 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing all you need to know about the Dream House, which is a novel by Craig Higginson. Now, this video was created due to popular demand. You spoke and we listened. This novel wasn't really on our radar, but thanks to your consistent requests, we did our research and put it together for our loyal listeners, so we hope that you find this useful if you're studying this book as part of your coursework or exams. So let's get started. Now, a little bit about the author himself. Craig Higginson is an internationally acclaimed writer, who lives in Johannesburg and his plays have been performed and produced at the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Market Theatre, as well as several other theatres and festivals around the world. And of course, this also includes the novels that he has written. Now let's dive straight into the novel itself, The Dream House. So to just briefly summarize, an elderly couple packing up, leaving the farm in the Midlands where they spent most of their adult lives and moving to Durban, where they will see out the end of their days. Patricia has to make the decisions because her husband Richard suffers from senile dementia and needs constant supervision. He does some strange things once he's found naked inside a disused porcupine hole. The marriage also had been disastrous, even in his prime he was ineffectual yet imbued with that peculiar sense of entitlement that the white man in Africa feels. Patricia took over the management of the farm, which she inherited from her father because Richard, and to quote from the novel, gave up any pretence at being good at anything after her father died. Now the narrative itself occurs over two days. Patricia reflects on her life with regret and bitterness, and although she adopts a flippant manner, she has insight into herself and is aware of her own complicity in events. Now other characters, Beauty and Becky, are the only workers left on the farm and they will accompany the Ryleys to Durban. Before she leaves the area, Becky arrives at Patricia in the long, suffering and very old Mercedes car to visit her longtime friend and erstwhile lover, John Ford, headmaster of the private school in the area. When he asks her if she's leaving with that backward glance, her reply is that, and to quote, backward glances only crick the neck and this is typical of Patricia, flippant, practical, unsentimental yet masking her underlying feelings. So now let's go into a little bit more depth on this novel. So it opens with Patricia opening the curtain of her bedroom window to discover that a thick mist has descended into the valley in which they live and of course always remember when an author or writer uses weather to reflect the mood, this is called pathetic fallacy and of course this is kind of creating a really dark atmosphere. It's the last day that Patricia and her husband Richard will be living in the house. The property developers who've bought their farm are already clearing it on the land to make way for new houses they're building. Richard is confused by the packing but, and to quote, nothing makes much sense to him anymore and Patricia has simply told him that they are going away to the sea. Patricia calls her domestic worker Beauty and asks her to bring Richard through the dining room for breakfast. She also tells her that she'll be going to see Mr Ford that morning and Beauty says that she'll inform the driver Becky. Patricia hears her Rottweiler, Ethun Zini, barking outside and her two other dogs have already been shot and buried as they can't accompany them on the move. However, Patricia hasn't yet had the stomach to order Ethun Zini's death even though her grave, the dog's grave, has been waiting for her all week. Though difficult, Patricia knows that the move is ripe for them. Richard is in an advanced stage of dementia and he needs a trained nurse to care for him as he's developed a habit of wandering off and getting lost. They'll be moving to Patricia's childhood home in Durban, overlicking the harbour and Patricia, and to quote from the novel, wanted to spend her last days doing little more than staring at the sea. Now, Richard appears at the breakfast table in his pajamas, seemingly disoriented and confused by the packing. He tells Patricia that he had a dream that they were dead and didn't know it. He tells her that the ambulance is on the way to fetch two dead children. Patricia asks him what he means by two. She's owned the same cream-coloured dog-tuned Mercedes also for 25 years and she, the car and her driver, Becky, have become a familiar sight in the village though, and to quote, in recent years have started to appear out of place as the village has become gentrified. Now, Becky and Beauty will both be accompanying both of them on the move to Durban. Becky serves as their chauffeur and gardener while Beauty will undergo further training so that she can get a better job when Patricia and Richard pass away. Becky rarely speaks to Patricia outside of what is practical and she has no idea whether it's quite excitement or dread that he feels about this move. Becky stows Patricia's walker in the boot of the car and they set off for Mr. Ford's house. The drive past the rubble of what was once the farm buildings through the paddocks, marshlands and plantations and eventually reached the road. The place resembles a war zone because of the ongoing construction of new housing development. At one point, Becky briefly loses control of the car on the damaged dirt road. Now, in clearer moments, Patricia is glad that they are leaving the farm. It's never turned much of a profit and Richard was really never much of a farmer even though things improved. Once Patricia, his wife took over its management and started breeding Welsh ponies. Patricia tells Becky that she's been thinking about her father lately and although he died young, to quote from the novel, he had a full life to look back on and a great deal to be proud of. Patricia's father only ever spoke against Richard once when Patricia wanted to marry him but he was forced to give his consent to the marriage when he found out that she was pregnant. Patricia calls her father the one good man in her life. Meanwhile, Beauty has remained at the house