The Dutch House

Una hestoria na que considero que'l personaxe principal ye un llugar, un oxetu inanimáu: la casa neerlandesa. Sólo ta presente físicamente durante aprox. un 25% del llibru, aun asina ta presente constantemente, incluso si nun se fala d'ella. Sentía la so presencia en cá páxina. Un poco como ANHQV, onde'l protagonista ye l'edificiu. Dafechu, cuando lu tiren, la serie ta obligá a terminar, nun tien protagonista. Pero bono, a lo que taba: Maeve y Danny son hermanos y viven nesta casa. Costruyóse a entamos del sieglu XX, una casa enorme con tolos luxos y detalles arquitectónicos de la época. So ma abandonólos cuando Danny, el narraor, ye demasiáu pequeñu como p'alcordase d'ella. Viven con so pa, un axente inmobiliariu ausente. Ta ehí físicamente, pero nun paez qu'haiga una conexón real y afectiva. Al pocu, cásase con Andrea, l'estereotipu d'una madrastra malvá. Ún de los motifs más antiguos habíos y por haber. Tres una serie de catastrófiques desdiches, échalos de casa, de la casa neerlandesa. Dende isti puntu, el llibru narra lo qu'estos personaxes deciden facer colsa so vida tando relativamente desamparaos. Pasaron de der probes, a ricos, a probes otra vegada.

He de dicir que nun me gusta Danny como narraor. Encontrélu pesáu y prepotente, incluso cuando en delles situaciones entendía y taba d'alcuerdu con como pensaba. Paecióme ciertamente plamu, mientres que Maeve ye mil veces más interesante ya enigmática. Amás, la manera na que trata a Celeste paezme triste, increíblemente machista, pero, al fin y al cabu, realista. Nun la quier realmente, tolérala (alexa, play tolerate it by taylor swift) porque nun molesta, nun se mete nos sos asuntos.

Bien, agora colos temes de la novela. Entendí la imaxe de la casa neerlandesa nes últimes páxines como una metáfora d'un coping mechanism tornáu viciu. Dempués de que los echaren, vuelve periódicamente a la cai de la casa. Nun entren, sólo miren, fumen y falen. Van y vuelven constantemente porque considérenla como una parte de la so identidá. ¿Quién son ensin ella? Relacionélo cola reticencia que nos mesmos podemos tener a la hora de superar dalgo colo que llevamos lluchando munchu tiempu. Si vives munchos años con ansiedá, entames a sintila como dalgo intrínseco ya inamovible del to carácter, llegando hasta tal puntu de saboteate pa nun perder esa parte d'identidá. Nun te fai ningún bien, pero vuelves a ello porque te conforta, ye familiar, ye tuyo.

Utru tema mui importante ye'l pasáu y la nuesa relación con él. Plantega si ye realmente posible evocar eventos pasaos ensin modificalos y tiñilos col nuesu xuiciu actual. ¿Esiste un pasáu oxetivu? ¿Va cambiando con nos según crecemos y maduramos?

Tamién quiero mencionar que considero que sobraben delles páxines. ¡Nun pasa na porque los llibros sían curtios! La segunda parte fízoseme mui pesá, ye un real estate simulator. Dábame bastante igual.

“Women had read about their liberation in books, but not many of them had seen what it looked like in action.”

“We had lived without expecting to live.”

“We had made a fetish out of misfortune, fallen in love with it.”

One sentence synopsis... Exiled from their family home following the death of their father, this fairytale-esque story follows the Conroy siblings through the next five decades of their lives. .

Read it if you like... Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, anything with an evil stepmother really.. this book's one gives them all a run for their money. .

Dream casting... Margaret Qualley and Nicholas Hoult as the Conroy siblings Maeve and Danny.

All I can say is that I Love This Book. The language is so lyrical, the characters charming whether likable or not, and it has a continuously surprising plot line. I just finished it three minutes ago, and for some inexplicable reason. I was in tears the last few pages. My inclination is to turn back to page one and do it again, because Ann Patchett has outdone herself this time.

3.5 stars. Very much a character driven story and not a plot driven story. I tend to find that I lose interest faster when books are character driven. It also didn't help that the timeline jumped around, so it was hard to know if we were in the past or present. The plus was that I listened and enjoyed “hanging out” with Tom Hanks on my drive to and from work.

This didn't turn out to be a story that captivated me. I think I kept on out of curiosity more than anything. Although there are a number of elements in the story I identify with, I found I didn't connect with any of the characters. I imagine that is due to looking at life through a different lens.

Patchett's writing is fantastic. I would not have made it through the book otherwise. She has a narrative that has a natural, easy flow. I can easily imagine this story being told by someone over a number of conversations. I had hoped for some kind of redemption in the end for someone. It seems the house is the only character that finds redemption. I never invested in the house, personally, and so I more easily identify with those who tried to engage with those who were fascinated with the inanimate and ignorant of the living sharing the space.

I have liked Patchett's work in the past, especially BEL CANTO and STATE OF WONDER, less so with COMMONWEALTH, but I had a hard time getting into this, possibly because the first half of the book is about a brother and sister as children, and that almost never grabs me. In the second half, when they're grown, I found them more interesting, although the narrator, Danny, wasn't really a convincing male voice. I also don't think I'm a big fan of stories that stretch over decades, as this one does, but of course this is the story of a house, not just a week in the life of a family. Except that the house never feels like a character, as the settings of some novels do; it's just the setting.

