Красивая и невероятно грустная история, но я ее точно забуду уже через пару недель.

неймовірна книжка. настільки неймовірна, що я радісно чекала розділу з подяками, аби потенційно дізнатися більше.

написано у такій солодко-тужливій манері, яка тебе поглинає всю, і стилістикою, де кожне речення хочеться просмакувати, перечитати декілька разів.

ох, нині одна з най книжок для мене

There is such humanity in Cunningham’s novels. It’s really breathtaking. I also realize that I never have any clues as to where he’ll take his characters. And that is amazing.

Ešte dlho budem myslieť na tento príbeh. Cez tristo strán, ale pocitovo tisíc. Cunningham, pán spisovateľ. Generácia šesťdesiatych rokov v USA. New York aj vidiek, túžby, sny aj sklamania. “Bola by som mu chcela povedať čosi, čo som sa sama učila takmer šesťdesiat rokov: že mŕtvym sme dlžní ešte menej ako živým, že naša jediná šanca na šťastie - hoci aj maličká - spočíva v tom, že privítame zmeny. Ale nezvládla som to.”

Cunningham’s writing is, as always, powerful in its restraint. He is able, somehow, to create characters and settings that seem fully-formed and three-dimensional in such a way that one doesn’t notice them being realized until they already exist in one’s head, and heart.
The House at the end of the World isn’t quite as affecting, or accomplished as Flesh & Blood or as stylistically impressive as The Hours, but nonetheless, I found myself drawn in, regardless. I wouldn’t advise this novel as an introduction to Cunningham’s writing, but do pick it up if you’re an established reader of his. I say so because I feel this novel offers more of a concept - that love can exist in myriad ways, despite what society might tell us - than a glimpse into a rich and full world. Despite that, it is a heartwarming, harrowing, and warm tale of love, in a multitude of forms, that I would implore you to pick up and devour at your first opportunity.

I think Michael Cunningham's The Hours is an almost perfect work of fiction, and I have liked some of his other stories as well, but I'm starting to get a bit sick of the 'tragic gay' theme that runs throughout them all. I know that the early days of AIDS were horrific, with huge swathes of the gay community being wiped out, but I'm also tired of a great deal of gay fiction feeling that it has to be tragedy to gain kudos. All these books have helpless and hopeless outcomes for the gay characters, while the straight ones learn VALUABLE LIFE LESSONS from their death/upcoming death. Even books by gay authors seem to get centred around the straight characters and how awful AIDS is for them as their gay friends die. I don't even know how to end this review. I just don't even.

Я больше всего, конечно, прониклась историей мамы, которая снизошла до травы, по мне это самый грустный момент. А в остальном было очень понятно, печально, иногда и не печально, как у всех, просто в других обстоятельствах

A Home at the End of The World is a love story. A convoluted, unbalanced, discombobulated love story, but a love story nonetheless.

Jonathan meets Bobby in the eighth grade, and to call what forms between them a simple friendship would be to apply a cheap misnomer. They bond over weed, music, angst and rebellion. They discover physical sex together. They become defined by the other, a pair united by some commensal inner turmoil that seems incapable to define. And then they graduate high school, and what once seemed inseparable, separates.

I love novels where I am privileged to see the character grow, both in age and in substance. Bobby and Jonathan grow, morphing into versions of themselves that I didn’t see coming. One becomes otherworldly, approaching life and disaster with a calm that is perturbing. The other becomes frenetic, a ball of energy and movement that seems poised for a prison break. Both are thrilling and interesting in ways that carry the novel, though neither become what I, the lowly reader, would have foresaw.

And perhaps that is why I loved this book, because it so aptly captured life’s unpredictability. We all start off young and impassioned; some slothful, some ambitious, some timid, some bold. We navigate our way from grade to high school, and then we are unleashed to the world. Or better yet, the world is unleashed on us. We think we are ready, only to find that differential equations and foreign language verb conjugations have little to do with solving the more pressing problems of life. Problems such as love, acceptance, actualization, and the ever niggling question of purpose. And it is often these problems and our response to them that determine who we become, with the wisdom gleaned from mama’s table no longer being the sole measuring stick for determining how we move and live.

