#27// i read this book and cried

what is an all consuming novel?

Dear Reader,
Hello glorious Friday. Though is there anything really different about the day? Time is a construct in the new age. And here I am to tell you all about the most wonderful book I read this week. I immediately wanted to creepily DM everyone I know and recommend this book. So I am doing the next best thing which is to write you a long email at 5am about why you should absolutely pick it up.
 

Read

No surprises if you follow me on social media because I have not shut up about the book all week. I love it when a good read comes together in unexpected ways. The book in this case being The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, which I finished in a day. I had no intention of reading it any time soon. Probably I would’ve read it as soon as it released if I had, because Patchett is a wonderful writer and I adore her essays. The premise did not excite me. I am fussy when it comes to picking a book by the blurb. A big lavish estate. Yes please. But set in America (Philadelphia) with a brother-sister at the centre and all about real estate business? That didn’t tempt me. (I am secretly drawn to British crumbling mansions for all the right and wrong reasons).
 
So long story short, I randomly decided to listen to the audio book of The Dutch House narrated by Tom Hanks this week. Let’s start at the end. My second thought was that I could never use the descriptor ‘all-consuming’ to any other book and do it justice after experiencing The Dutch House. My first thought—to cry. I sat and cried. Cried and cried. Reading a book never felt this good.
 
Back to the plot (which is a little here and there. In a newsletter I would rather say ‘back to the scenes threaded together in this novel’ than 'plot'). This is a rags to riches to rags-but-with-a-trust-fund story of two siblings Maeve and Danny, abandoned by their mother. Danny is the one who tells us this story that spans over five decades, from the post war early 1940s to the early 1990s. He was a baby when the Conroy family — Cyril, his wife Elna, and two children — moved into The Dutch House.
 
The Dutch House is a big estate built by the Van Hoebeeks. The 1920’s mansion is stunning. It comes with staff, life-size portraits of the Van Hoebeeks, tapestries, and a small kitchen (because only servants use the kitchen). The Conroy family installs a new portrait (the one you see on the book cover) and that forms an important part in the story of the house and the family.
 
The Conroy family was middle class, barely surviving. And to Cyril, buying the house was the epitome of success and the perfect romantic gift to surprise his wife. His wife Elna, a ‘saint’ who lives to help the needy, is discomfited by the grandeur of the Dutch house and her easy life, being waited on by servants. She hates the house her husband loves. And so, years pass, she leaves, and a woman who loves the house becomes part of the family. Andrea, the new wife, the evil stepmother. Andrea who “had a knack for making the impossible seem natural.” After Andrea arrives, the staff become less “visible, more civilized” which means no more talking loud, no more whistling. The family gets bigger with step sisters.
 
There would not be a novel if this was a happy family story. Cyril dies and his children, Maeve and Danny, are thrown out with nothing to their name except a trust fund that is hardly of any use. Maeve is a diabetic and she fits easily into the role she has been playing all her life — to care for her brother Danny. Danny is always sheltered by his over- protective sister (he thinks he is lucky because he wasn’t motherless because of Maeve. But she is in fact motherless). He lives through life decisions, some in the name of pure revenge. He climbs his way up, partly disgruntled by the hatred for Andrea and their situation, while also finding happiness, love and success. He is wedged between two women he loves, who love him back deeply, but “pick each other apart”.
 
Danny and Maeve share a special bond — something his wife Celeste can never understand. They often park their car in front of the Dutch house, and sit smoking, for many years, until their “memories were stored in the Van Hoebeek street and not in the Dutch house.” It is their comfort ritual. They never go in. But the house haunts them, and tempts them back to the street.
 
The Dutch house, unlike many houses in literature, is not omnipresent. I went into the ‘house book’ expecting something like Sisters by Daisy Johnson (fantastic book btw) where the house is alive, it sighs and moans and thinks. But in The Dutch House, the structure is inanimate. You do not even get the descriptions of grandeur until you are many chapters deep into the book. The Dutch House, like a ghost, always in the thoughts of the characters — What it was like before they lived in it, what it was when they owned it, and what it must be now when they are outsiders.
 

I have several favourite scenes in the book. Scenes that I rewinded and listened again, just to cry longer. One of the scenes that stole my heart is the one in the ballet theatre where Danny’s daughter is performing. (And the scenes that follow). Maeve falls sick. And in that emptiness of the theatre, the family comes together. People “who were undone by a house”. For a moment he sees the life that ‘could’ve been’ and the life that ‘would be’ after this moment has passed. It reads like a dream. So elusive, so wonderful. Heavily tear inducing. Here Danny is 42 and Maeve is 49. And you are suddenly struck by how they have aged. When did they grow up? — The children who were thrown out by their evil stepmother? I was there with Danny and Maeve in that moment. I could hear them breathe. Some scenes in literature are written so perfectly that it is useless to try to convey them with your own words. But if I say I stopped typing right now, and took a few moments to blink out the tears in my eyes, just because I remembered that scene, I hope you’ll believe me.
 