A good writer doesn't need explosions or stabbings or scary monsters to tell a story. A good writer can take a poor family and an old mansion and make a mesmerizing tale of love and loss, of misunderstanding, of struggle and gain, of searching and finding. A good writer can create the family and the mansion and put them together and see what happens. A good writer can take simple things and make a story of great complexity and emotion. Ann Patchett is a good writer.

The Dutch House is the story of the Conroy family and their relationships over time with each other and with the mansion, the Dutch House. People do as people do. People give others surprises and the surprises are not what the others want. People leave and offer no explanations for their disappearances. People meet and come together for what appears to be random and unexplainable reasons. In short, The Dutch House is the story of the lives of a few people, unremarkable lives, perhaps, but also lives of depth and fascination.

(Oh, and the fact that I listened to this story as an audiobook read by the great Tom Hanks did nothing but add bonus points to my rating of the novel.)

I was entranced by this story of a boy and his sister, abandoned by their mother, orphaned by the loss of their father, put out in the world, with the strength of having each other to rely on, with the eventual and inevitable weakness of having only each other to rely on.

Dutch house is one of those books where it takes some time to completely indulge in the book, but once it gets a hold of you; you will immerse in the life of Danny and her sister and The Dutch House they grew up in but couldn't let go even after they had to move out, unable to overcome their past.

“I see the past as it actually was,” Maeve said. She was looking at the trees.

“But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we're not seeing it as the people we were, we're seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.”

Listen to this one on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the voice of Tom Hanks.

I really enjoyed this book. Patchett is great at writing interesting characters that come to life. That was the strength of this book. There is some plot, but that is really only the mechanism that draws us into the inner workings of the main characters and the Dutch House. I didn't think this book was quite as good as Bel Canto, but I would still highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a solid literary fiction read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this novel.

I really didn't want this book, [b:The Dutch House 44318414 The Dutch House Ann Patchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552334367l/44318414.SY75.jpg 68864841] to end. I grew fond of Danny, the narrator, and his sister Maeve. In many ways, it was more Maeve's story than Danny's, though the tale was told with his perceptions. [a:Ann Patchett 7136914 Ann Patchett https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371838720p2/7136914.jpg] can tell a story like no other author. She only tells you what you need to know. She leaves the rest for the reader to fill in the blanks. Even though a house was at the center of this story, she didn't spend a huge amount of time describing it. She only stopped occasionally to give the reader the gist of what it looked like and, trust me, I was able to build a fantastic, three-story house around those details. After all, what house has a Delft mantle on the fireplace or blue sky painted on the dining room ceiling?I love that she followed Danny (and Maeve) from childhood through adulthood, skipping the unimportant bits and dwelling on the points that made me ache for their losses and celebrate their wins. It struck me that house that Maeve and Danny lived in as children could have such an overarching effect on their lives, even after they were no longer living there. And there can't be another villain as horrible as Andrea, or one who got her comeuppance better. Even then, I couldn't quite celebrate her fate. Yes, Patchett even made me like the bad guy. If you are hungry for some new friends, read [b:The Dutch House 44318414 The Dutch House Ann Patchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552334367l/44318414.SY75.jpg 68864841]. But I warn you, you'll be sad to see it end.

This was probably one of the best books I've read in my lifetime. The characters are fascinating, as they should be in a character-driven storyline. This book ranged over 50 years in time, mentioning storylines that happened before the main plot. The nature of Danny and Maeve sibling relationship and the developments it underwent throughout their lives was truly dynamic and solid. I believe the great love of this book came from a total sympathy for Maeve being an older sister and sacrificing in her life for her younger sibling in the face of parental absence. Both emotionally and physically. The cast of characters evokes so many emotions— love, sadness, grief, confusion, wholesomeness, tightness, pride, support— everything, I felt it all through these characters. Narrated by Tom Hanks and told through the perspective of the younger brother, Danny, this book was a modern masterpiece. Everything in it planted seeds for later in the novel. I could not speak any more highly of this novel. I will read it time after time. 5⭐️/5

Dear Ann Patchett–you are a master wordsmith. Your plots are languidly beautiful. I'm listening to this novel, rather than reading it on paper, and have the joy of Tom Hanks narrating your words into my ears.
And the subject matter seemed right up my alley.
Unfortunately, about 5 chapters in, during April of the Year of the Pandemic, I determined that the plot was TOO up my alley. A parent who is mentally fragile and abandons their children, a House that overshadows the lives of the people in it, a stepparent who is conniving and wicked, the House that endures as the symbol of all the ways the parents have erred–just a bit too close to the bone for me right now. I might return, but not right now.

Not sure what I was expecting. The beginning started off strong and it seemed like there was a to-be revealed purpose to the siblings going back to the House. Things then take a shift and the story kind of loses a little something, as do the characters. But maybe that’s the point the author is trying to get across. That life has its highs and lows. And to quote Danny, “disappointment comes from expectation.” My takeaway: so long as you have at least one person who truly loves you unconditionally and is always there for you, then you’re always home.