This novel captures the struggle of a search. A search for something substantial in a life that if left unattended can become superfluous. The characters in A Home at the End of The World stay active in the search. Alice, Jonathan’s mother, searches for a freedom defined beyond being a couth and staid caregiver. Clare, the third-wheel in a mental polyamorous relationship, searches for a seal of approval on the eccentricities that she has built her life upon. Bobby searches for a family, for a set of warm bodies that won’t leave him to the space of his solitary thoughts. Erich, an afterthought of a character who weasels his way into the novel’s conclusion with unsettled aplomb, searches first for success, and then for the crumbs of a hard-won love. And Jonathan, cosmopolitan-trend-setting Jonathan, he by novel’s end has come to realize that his search has morphed from liberty to confinement, from wanting the world to merely wanting a home.

Every day we wake up and crank the car to drive to a job we subconsciously (or vociferously) hate, we too are searching. Searching for our happiness. Searching for our home at the end of the world. A home where questions that are asked are answered. A home where we don’t have to pretend to be something we are not. A home where walls are not there to trap, but are instead there to shelter. A home where every idiosyncrasy, every strange thread in the fabric of who we are, is celebrated and given a value. A home where we are given the license to be whoever we want, do whatever we want, love however we want, go wherever we want, and die whenever we want. I rated this novel a 5 not because I think it is perfection, or that its literary greatness is on par with The Grapes of Wrath , but I rated it a 5 because I have never read a book that captured so seamlessly the essence of this search. It truly and unequivocally has spoken to my soul.

But all things existential aside, this novel was good because the writing was beautiful and the characters were real. Even so, this novel is probably not for everyone. At times the plot moves at a leisurely pace, and the shifts of narration (especially the transitions to Alice and Clare) were not always welcomed. Not to mention that its content, which centers on the absurdity of a love between three flawed adults, might find a way to offend the ultra-conservative. However, flaws will be flaws, and if you can look beyond them, I firmly believe you will find something beautiful blossoming in the core of this novel’s pages.

отак і живеш. твориш ��обі майбутнє з усього, що трапиться під руку.

це морально важка історія, в якій ви не будете розуміти жодного персонажа, хоч і багато їх слів будуть відгукуватися. чимось вона схожа на «маленьке життя» з єдиною різницею — тут ви будете вірити у все.

насправді, про такі книжки, як ця, розповідати найважче. бо як можна кількома словами описати цілком реальне життя багатьох людей? як висловити всі їх моральні дилеми і намагання зрозуміти себе, як пояснити, що попри загальну антипатію ці персонажі відчуваються близькими? сюжет розповідає про життя двох юнаків, вони дуже різні і якось так склалося, зачепилися один за одного в дитинстві і разом подорослішали. я так і не змогла визначити головного героя, бо життя кожного нам розкрили дуже детально, з усіма незначними подробицями.

все відбувається в америці 70-80-х років, спочатку в маленькому містечку, а потім у величезному гамірному нью-йорку. історія життя трьох друзів це такою ж мірою історія цілого історичного періоду: тут і про напружені теми сучасного суспільства, ідентифікацію власної сексуальності і прийняття себе, про стосунки в родині і токсичність. книжка описує прагнення цілого покоління віднайти сенс в існуванні сім'ї, любові та загалом життя у світі, сповненому швидких змін.

мені важко було це читати, було багато дивних моментів (як от казати 9-ти річному брату що він вже засидівся в цнотливих, або ж куріння трави 13-річними разом з мамою одного з них), але це було дуже цікаво. з тієї позиції, що я ніколи не думала про проблеми, висвітлені там. боббі, джонатан і клер створили неординарну на той час сім'ю з трьох людей і кожне їх рішення було сповнене егоїзму і власної невизначеності щодо майбутнього. думки і вчинки еліс показали, що і дорослі віком люди не завжди знають, чи чинять правильно і рухаються в потрібному напрямку.

тут кожне речення сповнено вагань і спроб знайти те, що буде краще. кожна дія диктується травмами. і тут так багато всього, ціле життя в 400 сторінках.

вам варто читати цю книжку, але будьте готові до складності написання, важких думок, того, що всі персонажі дратуватимуть, а кінець залишить кілька запитань і величезну дірку в серці.