There are things I wish I could write in here. But they would give you an idea of what to expect. It is best to go into the book knowing nothing, and be ready to be smothered by Ann Patchett’s beautiful novel, to be punched in your stomach.
 
Now, if I had read the physical book, I might’ve stopped at places, especially towards the end, and pondered whether these developments would actually be possible. Maybe that would’ve knocked a half star from my rating. But here I was listening to Danny tell his own story, Danny who sounds like Tom Hanks, and I gave him all my time and compassion. I gave him my sympathy even when he didn’t deserve it. I felt like a ghost that haunts the Conroy family who would be freed from my worldly chains of burden only if give Danny my time. Even when I didn’t like him, I felt I owed him a listen. That’s just what I did. And it was perfect.
 
If you have already read The Dutch House (PS: The audio performance by Tom Hanks is the best!) and desperately searching for other books (like me), I have two recommendations. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is an excellent after-book. It is about the obsession with a stolen painting and the comfort it provides to the child thief as he tries to live with the grief of losing his mother. Gleaming sentences with a similar feel to The Dutch House. Another very good book that broke my heart many years ago is The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (thanks anniebee from Instagram who reminded me of this pairing) that follows four siblings in 1960s NewYork over five decades — perfect after-book. The adolescent children come undone when a psychic predicts death. The knowledge haunts them in their life decisions — One decides to have a secure life of a doctor, one searches for love, one kickstarts a career as a magician, and one throws herself into scientific research on science and immortality. A very good and underrated book.
 

Watch

Drishyam has been all over social media and if you haven’t watched it yet, please do. It is a family drama thriller where the unsolved disappearance (the son of an IPS officer) upturns the quiet life led by Georgekutty’s (Mohanlal) family. Georgekutty owns a cable TV service business and is fascinated by movies. He spends most of his day watching movies, and being the village favourite. His wife is a homemaker and his two daughters study at the neighbourhood school. The slow drama quickly turns into a nail-biting thriller that plays on memory and fabricated truths. It is police vs Georgekutty and the tension is at an all-time high. The sequel released in Feb is also really good. Now Georgekutty is richer (and a theatre owner), his daughters have grown up, and villagers are no longer on his side — blinded by jealousy at his new found success and suspicious at his involvement in the crime. It is more realistic, and follows the psychological after effects that befall the family after the incidents of Drishyam. I watched with bated breath, rooting for the man in wrong, which is perhaps the irony of it all, as the movie says.
 
I cannot choose between the two. The first was twisty, fiction laced, adrenaline rushed, with a tad too much luck on the hero’s side, but there were some 'superstar-dialogues' that jutted out of an otherwise smooth narrative. The sequel moves away from the family and heroism, and focusses on the crime; there are so many minor characters and Mohanlal’s screen time is considerably reduced. It gives an all-round picture of how the unsolved crime affects the village folks, Georgekutty’s family, and the police who had not given up on solving it. Watch them one after the other — they complete one another. Director Jeethu Jospeh sure knows how to craft the perfect thriller.

Drishyam is available on Hotstar and Drishyam 2 on Amazon Prime.
PS: Needless to say, skip all the remakes please and watch the original in Malayalam. 

 

Amazing Links

- Heroines of self loathing (Lucinda Rosenfeld, The New York Times)
- The radio station at the heart of a fishing community (Kamala Thiagarajan, Hakai magazine)
- The Kardasians changed the way we see beauty — for better or for worse (Arabelle Sciardi, Allure)
- Bun! A taxonomy of the British bread roll (Katie Mather, Pellicle)
- How the Sims became a pandemic self-care (Lily Herman, Shondaland)
For the uninitiated “A user would create a person called a Sim, build a residence, and control every aspect of that Sim’s life, from career path to everyday survival tasks like eating and sleeping. Back in the early aughts, Sims couldn’t get older or die, there were limited options for customizing appearance and homes, and characters famously couldn’t have sex, though they could sometimes have a baby after kissing a lot.”
- Some useful photoshop tips

Femmemarch

#Femmemarch is here! This is a hashtag started by me in 2017 to celebrate women’s work in March. Love a book? Inspired by artwork? Appreciate a woman? — you can use it. Follow along (I will be reading books by women this month), read more work by women. Find more deets on the Highlights in Instagram.
PS: Stay tuned for some fantastic books in giveaways this month on Twitter.

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I promise the next newsletter won’t be this long. Unless of course another The Dutch House falls into my lap. Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

 
Much love,
Resh x


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