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God's House
These two short stories are about anger and loss in mother-daughter relationships.
- GenresShort Stories
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
18 people want to read
About the author
Michèle Roberts
87 books111 followersMichèle Brigitte Roberts is the author of fifteen novels, including Ignorance which was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction and Daughters of the House which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in June 2007. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love. Half-English and half-French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 25, 2014
My first time to sample a work by Michele Roberts (born 1949) and I don't know what to think. It is readable, lyrical, emotional. It describes the settings: the plants, flowers and edible fruits in an English garden. It is a book that I can easily like yet there is something in it that I don't connect well. If I can hazard a guess, it should either be the sudden shifts to stream-of-consciousness narratives as if the narrator gets a epileptic attack in a snap of a finger or Roberts' too much hangups on being a woman and what she thinks are womanly emotions.
Check the books that I've read and liked the books that I am yet to read. Most of them are written by male authors. So, lately, I have been stocking up books by female authors, both foreign and local. I need to read books written by female to balance myself like ying and yang. Lately, I had new "discoveries" like the brilliant and engaging prose by Rose Tremain and the scintillating verses of Christina Rosetti. Aside from these two, all the rest are like Michele Roberts. In my opinion, I think that as they tackle female emotions, they intend to be read by female readers and so, in the process, they "alienate" male readers. Why can't they be like Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Anne Tyler and Hilary Mantel, to name a few, who can cater both for male and female readers. In fact, while reading Hilary Mantel, it is almost emotion-less as her work is 90% brain and 10% heart yet she writes with sensitivities of a woman. I cannot explain it using exact terms but their works have punk and spunk that sometimes you have to check the cover if it is really written by a female author.
God's House is a small book that I got from the donated books by a local author, my friend, Edgar Calabia Samar last year. It is composed of two stories: "Anger" and "God's House." Anger is about a dead mother Bertrande who when she is still alive, hates her daughter Melusine too much that makes the father Guillaume retreats at the background as not to take sides. The mother dies and the daughter has to injure the feeling of not being wanted and this affects her relationship with her husband. I was expecting Melusine to bring her experiences to her relationship with her children but it seemed to me that Roberts would not want to be predictable so she made Melusine childless. The second story, God's House is again about a dead mother but this time the daughter loves her so much that she feels the pain of seeing the old house, their family home, decays together with the happy memories of their family. The house stands in the middle of their farm or garden with luscious fruits and wonderful trees and plants that Roberts seemed to indicate is a paradise (God's House). From a male reader's perspective, the issue of this book is just too emotional. For example, if the house is crumbling (in the second story), why not call for a repairman? Or sell the house and get a smaller more manageable one? In the first story, if your mother hates you, why not confront her and try to settle what's the issue? But the narrators in the two stories, just keep their thoughts within themselves as if waiting for something to happen that would fix the issue.
That's what I sometimes don't understand about some female authors. Well, of course, some male authors are like that too. So maybe it does not have anything to do with gender but writing style.
Check the books that I've read and liked the books that I am yet to read. Most of them are written by male authors. So, lately, I have been stocking up books by female authors, both foreign and local. I need to read books written by female to balance myself like ying and yang. Lately, I had new "discoveries" like the brilliant and engaging prose by Rose Tremain and the scintillating verses of Christina Rosetti. Aside from these two, all the rest are like Michele Roberts. In my opinion, I think that as they tackle female emotions, they intend to be read by female readers and so, in the process, they "alienate" male readers. Why can't they be like Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Anne Tyler and Hilary Mantel, to name a few, who can cater both for male and female readers. In fact, while reading Hilary Mantel, it is almost emotion-less as her work is 90% brain and 10% heart yet she writes with sensitivities of a woman. I cannot explain it using exact terms but their works have punk and spunk that sometimes you have to check the cover if it is really written by a female author.
God's House is a small book that I got from the donated books by a local author, my friend, Edgar Calabia Samar last year. It is composed of two stories: "Anger" and "God's House." Anger is about a dead mother Bertrande who when she is still alive, hates her daughter Melusine too much that makes the father Guillaume retreats at the background as not to take sides. The mother dies and the daughter has to injure the feeling of not being wanted and this affects her relationship with her husband. I was expecting Melusine to bring her experiences to her relationship with her children but it seemed to me that Roberts would not want to be predictable so she made Melusine childless. The second story, God's House is again about a dead mother but this time the daughter loves her so much that she feels the pain of seeing the old house, their family home, decays together with the happy memories of their family. The house stands in the middle of their farm or garden with luscious fruits and wonderful trees and plants that Roberts seemed to indicate is a paradise (God's House). From a male reader's perspective, the issue of this book is just too emotional. For example, if the house is crumbling (in the second story), why not call for a repairman? Or sell the house and get a smaller more manageable one? In the first story, if your mother hates you, why not confront her and try to settle what's the issue? But the narrators in the two stories, just keep their thoughts within themselves as if waiting for something to happen that would fix the issue.
That's what I sometimes don't understand about some female authors. Well, of course, some male authors are like that too. So maybe it does not have anything to do with gender but writing style.
Displaying 1 of 1 review