The Dutch House: A Read with Jenna Pick Hardcover – Deckle Edge, September 24, 2019

I read half of The Dutch House on a Saturday evening and the second half on Sunday. The story was that good, the characters that interesting, the choices they made that captivating. I didn’t want to set it down. I just had to know how things were going to turn out, both for the characters I liked and those I detested. Here are a few thoughts that arose in my mind during the reading of this book (for my book club).When Mauve told her father “You didn’t ask me,” I stopped reading and reread it. And then I read it again. You know, that was the father’s problem. He did things for others and with others without asking them if they wanted to do it in the first place. I didn’t see him ask someone what they wanted, nor of-fer anyone choices between different options. He just directed things as they pertained to his own life path, as if he was al-ways in charge. Like buying the house and presenting it as a gift or magnum opus for his wife to just accept, with no say in the selection as modern couples do. That was just dumb. Sure, it was romantic, but come on. Really? The old days with husbands or fathers deciding, instead of seeing life as a journey with a partner, is just thoughtless to me. I find it hard to understand.So, I liked Danny. This was his story to tell, though I still wonder if this was a story of a person or a house. Let’s see. Danny points out that he was asleep to the world, as a child and young adult and husband. How about as a passenger, or student, or brother, or father? I wonder.There was so much that Danny didn’t see, didn’t ask about, wasn’t curious about. Easily seen things that he was just oblivious to. It doesn’t mean that he was stupid or self-centered, but he just didn’t look at things from someone else’s perspective. He lived life and didn’t question things or see things from other people’s point of view.I blame the father. Danny wasn’t allowed or didn’t know how to talk about women (his mother, sister, stepmother) with his father. How is it that a father (Cyril) could raise a son (Danny) and not give him opportunities to develop a skill at analyzing and talking about the opposite sex? That is just bad parenting. The father is supposed to be developing his son’s mind and preparing him for the future, one in which most sons marry someone and need to understand how to talk with (and dis-agree/argue with) them. He didn’t, and I fault him for that.Of course, the father did impart one useful life trick: “The things we could do nothing about were best put out of your mind.” I like that and try to live by that motto myself. Focus on the things you can change. And, somehow he learned that “You had to touch a hot stove only once.” So true! How many times have I seen someone act in a stupid way, and told myself that they’d never be more than an acquaintance to me, not a friend, not someone I’d choose to hang out with. How did I learn that? And from whom? I don’t know. Not my father.One thing did bother me, though. Danny seemed to re-member many times when his stepmother was kind to him, but he focused too much energy on the times when she wasn’t. He knew that this was not smart or productive, but he did it any-ways. Sure, that is typical of people, forgetting the good and remembering (and focusing on) the bad. It is why kids blame their parents for their own life’s failings and shortcomings.I can’t help it, but certain elements of this story made me think of my own life. I can connect with not having friends come over as a child. Norma and Bright didn’t have visitors, just as Danny and Mauve didn’t have friends over. No one to spend the night, or pretend with, or to run around with in the backyard, or to play hide-and-seek with. So lonely, only adults to communicate with, who seemed to be busy managing life and not imagining life (as kids often do). And when I found out that Kevin loved butterscotch Lifesavers, I smiled, because that is the one flavor I loved as a child. Loved! I have such fond memories of getting it from my grandma (though I didn’t like cherry). Did I tell others this? I don’t think so. I wasn’t allowed to ask for stuff, or encouraged to talk about what made me happy. Again, it’s the life my parents lived, and their choices that I now reflect on. Having a mother who is already dead and a father who will never read what I write, well, I am just talking to myself. And getting married on a sweltering hot July day. Yep, I did that too. It was 108 degrees on my wedding day, outdoors, with lots of family and a few friends sweltering in the heat. And when the father died at age fifty-three, it struck a chord with me, as I am fifty-three right now. No, I don’t expect to die this year. I am in excellent shape and wouldn’t even breathe heavily from climbing three flights of stairs. And being the iron in Monopoly. That was me as a child, every time. I always wanted to be the iron. No one else wanted it. It wasn’t sexy or cool, but I liked it, and how flat it was, and how it couldn’t fall over. And I could slide it. I enjoyed these moments, when my life and the life of the characters in this novel crossed paths.I hated the step-mother for so many reasons, from the earliest moments and almost to the very end. Like, when Sandy and Jocelyn weren’t given the day off to attend the funeral service, but were instead required to work in the kitchen. I was angry. How self-centered and thoughtless of a person this stepmother was. I wonder, did she even ask them if they wanted to help out or not? I doubt it. She constantly bossed people around, both kids and adults, exerting power over others in order to get what she wanted in life. Such a horrible per-son. She got what she deserved. One of her daughters refused to come see her, moving far away, while the other dropped everything and came to her aide in the final years. Would I, if I were that child? Would I quit my job and leave behind my friends, and subject myself to such drudgery for a person who is a self-centered person? Well, I don’t think that this daughter saw her mother in that way. She was loved and got whatever she wanted, so she and I aren’t viewing things from the same place. I’d probably be that other child, living far away.When Danny realized that he had limited real world coping skills because his father had protected him from what the world was capable of, I started thinking about myself. In what way did my father do the same, hiding reality from me, failing to