Maintaining a clean and tidy home is not one of my strengths. For sure, there are certain tasks I let go much longer than a majority of the house-cleaning population. For instance, earlier this week my uncle gave us a 2 hour warning that he was on his way and would be spending the night in our home. Husband and I scrambled to make the house hospitable, including massive dish cleaning, sweeping up dust-bins full of dog hair and dog food, throwing away piles of accumulated junk mail and receipts, scooping out 3 litter pans and wiping up numerous piles of dried cat vomit. It did all end well, I was content with how the house looked when Uncle arrived and we had a jump start on our cleaning for the weekend.
In older novels house keeping is a time-consuming activity. It is what people, mostly women, do. I am reading 100 years of Solitude and the wife/mother's housekeeping skills have been described in-depth. In another of G.M's books, Love in the Time of Cholera, the leading woman character's home-making skills are still in my memory even though I read the book years ago. In L'A more of the same; the leading woman's house keeping abilities are described in detail as a way to understand the character, the family and their station in life. In novels that take place in the present, I have not noticed housekeeping having such importance. Either the author must be assuming that knowledge of the woman's skill in this area is not essential to understanding her character or in modern times it is generally assumed that all homes maintain a certain level of cleanliness all by themselves, without effort. This must be the case, since if the character was less than tidy, slovenly, or almost a hoarder, surely that would be used to describe a character that is eccentric, suicidal or a genius.
So what does this mean? For me I am grateful that at some point in time authors appreciated the skills of home-making. They should be appreciated, someone who does it well enhances the well-being of others, and that's a special gift to be able to give.
In older novels house keeping is a time-consuming activity. It is what people, mostly women, do. I am reading 100 years of Solitude and the wife/mother's housekeeping skills have been described in-depth. In another of G.M's books, Love in the Time of Cholera, the leading woman character's home-making skills are still in my memory even though I read the book years ago. In L'A more of the same; the leading woman's house keeping abilities are described in detail as a way to understand the character, the family and their station in life. In novels that take place in the present, I have not noticed housekeeping having such importance. Either the author must be assuming that knowledge of the woman's skill in this area is not essential to understanding her character or in modern times it is generally assumed that all homes maintain a certain level of cleanliness all by themselves, without effort. This must be the case, since if the character was less than tidy, slovenly, or almost a hoarder, surely that would be used to describe a character that is eccentric, suicidal or a genius.
So what does this mean? For me I am grateful that at some point in time authors appreciated the skills of home-making. They should be appreciated, someone who does it well enhances the well-being of others, and that's a special gift to be able to give.
