The story of time – a house in the depths of memory
Writing with a personal twist often begins with the house: in the depths of time, back in the familiar space that is sealed in one's own memory. This space may carry either one's most intimate memories or witness the life of a group of people or a family. The narrative of the house is also a life story. A house can reflect a person's childhood, a marriage story, the inheritance of a way of life, and even the history of a country. In the changing society and life course, the house can become a fulcrum of memory, from which dreams, ambitions, and daydreams occur. Walk into a house and observe the decorations on the walls, the furnishings in the kitchen, the laughter at the dining table, the silence in the study... All kinds of details can reflect the characteristics and habits of house residents.
Many memoirs or autobiographies often begin with memories of a house or a room. One of Virginia Woolf's first memories of life is that she woke up from her summer home in Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England, when she was a child. This memory is based on a house, and Woolf weaves into the text all the senses that were here at that time—color, sound, rhythm—reconstructing his life and his family's life in that house. In his detailed, carefully adjusted autobiography of his later years, Henry James opened the book of his life with his faint memories of his grandmother's house in Albany: his grandmother was reading in that room, the dim candlelight reflected in the books. Eudora Welty, in her recounting how she embarked on the path of a writer, also began by depicting her family home. Whenever she writes, she feels like she's in that room: "I was born in 1909 in that room on North Capitol Street in Jackson, Mississippi. I was the eldest daughter in the family, growing up to the sound of the clock in the house. "The story of life about the house is also the story of time.
What is home – "house" and "home"
Whether in Chinese or English contexts, the definitions of "house" and "home" are both different and overlap. The home has its material backing: it is seen as a fixed dwelling for a family or household, a place where individuals live or grow. But home also has a strong emotional attribute: it is closely related to the sense of belonging and comfort, and it is a gentle hometown and refuge for individuals struggling outside. Housing is defined as a place of residence, usually the residence of a family, the home of an individual. If asked about the difference between the two, one might say that the house is a building and the home is a concept.
There is far more overlap than difference, especially when "homeless" is possible. As King Lear cried out bitterly in the wilderness: "How can you withstand such weather wherever you endure such a merciless storm, and how can you resist such weather whenever you have no tiles on your heads, and your stomachs are hungry and thunderous, and your clothes are in tears?" When "homeless", the materialistic pursuit of "home" will be more prominent.
A book about housing and writing
Houses, often with memories, emotions, and senses, are an important part of "life-writing." The book brings together descriptions of residential life by archaeologists, museum curators, fiction writers, poets, illustrators, biographers, autobiographers, historians, and literary critics. These texts record and shape the history of the house, as well as reproduce the life of the house that has been obscured in memory.
Lives of Houses is an interdisciplinary, diverse, eclectic, open-ended book. It inspires us to question rather than simply give answers. Authors in different fields have reassembled related narratives centered on "houses" and constructed a new narrative space. Layers of questions run through the book: What kind of life choices are reflected in the construction and location of the house? What is it like to move and be evicted? What kind of story is it about living under the same roof? What is the image of a "haunted" house in literature? What are the material and spiritual costs of renovation? How is the personality of the occupants shaped by the houses they live in?
The book also looks at exploring the relationship between travel, family visits, writing, and houses: Why do we like to visit the former homes of celebrities? What can we get out of these journeys? What kind of preservation is appropriate for the old site? How is the connection between the house and the museum? ...... Lives of Houses opens a door for readers to snoop on what's going on in the house, what secrets might be hidden; how people record it, and what it leaves behind in the real world and the psychic world.