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A Good House Bonnie Burnard 9780805064957 Books

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A Good House Bonnie Burnard 9780805064957 Books

I really thought I'd enjoy this book: it won a prestigious prize, I was born and brought up in Ontario, and return there every year (and I love Alice Munro!). But I didn't care for most of the characters, couldn't understand their motivations, had to keep a chart to keep everyone and their relationships straight. Only one person in our book group liked it; the rest of it just weren't that interested in this family.


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A Good House Bonnie Burnard 9780805064957 Books Reviews

This is a finely crafted novel about everyday people having everyday lives over a period of some 50 years. The author looks at life, death, love, hate, injury and healing, and all in all does so in a simple prose that draws you in and makes you really care about what happens to the characters.
However, if I have one small criticism, it is that the book is simply not long enough to give all of the detail of the lives of the characters, and it is this which stops it from being a truly spectacular novel. For instance we know that one of the children born will grow with some sort of physical or mental burden, but it is only hinted at until she is almost fully grown. Perhaps this is what makes the book so tantalising - the prospect that more will be revealed later, but I found that there was often insufficient to whet the appetite.
But in the scope of the novel it is a small criticism, and it is well worth reading.
Like Richard B. Wright's The Age of Longing (which more or less takes place in the same neck of the woods) A Good House is a small tale full of ordinary people making their way as best they can through the upsets of life that bedevil us all. Like Wright, Burnard can take the seemingly ordinary and make it utterly fascinating. Nothing earth shattering, nothing epic, and the thrills and chills are, for the most part, all small emotional moments, heightened only by the fact that we've come to care deeply about these people.

But no question it's not for everybody. Some would see it as slow and boring. I found it absolutely engrossing and only wished that it lasted longer.

Five stars.
This book is set in Stonebrook, Ontario. It begins just after WWII, and the book ends in the year of 1997. The book is a family history of the Chambers family-their lives, loves, births, weddings, divorces and deaths. That's a lot to cover especially when the family is a large and gregarious one. But Ms. Burnard does an admirable job of this. This book was the 1999 winner of the prestigious Giller Prize and I think it was a well-deserved honour. Her writing style is deceptively simple, but the character development of this large cast of characters is remarkable. The book covers all sorts of family events and catastrophies, but does it in such an understated style. It is not often that an author can achieve such a complete job of character development within one book. It usually takes a series to achieve this. But Ms. Burnard accomplishes this difficult task with aplomb. These characters live and breathe. The book paints a very rich and complex picture of human nature and human foibles indeed.
Bonnie Burnard's luminescent debut novel, "A Good Home," traces the fifty-year history of a Canadian family whose qualities, conflicts and struggles ultimately attain universal symbolism and significance. Through realistic dialogue and acutely perceptive descriptions of the external environment and internal psychologies of the Chambers family, the author gracefully transforms our understanding of this "normal" family into one of deep appreciation and genuine compassion. "A Good Home" signals the introduction of a novelist who understands the ability of literature of inspire both appreciation of the art of writing and respect for the value of an examined life.
Burnard introduces us to characters who constantly struggle, grappling with either physical deformities or emotional bruises. Her characters are not tidy people, and the messes they make with their lives invariably embroil those they love. Once enmeshed with the compromises and tensions of family members, the characters yearn for coherence, not only in the family structure, but within their own selves. The members of the Chambers family, usually honorable and steadfast in their quest for integrity, nevertheless watch as dreams crumble, loves wane and children reach eleswhere for understanding and acceptance. The bruises and imperfections each member of the clan possesses ironically make them more perfect in the eyes of the reader.
This sense of believability, therefore, is the single greatest strength of this spacious, nearly-panoramic novel. The father, Bill, whose hand suffered permanent disfigurement during World War II, strives his entire life to create stability and permanence; he is rewarded with the premature death of his wife, Sylvia and the unexpected emergence of a truly admirable woman, Margaret, who becomes his second wife. The children, Paul, Patrick and Daphne, struggle mightily with the issues of identity, acceptance and marriage; their results are mixed and surprisingly different. Throughout, Ms. Burnard provides intricately detailed descriptions of home life, anchoring not only her characters, but her readers as well, in the sense of home which pervades her novel.
My only reservation with "A Good House" is its crowded nature. Like any home built for a nuclear family which unexpectedly is required to shelter more people than its initial design intended, the novel simply has too many people swimming through its layered plot. By the time Bill has become a great-grandfather, the reader almost needs a score-card to know who belongs to whom and how each is related to the other. Excessive numbers of chracters dulls rather than shines light on the themes and often diverts attention from the otherwise strong plot line.
Despite this minor irritant, "A Good House" is a wonderful, compelling exploration of the manifest dynamism and unexpected turmoil a truly vibrant family must encounter.
This was an interesting book - easy to read. Following the life of a family through several years allowed for personal reflection and understanding.
I really thought I'd enjoy this book it won a prestigious prize, I was born and brought up in Ontario, and return there every year (and I love Alice Munro!). But I didn't care for most of the characters, couldn't understand their motivations, had to keep a chart to keep everyone and their relationships straight. Only one person in our book group liked it; the rest of it just weren't that interested in this family.