It has a faded image of Queen Elizabeth on it and isn't much to look at, but it makes Beauty feel elegant and special. Narrator, 14īeauty enjoys drinking from a cup of Patricia's that Patricia no longer cares for. Patricia and Richard most assuredly do not have a home under this claim, and Patricia hopes desperately that things will be different at Durban.ĭrinking from the cup makes her feel simple, clear, strong. One might see the house, by virtue of the title, as the centerpiece of the narrative, but ultimately the novel suggests that a house is just another building unless there is something warm, loving, and sustaining inside to make it a home. The story commences on the last day that Patricia and Richard are to spend in the Dwaleni house. One of the central components of the novel is the brittle, painful marriage of Patricia and Richard, which has nearly always been marked by discord. It has been her technique, perfected over the years, to survive her husband by noticing him as rarely as possible. What is most insightful about this addition to the novel in its revised and updated edition is the revelation of the extent to which the real-life inspiration for the titular domicile took hold of the author’s imaginative spirit. He proceeds from here to describe the farmhouse from his youth as a way of setting the stage for linking the way that reality influences the writing process he sees this as done in both an intrusive way that is sometimes explicit, as well as a way that exerts its power subliminally. These lines are extracted from an opening essay which the author utilizes to help illuminate his process of creation. One such house was a farmhouse in KwaZulu-Natal, just over the hill of the boarding school I attended between the ages of ten and fourteen. Some of them remain with us, and we are able to return to them long after they are gone. Maybe it’s true that they also pass through us. There are many houses we pass through during our lives.

Book in the dream house