Reading Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping, I was definitely sepent a lot of time thinking about the relationship that Ruthie, the narrator, has with her younger sister Lucille. I have a younger sister with whom I am very close, and so I started out being able to relate to the way they seemed to do everything together. I had to admit to myself as a reader that I wished Ruthie had let a little more of her individual personality show through, but I could completely understand the way it was always "Lucille and me," because frankly, that's how I think of my sister and myself a lot of the time. As the book progressed and I watched the sisters grow apart, it became more and more difficult to read the interactions between the two of them. Lucille seemed so cold and unwilling to relate or even be kind to her sister.
I was reminded of the Kate DiCamello book The Tale of Despereaux, which is a beautifully written book about a mouse (and doesn't really have anything to do with Housekeeping at all) that draws attention to interesting words. In Despereaux, the hero is handed to the mouse-executioner by his family because he is so strange, idealistic, and seemingly unconnected to the real world. The word "perfidy" figures strongly, and because I learned the word from that book, I have always associated it especially with the betrayal of a family member. Housekeeping ends rather more happily than does that particular scene in Despereaux, and it even seems for the best for both sisters that Lucille goes her own way before Ruthie follows Sylvie into the mists of transience, but I can't help but be indignant. They're sisters.
I think now--having finished Housekeeping--that Ruthie's decision to follow Sylvie (who seems in character to be very similar to herself) rather than following Lucille (out of habit?) was a crucial part of her coming-of-age. She had to make up her mind to do what was best for her, rather than continuing to do what she had always done. Maybe my strong reaction to the break between the sisters is because I am closer to my sister than Ruthie is to Lucille, and maybe it's because I haven't yet come to a point at which I have to go my own way.
I leave you with a statement and a question. Ruthie starts off Chapter 7 with the something like "For that summer, Lucille was still loyal to us." Would you say that her decision to leave was a betrayal? My first answer was yes, but I'm not so sure.
At first I did feel like Lucille leaving was a betrayal of Ruth, but looking back on it it seems kind of inevitable, and maybe even positive. Lucille was obviously not happy in Sylvie's house, and the split was widening even before she left; she wasn't eating dinner with Ruth and Sylvie, she wasn't talking much to Ruth, etc. If anything, Lucille leaving allows Ruth to finally get over a dying relationship and latch on to someone who's probably much more compatible in Sylvie. And it's not like Ruth seems to be all that upset by the end of the book anyway.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your interpretation of Ruth's coming-of-age. I, too, was in indignant and even shocked as Ruth and Lucille's relationship deteriorated. My siblings and I were never as close as Ruth and Lucille, but being reminded that our differing views or stubborn personalities might drive us apart one day was sobering to say the least. The way that Ruth sees Lucille's departure as abandonment is a little worrisome, especially because this novel is written from an older and wiser Ruth. Her wording and undertone almost seem like she is blindly following Sylvie, rather than finding her identity.
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with some of Robinson's larger themes, Ruth's decision to follow Sylvie to "the other side" (which, indeed, Lucille might well view as an act of "disloyalty" on Ruth's part) seems less an active decision to take a radical chance, and more a simple recognition of how things are (similar to Patrick's comment above). It doesn't matter if she personally thinks that her and Lucille growing apart is good or bad--she does seem to simply acknowledge that that's how it has to be. People are together, and then they separate--it has ever been thus, she might say. Neither of them can "help the way they are." Ruth and Sylvie acknowledge that "it's a terrible thing to break up a family," but they would say that they're not the ones doing the breaking-up. It's the law, the sheriff on the porch, the forces of propriety, whatever--their unconventional "housekeeping" is not tolerated, whereas they "tolerate" the Lucille model.
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