give me coping skills for what life would surely throw at me. Did my own failures in life arise because I wasn’t given the tools as a child and young adult, and no guidance or support system as an adult, no one to talk to, no trusted advisor. I find it ironic that my father advises other people, other couples, and yet he would have been the last person I would ever have consulted on anything in life. I still don’t call him for advice. Ever. I can’t help but wonder if he knows this. It should be normal for a child to trust the opinion and guidance of their parent. I don’t.When Mauve in anger told Danny that the new family had “stolen from us,” I hit the mental pause button. Us? Really? In my mind, the one who did the work and bought the home was the father. He owned the house and its contents, not the kids who lived off of his generosity. When he died, it made sense that everything went to the wife (their stepmother). These two (a young adult and a teenager) mistakenly thought that the house should be theirs. Nope. That’s not how it works. They didn’t work for it or marry someone who had. This expectation that kids have, that their parents’ stuff is their stuff, is just wrong. Sure, you share. And you don’t kick a child out into the street (or to live with his sister). But the step-mother had the right to keep everything in the house.Danny mused about life, his own life, and his wife’s (Celeste), asking whether it really belonged to you, or to your parents and their expectations and hopes. Does a parent have that right, even if they paid for a child’s education, or paid for a car, or helped with a down payment? Do they own that child’s future? I think that kids feel obligated, like they owe their parents after so much is invested in them. But where do you stop here? Where does obligation end and freedom of choice begin? I remember when my father’s expectations of me clashed with my own vision of the future. An ultimatum ended with me walking away from my family, saying goodbye and living on my own. It was painful, but I felt that my life was my own, not only because I was paying for everything I did, but be-cause it was mine to live as I saw fit. They had their chance when they (actually, my father) were my age. I wasn’t using their money to fund my college. I was working while at school, paying for my education entirely on my own, so they didn’t have the right to tell me what to do or how to live my life. Or so I thought.I still dislike the stepmother, Andrea. I can’t see why the father married her in the first place, unless he was truly desperate. Danny wonders this too, and comes to the conclusion that his father must have just been tired of being alone. I think that he was actually unable to finish raising kids alone and manage the house. He wanted someone else to do the job. And he wanted to release some of the burden from the oldest child, Mauve.But what about the mother? It still shocks me that neither child looked for their mother once they became adults. I hear of kids doing that, searching for a parent who abandoned them in childhood, reconnecting. Danny and Mauve weren’t told that their mother was dead, just crazy (by the father). Didn’t they question that, or want to find out more? And the whole keeping it a secret from his sister. Why would Danny do that after talking with Fluffy? He didn’t have that right. Just like the father who made decisions for others without consulting them. Like father, like son.I liked it when Mauve justified her life by saying “I like my job.” Just as she liked her house, and liked her solitude, and liked smoking, and liked checking up on the old house and its occupants. No one had the right to tell her that she wasn’t happy. I connected to this in my own life, as I like my life. When a “friend” tries to get me to do something, thinking that this new event or whatever will make me happy, I just shake my head and move on. I am happy. I don’t want other people to try to “fix” me. I am happy as I am.When Mauve pointed out that she had to choose between feeling angry and bitter or feeling happy and lucky, I liked that. Too often I choose to feel the misery, to relive the past and dwell on how painful an event was instead of just moving on and living in the moment. I think that we all do that. “There is a finite amount of time.” So true! So true. It is stupid to feel anger over something that is now in the past. It makes sense to focus on the present and get the most pleasure out of what it has to offer.I am still kinda annoyed with the mother. She left. But, I know that she was also forced out, by the father, given an ultimatum. Man, what was so wrong with this couple and their life, and their inability to talk it out, or to change course? I must be careful not to superimpose modern ways of coupling with a time in the past, but I can’t help it. It is who I am today. I still remember the early part of the book talking about the past, and how we can never see it as it was because we’re too influenced by the present. So true. I did like how the mother served those who needed to be served, and didn’t just help the ones who make her feel good about herself. It is something to think about, holding both thoughts together in your mind: abandoning the family and helping others. Most people must choose one or the other, to understand her suffering or to blame her for her life path. I think it is wiser to hold both ideas simultaneously, and allow them to exist together.In conclusion, I still wonder about that house. So much in this story is centered around the house. From the beginning until the end, it was a center piece of the story, defining people and the choices they made, mentioned, described, connected. It was both an empty shell in need of people and a house filled with noise. It was both a hive of pain for some and a place of comfort for others. It was a place to hate as well as a place so longingly remembered. Two opposing ideas held at the same time. I found it pleasing to see the house go from a party place before the family moved in for adults, surviving kids, those kids having kids of their own, and then being bought by a kid who reached adulthood and turning it again into a place for parties. turning back into a party place. The house is happy again, filled with a purpose and no longer lonely. I liked the house from the start, and thought how cool it would be to live there.If you want to read a fun book, then this is one you should buy. I did, and I am glad for the experience.

