Darkness is the Only Solvent

The first quote from Housekeeping that really stood out to me was the part when Ruth and Lucille were out by the lake, and Ruth feels the night all around her:

“Lucille would tell this story differently. She would say I fell asleep, but I did not. I simply let the darkness in the sky become coextensive with the darkness in my skull and bowels and bones. Everything that falls upon the eye is apparition, a sheet dropped over the world’s true workings. The nerves and brain are tricked, and one is left with dreams that these specters loose their hands from ours and walk away, the curve of the back and the swing of the coat so familiar as to imply that they should be permanent fixtures of the world, when in fact nothing is more perishable.”

This is one of those things that I’ve felt before, but never been eloquent enough to put into words. Ruth’s use of the phrase “walk away” ties her perception of the world/universe in general together with her own life experience. Her grandfather, her mother, her aunts, Lily and Nona – nearly every adult in her life has walked away. Her specific mention of “swing of the coat” reminds me of Sylvie, and of the archetypal hobo who would supposedly come into town and steal children away.

                The way that Ruth says, “...and the swing of the coat so familiar as to imply that they should be permanent fixtures of the world” shows that she has come to trust Sylvie despite everything else in her life, even though she still rationally knows that Sylvie will leave her some day (whether by abandonment or death).

“Darkness is the only solvent.”

This was the part that really got me – I know when I’ve gone outside at night, and I’m by myself, I’ve felt exactly what Ruth is feeling in this passage. The world feels much larger, somehow.