An Explanation of Housekeeping

I loved this book, especially Robinson's gift for capturing the very essence of an experience in a few words. She has a gift for limiting her story's details in a way that adds to its mystery. Basic facts are withheld, so that the story seems timeless, universal, and haunting.
I do believe that the title is the key to the meaning of this story. The three daughters lose their father to the lake, and are ever afterwards haunted by its presence in their lives. Robinson speaks of the loss of their father as ( if I remember correctly) a stone dropped in a pond, with gradually subsiding ripples that end in a return to a smooth unruffled surface. Obvious allusion to the ever-present lake. And so their lives go on after the death of their father, household chores, trips to the library, the small everyday details that make up a life. But something deep down has been lost. Buried, undiscoverable (just like the body of the father), but with serious ramifications. The foundation of their lives has gone. Outwardly, their lives are unchanged, but inwardly, they drift. One daughter escapes to the mission field, seeking a structure, perhaps, a real calling. Two daughters marry, and both marriages fail. Their world has no permanence, no real structure. And so the granddaughter, Ruth, grows up in a world that is like a play already in Act III. She has certain odd tendencies, and her coming of age is, in a way, the process of her discovering who she is and why she is this way. Her life is a life of constant change, transience. Eventually she gives up her house (ends her 'housekeeping'), and simply accepts who she is and acts on it. She crosses the lake, dying to her old self and, strangely, following in the way of her father.
I don' pretend to understand the whole story. I have no idea what she means by the Cain and Abel story. I do think she is named Ruth in order to tie her story into the story of Ruth leaving her family and following her mother-in-law to a new land and a new life.
When I finished this book I wanted to go back and keep Ruth from leaving, from becoming a transient. I wan't to rail against the ending and cry that it couldn't happen, it shouldn't happen. But it did. Why? Because I believe no one in this story ever really dealt with the death of the father. They wanted life to go on. The mother wanted a smooth, simple life. And so life went on, unchanged, but the realness died along the way. The family drew back, and drifted from others. The cover of this book spoke of 'the danger of transcience'. Ruth eventually chose a life of change, of superficial relationships, of no real roots. The failure of her mother to deal with the loss and move on to a new life was passed down to the next generation.
BTW, I do not necessarily agree with Robinson's theology. On a background note, she is a pastor in the Congregationalist denomination, and has written an excellent volume of essays entitled The Death of Adam. I highly recommend them.