"A repository for human sadness"

Great House
by Nicole Krauss

I read The History of Love back in 2006. That was the beginning of my crush on Nicole Krauss. After that, I back-tracked and read her almost-as-delightful debut novel, Man Walks into a Room. Suffice it to say, I’ve been looking forward to Great House for a long time. Truthfully, this latest novel is my least favorite of the three. You’ll note that I still awarded it five stars. I don’t think Nicole Krauss is capable of publishing a novel worth less than five stars. Her writing is gorgeous. And her insight into complex emotional lives is dazzling. It’s not that Great House isn’t, well, great, but it is challenging.

If you flip through the pages of the book, you’ll notice something right away. The text is dense. There is virtually no white space on the pages, just long, almost unbroken paragraphs that make up a series of monologues. Or perhaps “confessions” is the more accurate word. The novel is structured in two parts. Each of those parts is comprised of four lengthy monologues—with the exception of the novel’s powerful final pages.

The book opens with 50-something Nadia, a solitary novelist living in New York. She is explaining her life to someone she addresses as “Your Honor.” Next we are with Aaron, an elderly Israeli reflecting upon the death of his beloved wife and his strained relationship with his son, Dov. Next is Arthur Bender—British and proper, the insecure husband of Holocaust survivor Lotte Berg, a woman with secrets. And finally we hear from Izzy, the youngest and sexiest of the narrators. Izzy is recounting a very slightly surreal love affair. In the second portion of the book, we spend some time with each of them again.

There is much talk amongst readers about a desk being the object that connects these diverse characters through distance and time. That’s not actually true. There are connections of varying subtlety, and the desk is one part of what connects some, but not all, of these characters. As Lance Armstrong might say, “It’s not about the desk.” It’s not even about the connections, really. Or, at least, I don’t believe that’s the point.

I got to know these characters reading Great House. I learned what propelled them, who they loved, what made them hurt. Especially what made them hurt, because there’s a lot of pain and sorrow and regret in these pages. These narrators are not cute, not joyful, and often not even very likeable. Nadia describes herself as “a person who was always falling through the ice, who had the opposite effect on others, immediately making them raise their hackles, as if they sensed their shins might be kicked.” And just as I began to warm to Aaron, it became clear that he was something of a monster. These are confessions. They are at times difficult to read. You won’t always understand the actions of the characters, but you will believe them. And you will feel their pain and the power of their stories and the beauty of Nicole Krauss’s words.