Great House by Nicole Krauss is really just as I thought it would be. Very well written and just as good as I thought it would be. It is very pretentious, and is something that is not only bait for literary awards, but if it were made into a movie, which is possible, it would definitely be the type of movie the Academy would love, that is not intended as an insult, but is indicative of this kind of literature, where being profound and moving is given more focus than the characters or story creating profound moments indirectly. Again, which is not to say that it is a bad book, but one that is simply as good as I thought it would be. It is not a waste of time, and I am thankful to have read this book. It kind of acts as sort of a realistic kind of Cloud Atlas, the David Mitchell book, but instead of a person’s soul, the item her is a large writing desk that falls in and out of the lives of many fragile people. We meet an antique dealer, who is struggling with past demons while raising two kids that are a little too close, a widower whose writer wife’s chance meeting with an eager fan twenty years prior may have revealed an appalling secret, and another writer, whose relationship with an aspiring poet ends in a tragic mystery. All these people have a need for the desk, and when it slips away, things become unbearable for them. The real treat her is figuring out the connection people have, which is done better in Jennifer Egan novels, but is still enthralling here. And Krauss will never be at fault for laying down a bad sentence. She knows what she is doing and does it well. It is very arrogant though, and drags for about 50 pages toward the end, which is where a book should never get boring. A flawed work by someone who is very talented, and hopefully it will be just as or more entertaining to you than it was to me.
Rating: 4/5
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