? I can't quite define what was the problem, but it seems to be one of those novel that quickly evaporates from my memory.
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LibraryThing member flydodofly
Did not quite get all the pieces together, but it did not matter. Many great pictures and moods later, several memorable quotes underlined, I was done reading, but could have happily went on and on, following one wonderfully written piece and then another...
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2010)
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2011)
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2012)
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2011)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2010)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2010)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2010)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2010)