to look after Richard whom she called Ubas. She has long been afraid of him and even now, when there's little left of the man he was, she has to care for his most intimate needs and she's still afraid of him. He's often confused and appears weak but, and to quote from the novel, they both know that he is the one with power over her and he will never let either of them forget it. Now, after Patricia and Becky have left, Beauty sits down at the kitchen table to drink tea from her special cup, the one that helps her feel simple, clear and strong, ready to face what needs to be done. She can hear Richard rummaging through the boxes in the spare room and reflects that he has always been unhappy and ill-tempered. She finds him with a box of rosettes in his lap which he's sorting according to colour. He has removed his trousers and leads them but, and she leads him back into his room and helps him into another pair. Patricia and John Ford have been lovers for 30 years and though they haven't had a sexual relationship for some time, she visits him occasionally in the house he moved to after retiring as headmaster from the local school. His wife died of bone cancer many years prior. Now, John is refined and academic, the complete opposite of Richard in every way and Patricia likes to think that this is why she fell in love with him. She, and to quote from the novel, called herself a Christian for much of her adult life and this is because it gave her an excuse to attend church and be close to John. Despite the fact that they've already said the goodbyes, John called her the previous evening and asked her to visit and when she arrives she sees his dress for golf which is his way of saying they don't have long. She follows him through the house and onto the back step overlooking the village church where John still attends service every Sunday without fail. Patricia notices that his wife's roses which were transplanted from the school gardens upon his retirement need to be pruned however she doesn't say anything because they never speak of his wife. When John serve her tea and biscuits she asks if everything's okay and he tells her that he's called her because he was feeling sentimental. She's surprised by this and tells him that she'll call him every Sunday evening after they've moved and he replies that she should only call when and to quote she has something interesting to say and she's been a good friend. Patricia then wonders whether he'll be relieved to see her go and reflects that there's been a melancholy tone in much that he has said and done with her in recent months. Indeed he's always been a difficult man with a tendency to withhold himself even from those closest to him. The first met when Patricia enrolled in and to quote an unusually clever boy from the farm and this was at his school and after that the affair quickly progressed after the first meeting. John asks whether Patricia could get rid of Richard by sending him to a nursing home once they've moved to Durban and Patricia notes that John has always enjoyed belittling him and probably thinks less of her for staying with him. It really galls her that John can mock Richard but the subject of John's wife is off limits which is really bizarre. John suddenly becomes really awkward as he gives her a letter making her promise that she'll only read it once she's in Durban. Patricia fills a note as she gets back into her car though she can't quite place the source of this annoyance and she stuffs John's letter into the cubbyhole. She doesn't understand why he called her for this last visit and decides that she won't ever read the letter and as they drive back to the farmhouse it seems as though the whole of the Midlands is engulfed in the cloud. Beauty then reflects that and to quote from the novel there is too much to do before they go away. Now many of the Wiley's belongings remain unpacked and the task of deciding what they should take with them to the new house in Durban and what they should discard is not as straightforward as it seemed at first. Beauty has resorted to making many of the decisions herself since Patricia seems to be incapable of doing so. She realizes that the problem of what to do with the past would have to carry on into the future and Patricia has told Beauty and Becky that they may each bring one small suitcase with them to Durban the next day and the rest of the belongings must be packed in boxes and left for the movers. Beauty doesn't have much to bring with her however her favorite possession is an old watercolor painting of and to quote an English country lane winding towards a village church which Patricia once gave her. As she leaves the house now she conceals her favorite teacup in her overall so that she can pack it with her belongings. She feels slightly sick as it's the first thing she's intentionally ever stolen from Patricia which can't help herself. The white washed rendezvous in which Beauty has always lived has been raised. She, Becky and few other work has now lived in one of the half finished houses that the developers have built as a temporary accommodation and it's her dream to have a house of her own and Patricia has been helping her to save towards building one. Beauty knows she will never marry though she's nursing a secret love for Becky but he doesn't feel the same way about her. Now Becky appears in her doorway even though she's known him since she was a child and growing up alongside him to quote from the novel there are still parts of the older man that remain a mystery to her. Now lately he's absorbed by thoughts of his four-year-old son Bengani who was born disabled and they converse briefly and Becky tells her that Patricia seemed to be relieved to leave John Ford. Beauty isn't surprised to hear this as John is from a time that has long past and who messes always comes away with him with that empty luster in her face like one overburdened with bird news. Now Patricia sees Richard attempting to leave the house of the spade and asks him where he's going and she knows that he's been angling to dig her up from her simple grave by the Bloodwood Grove which is marked with her name Rachel and the single date of her birth and death. Patricia often visits the grave herself but there's never sign of any Rachel there. Now the