According to the book jacket of The Dutch House, the novel is a “dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past.”And indeed, the two main characters – the supremely self-confident and protective older sister Maeve and her younger brother, Danny – are obsessively connected to the lavish estate purchased by their father in the Philadelphia suburbs. Their mother has left them to their own wiles and in her place, a younger wicked stepmother and her own two daughters have moved in with their father. It is only a matter of time until they are exiled. And although they follow different paths, it is only when they come together that they are complete.I had a little trouble tapping into the male voice of Danny at first (for several pages, I thought the first-person narrator was female), but gradually, I accepted his voice because I was caught up in the narrative. Ann Patchett is a natural-born storyteller and here, like in her last book, Commonwealth, she ambitiously traces a family through a couple of generations.Both books center around an action (the exile in Dutch House, an illicit kiss in Commonwealth), and both deal with “blended families” that in reality do not blend. At the time Commonwealth was published, Ann Patchett called it her “autobiographical first novel” and I suspect that some of Dutch House is mined from those same murky areas of childhood – the complications of extended families, the theft of certain memories of childhood, the borders between realities and how we remember.It’s difficult to review the way I want to without spoilers, so I’ll just say this: I also saw parallels to religious parables. In a sense, the Dutch House is Eden – that wonderful paradise of childhood of which teens and young adults are eventually cast out. There is a central character who sets herself up to be a saint with an aberrant desire to be “of help”, and Ann Patchett nails it when she says that saints are generally despised by those who really know them. And, there is a quest for redemption.Although I have quibbles – the male voice, the somewhat rushed ending (along with certain aspects of that ending), I do think this is one of Ann Patchett’s better books. It’s not quite as good as Bel Canto (which, to my mind, is her best) nor is it as unrealistic as State of Wonder (which many readers enjoyed and I did not). It’s definitely worth reading and I give it a 4.5 rating.

Our childhood hurts and anger only defines our lives if we allow it. Typically I steer clear of books pushed as ‘picks’ by celebrities, as they are usually about dysfunctional families but without redemption. While this is a book of heartbreaking family dynamics that are very hard to understand; it does provide a modicum of insight into how forgiveness of past hurts can lead to healing. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed this book very much. While not an all time favorite, the story kept my attention and empathy.

I am really not sure what I expected in this book but thought I’d give it a try.It was very wordy(?) descriptive but seemed to limp along at first but did become enjoyable in the balance of the book. The character grew and expanded.I hated the last few chapters but I did read to the end. I know it was fiction but not every story had to end well.

What an interesting book. Told quietly and simply with a house and a portrait as main characters. It took a while to get there but finally relief from sadness and loss and réjection come to the narrator with a new generation. Even the house and the painting get a happy ending.