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jola_g's review against another edition
4.0
Two facts about The Dead of the House (1972) immediately attracted my attention: it took Hannah Green twenty years to write this novel and it is the one and only book for adults she published in her lifetime. In our era of literary mass production such perfectionism sounds quite baffling, doesn't it?
Seemingly, The Dead of the House is a quiet and subdued blend of a multigenerational family saga and a coming-of-age novel, intertwined with the history of North America, especially Ohio and Lake Michigan surroundings. It is also one of the most piercing tales of the inevitability of death and the transience of life that I have ever read. I found it achingly beautiful and despite the title not depressing or gloomy. According to the author, it is a very real book, which is, in fact, a dream. I got the idea from life, but I have proceeded from vision. I have made use in equal parts of memory, record, and imagination. Although the narrator is called Vanessa, she seems to be Hannah Green's alter ego and most of the characters' portraits are based on her family members.
The Dead of the House resembles a braid neatly plaited from three strands. The first one is the narrator's grandfather's memories, sprinkled with his poems, family-related documents and recollections of ancestors. The second one is Vanessa's reminiscences of her childhood and youth. The two narratives have distinctly different styles. The grandfather's story is succinct, matter-of-fact and concrete, full of names of people and places, the Native American versions included. You immediately get the impression that most of the anecdotes and episodes had been told hundreds of times and passed from generation to generation, with every oral storyteller leaving his little mark. Vanessa's narration is impressionistic and sensual, much more sublime and literary. The third strand is the history of the United States which affects the family's past.
Actually, there is the fourth strand in the braid, unwritten and invisible: every reader's own childhood memories, one picture leading into another. It makes us reflect on the change of generations, the inseparable intertwining of life and death. The central symbol in the novel is water to illustrate the passing of time, among other things. There are many scenes depicting swimming and canoeing. Besides, a lake plays an important and dramatic role in the plot.
One of the most astounding things about The Dead of the House is a gallery of Vanessa's eccentric relatives' portrayals. For instance, great-aunt Honora who loved to walk on the heathery moors like the Brontë sisters, or cousin Cato who swallowed a goldfish worth five hundred dollars and ate ninety-nine bananas, hopefully not on the same day, or poor great-grandfather who got so engrossed in [b: Tess of the D'Urbervilles|32261|Tess of the D'Urbervilles|Thomas Hardy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1633063778l/32261._SY75_.jpg|3331021] that was run over by a train! I wish the editors had foreseen that the numerous relatives mentioned in the book might be easy to confuse. To be honest, it took me a frustrating while to identify who was who. Such a pity a family tree was not included.
Wallace Stegner argues that in The Dead of the House you can encounter evocation at the level of magic. I could feel it too. There are stunning passages in Hannah Green's novel indeed although I found it a bit uneven as a whole. I think this fragment captures the quintessence of the book: Is it not strange that very recently bygone images and scenes of early life have stolen into my mind like breezes blown from the Spice Islands of Youth and Hope, those twin realities of this phantom world. It is much more than a typical walk down the nostalgia lane. The world of the past depicted by Hannah Green is full of flavours, scents, sounds, emotions. It is luminous too — The Dead of the House made me think of a passage from [b: The Years|34355387|The Years|Annie Ernaux|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665144814l/34355387._SY75_.jpg|3110233] by Annie Ernaux which I am reading at the moment: The distance that separates past from present can be measured, perhaps, by the light that spills across the ground between shadows, slips over faces, outlines the folds of a dress—by the twilight clarity of a black-and-white photo, no matter what time it is taken.
Artwork by nuvolanevicata.
Seemingly, The Dead of the House is a quiet and subdued blend of a multigenerational family saga and a coming-of-age novel, intertwined with the history of North America, especially Ohio and Lake Michigan surroundings. It is also one of the most piercing tales of the inevitability of death and the transience of life that I have ever read. I found it achingly beautiful and despite the title not depressing or gloomy. According to the author, it is a very real book, which is, in fact, a dream. I got the idea from life, but I have proceeded from vision. I have made use in equal parts of memory, record, and imagination. Although the narrator is called Vanessa, she seems to be Hannah Green's alter ego and most of the characters' portraits are based on her family members.
The Dead of the House resembles a braid neatly plaited from three strands. The first one is the narrator's grandfather's memories, sprinkled with his poems, family-related documents and recollections of ancestors. The second one is Vanessa's reminiscences of her childhood and youth. The two narratives have distinctly different styles. The grandfather's story is succinct, matter-of-fact and concrete, full of names of people and places, the Native American versions included. You immediately get the impression that most of the anecdotes and episodes had been told hundreds of times and passed from generation to generation, with every oral storyteller leaving his little mark. Vanessa's narration is impressionistic and sensual, much more sublime and literary. The third strand is the history of the United States which affects the family's past.
Actually, there is the fourth strand in the braid, unwritten and invisible: every reader's own childhood memories, one picture leading into another. It makes us reflect on the change of generations, the inseparable intertwining of life and death. The central symbol in the novel is water to illustrate the passing of time, among other things. There are many scenes depicting swimming and canoeing. Besides, a lake plays an important and dramatic role in the plot.
One of the most astounding things about The Dead of the House is a gallery of Vanessa's eccentric relatives' portrayals. For instance, great-aunt Honora who loved to walk on the heathery moors like the Brontë sisters, or cousin Cato who swallowed a goldfish worth five hundred dollars and ate ninety-nine bananas, hopefully not on the same day, or poor great-grandfather who got so engrossed in [b: Tess of the D'Urbervilles|32261|Tess of the D'Urbervilles|Thomas Hardy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1633063778l/32261._SY75_.jpg|3331021] that was run over by a train! I wish the editors had foreseen that the numerous relatives mentioned in the book might be easy to confuse. To be honest, it took me a frustrating while to identify who was who. Such a pity a family tree was not included.
Wallace Stegner argues that in The Dead of the House you can encounter evocation at the level of magic. I could feel it too. There are stunning passages in Hannah Green's novel indeed although I found it a bit uneven as a whole. I think this fragment captures the quintessence of the book: Is it not strange that very recently bygone images and scenes of early life have stolen into my mind like breezes blown from the Spice Islands of Youth and Hope, those twin realities of this phantom world. It is much more than a typical walk down the nostalgia lane. The world of the past depicted by Hannah Green is full of flavours, scents, sounds, emotions. It is luminous too — The Dead of the House made me think of a passage from [b: The Years|34355387|The Years|Annie Ernaux|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665144814l/34355387._SY75_.jpg|3110233] by Annie Ernaux which I am reading at the moment: The distance that separates past from present can be measured, perhaps, by the light that spills across the ground between shadows, slips over faces, outlines the folds of a dress—by the twilight clarity of a black-and-white photo, no matter what time it is taken.
Artwork by nuvolanevicata.
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