Epub
English language
Published Nov. 8, 2010 by W. W. Norton & Company.
For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police, one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.
Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and …
For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police, one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.
Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.
Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?
Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.
Another well-written Nicole Krauss book, I think I like her prose better than her plot here. She weaves together several stories around a shared desk, but I am just starting to like this type of organization (bordering on short stories with the faint hope of pulling it all together in the end) and think David Mitchell does it best.
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a …
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a flower that has somewhat wilted. All it needed was fertile ground, dang it.
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a …
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a flower that has somewhat wilted. All it needed was fertile ground, dang it.
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a …
This book is very similar to Krauss' first book, "The History of Love"; perspectives from young and old, both sexes, the Jewish world in the center and love, old and young, interspersed throughout decades.
This one's like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex", but not as focused, and definitely not as good, despite it being fair.
Her tellings from an old man's perspective are crystal-clear. The muddiness is applied when she tells of the now, of the why's and lets me down in term of keeping the story fresh and the reader keen. At times I just wanted to press "next" and go forth to The Exciting.
And there were a few exciting, fresh moments, but not that many. Maybe it's me being jaded, having just read Palahniuk's "Rant", but I don't suspect it. Time will tell.
All in all: entertaining, a few choice paragraphs and insights, but for the most part a flower that has somewhat wilted. All it needed was fertile ground, dang it.
Hugely disappointing. This book got a metric tonne of great press, including a nomination for the National Book Award, so I was expecting something worthy of such acclaim. The book deals with themes of memory and loss, much like Krauss's first novel, [b:Man Walks Into a Room|44380|Man Walks Into a Room|Nicole Krauss|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170260388s/44380.jpg|43730], but in a much less enjoyable fashion. While Man Walks Into a Room had a riveting story, Great House is less a novel and more a collection of slightly interrelated stories.