DNF at 50%

made it halfway through this book before something happened--bobby sleeps with clare once (which was a weird enough scene in and of itself) and all of a sudden they're talking about how they're in love ??? literally what is happening where did this even come from ???--that just absolutely broke my already tenuous trust in this story. couldn't connect to the characters, and it felt like for the whole novel i was treading water waiting for something to wow me, but that thing never happened. also so annoyed by the fact that the two main female characters we get, who are both in their mid-to-late thirties (at least initially) are CONSTANTLY talking about their age and acting like they are basically at death's door. very much "women written by a man" vibes. clare is in her late thirties and it feels like every chapter all she's thinking is "my boobs are sagging" and "i am an old crone." like can we have some perspective please you are literally still in your thirties

I listened to most of this on our way to Orangeville to put my father's ashes into a cubby-thing (tm), and most of the ride back. The fact that the gay character has to decide what to do with his father's ashes was a bit of an ironic twist to our selection, but otherwise, this was what I'd call a character study novel, in that the plot itself doesn't really go anywhere.

Basically, you follow the lives of four people, Jonathan (the gay fellow), his mother Alison (a New Orleans girl who married a fairly plain fellow in Jon's father), Jonathan's childhood friend and first love, Bobby (who was voice/narrated by Colin Farrel and mrowr! that was a good thing), and his later friend Claire.

Jonathan, Bobby and Claire form an odd romantic triangle where Jon loves both Bobby and Claire together, Bobby desperately wants a sense of 'family' to replace his tragic family history, and Claire is suddenly feeling older and wants a child. They form a family of their own, a unique one, and really, that's all there is to the plot.

It's the characters that make the story interesting. Jonathan's inability to stop looking toward some sort of "maybe someday," future; Bobby, who seems the prince of acquiescence; Claire, who is so unusual at first sight, but fears that she might just be a regular selfish mother after all; and Alison, who really only comes alive after the death of her husband. Alison often feels like an afterthought, but the other three characters spiral around each other.

Cunningham's metaphors are sometimes a bit odd ("cut like an x-ray") and he has a deft touch with the characters and their own points of view - Bobby through Jonathan or Claire's eyes seems such a flat and quietly boring sort, but internally, Bobby is quite the philosopher, for example - and the internal dialogues are very well put together.

But is it enough? I'm not sure. While I liked it well enough, I'm not sure as a character driven story it had enough to the characters. Nothing felt resolved, the ending was quite sudden and jarring, and Claire's denouement seemed almost forced. The only really likeable fellow is Bobby, and even he tends to be somewhat frustrating in his inability to disagree. It's hard to say, really, if my experience with the book makes me want to try more Cunningham or not.

I do think that as an audiobook (I downloaded this from audible.com) it went better than if I'd've read it on my own. The lack of plot or sense of forward motion really would have made it a dry read, and listening to the four voices read their characters was much more enjoyable, I think.

Мені знадобилося трохи часу, щоб переварити цю книгу й визначитися зі своїми враженнями. Каннінґем створює текст, у якому кожне слово ніби просякнуте життєвим досвідом, тонкими спостереженнями за людськими емоціями та невловимими моментами, які формують нас як особистостей. І хоча стиль автора мені дуже сподобався — насичений, глибокий, багатошаровий — відчуття повного занурення так і не прийшло.

Дім на краю світу — це книга, яка залишає по собі довгий відгомін, подібний до сумної мелодії, що вже стихла, але все ще вібрує десь усередині. Це історія, яка не вражає різкими сюжетними поворотами чи інтригою, від якої важко відірватися. Навпаки, її меланхолійний настрій накочується хвилями, поступово огортаючи читача відчуттям тихого смутку.

Можливо, найбільшим викликом для мене стали самі герої. Їхні думки, дії та принципи залишилися для мене за склом. Я так і не змогла повністю зрозуміти, що рухає ними, не відчула цього тонкого емоційного зв’язку, коли переживаєш кожен момент разом із ними. Замість того, щоб стати частиною їхньої історії, я радше залишилася спостерігачем, який дивиться на життя героїв здалеку. Це не та книга, яку проживаєш, стаючи одним із персонажів.

Дім на краю світу точно не потрапить у перелік найкращих прочитаних цього року, але я зовсім не жалкую, що взяла її до рук. Вона залишила по собі особливий післясмак, і я впевнена, що ще не раз повернуся до неї думками.