Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping - Beyond Reason Marilynne Robinson gives voice to a realm of consciousness beyond the limits of reason in her novel Housekeeping. Perhaps hidden by the melancholy but sweetly methodical tone, the boundaries and limits of perception are constantly redefined, rediscovered and reevaluated. Ruth, in the role of narrator, guides the reader through the painful events and mundane details of her childhood and adolescence. He attempts to reconcile his experiences, fragmented and unified, past, present, and future, in order to better understand or concretize the transitory life he leads with his Aunt Sylvie. Rather than the wooden structure Edmund Foster built, the house that Ruth will eventually move in with Sylvie and learn to "keep" is metaphorical. “…it seemed that something I had lost might be found in Sylvie's house” (124). The very act of cleaning invites a radical revision of fundamental concepts such as time, memory and meaning. Robinson delights in intense “undifferentiated attention to all details” (82). The ordinary is given additional meaning and, as a result, the pace of the novel is significantly slowed. While providing an added layer of realism, these mundane and fragmentary domestic details serve as an important thematic strategy for Robinson. The reader's attention is focused on the passage of each moment in time. Ruth is initially frustrated by the apparent discontinuity of her existence and tries to give it some order. “What are all these fragments for if not to finally be put back together?” (92). She longs for a time when "there is a general reclamation" of the various seemingly meaningless fragments of human existence, a time when "time...in the middle of the paper...becomes useless and meaningless" if only darkness”, like nothingness, “were perfect and permanent” (116). Nothingness, however, precludes any individual identity. Complete abandonment to nothingness would deny any possibility of authentic intimate human relationships: the only source of meaning and happiness for Sylvie. The house Sylvie attempts to "maintain" must accommodate change, including the peace and threat implicit in nothingness "A house should be built to float high into the clouds if necessary... A house should have a compass and a ... keel" (184). Rather than be seduced by the ultimate and final separation of nothingness, Ruth learns (as transitory) that housekeeping can be an expansive and inclusive method of engaging with and interpreting the world. Work Cited: Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.