site of Rachel's grave is the highest point in the farm. It would have made it a good place to build a farmhouse but the house already existed when they moved onto the farm so they've been confined to the first house which has always been dark and dank. Now Patricia tells Richard that they're going to the sea the next day. She asks whether he remembered taking her there on his motorbike when he was still a farm manager and she remembers that they'd stayed up all night talking about their lives and made love just before the sun came up. This had been a peaceful blissful time but they'd never spoken in quite the same way since and Richard claims that she's talking about another man to which she sardonically responds to bloody right. Now later on beauty sets down both their tray and Patricia reflects that this was once a time of day when her ponies would have been brought in from the fields and paraded before her fake inspection but the farm animals have all since been sold save for a single dairy cow and a few chicken. Richard starts to put his boots on the same boots that he's had for 20 years or rather 10 years and beauty polishes them for him every morning. Patricia then asks him where he's going but he ignores her. Patricia asks beauty to ask Becky to accompany Richard and she hopes that there will be a thunderstorm on this the last night at the farmhouse. She loves the thunder even though the lightning is much feared in the area having killed not only farm animals but a farm worker and two of the boys on John's Ford's school in the past. Lightning once hit the farmhouse directly damaging its electrical wiring. Now Patricia also we learn often battled with their ponies developing foot rot and the farm itself seems perpetually damp as a result of this rain. Patricia then tells Richard to go inside and take a bath but he ignores her. He takes off across the garden carrying his boots. She calls after him and then calls for beauty who neither of them respond. Meanwhile another character looks smart arrives at the Duoleni farm and reflects that and to quote from the novel everything looks exactly as he left it. He rolls down the window and smells the wet earth and the rot but nothing feels quite real to him it is though he's in a dream he's been driving all afternoon only stopping to eat a burger. Now Patricia then orders Richard to go inside and take a bath and he ignores her and afterwards when Luxmart arrives as I've mentioned he looks and feels that the farm seems the same and he's been driving all afternoon. Now we learn that Luxmart has a shameful secret that he won't divulge to anyone. He still feels like an intruder on his own land even now years after the end of apartheid. Indeed Luxmart is unaccustomed to the freedom of being allowed to come and go around South Africa as he pleases without the fear of being censured. Now Luxmart drives down the farm road and he remembers a time when he was a small boy and will run barefoot on the track. He's unsurprised to see the damage that's been wrought by the ongoing construction and he has been the one managing the project for every year. What does disturb him is the project appears already to have failed and been discarded. Luxmart has made the journey to Dualeni out of hate or perhaps out of nostalgia for a time when he could hate properly. While hatred was once his constant burning companion the intervening years since he left Dualeni have tempered his stamina for hate and as he parks the car he once again experiences a surge of grief coming like a nausea and voluntarily and from deep within his gut. Luxmart also thinks about another character Grace. He spent most of his life trying to escape the memory of her and even though she's dead she still appears to be more powerful than he ever will be. The thought of grace brings out a fresh surge of hatred although he wonders whether he has enough hatred in him left for this encounter. Patricia then hears him approaching and the approach of Luxmart's car but she's too distracted with the task of packing to heed it. She is sorting through long forgotten objects feeling as though everything around her is muted somehow and she's overcome by a sense of overall numbness and she toys the idea of simply burning down the house. She calls for beauty and tells her that Richard has wandered off with the spade again and asks beauty to go look for him or to tell Becky to get him and instructs beauty to check for Rachel's graves first. Ethun Zini the Rottweiler then begins to bark outside and Patricia moves from her wheelchair to an armchair. Beauty then moves the wheelchair off to a tactful distance before looking out the window to see why the dog is barking. Beauty tells her that there's a silver car parked outside and asks whether she should go and investigate but Patricia is more concerned that she finds Richard first. Beauty then leaves the house through the front door and shortly afterwards Patricia hears someone enter through the back door. Now let's move to her analysis. This is the first main character it's Patricia who's an old and ambited lady and she's central to the farm in question and the novel itself. She like the farm is disintegrating and only now at this last minute does she begin to realize just how blind and inadequate she's been for decades. These two miserable old people herself and her husband who are pickled in impunity and ignorance are unaware that they are specimens of a past pre-apartheid era. Now Luxmart is another important character to be aware of. He is completely overrun and cut through resentment from the moment he arrives the narrative takes on a tightness that makes it really hard to breathe and there's a story behind Luxmart's aggressive posing and the deep seam of bitterness within him. Richard of course is another important character he's hard and unyielding even in the grip of dementia and he's aged weak unhinged and not always sure where he is nor indeed whether he's still alive or in some recognizable afterlife. However he's the colonial master and he remains unchallenged in spite of the terrible things he's done. Now then his mind clears he becomes lucid and he reverts to form. Richard thoughts are predictably muddled given he's suffering from dementia yet rendered with a sensitivity that's a hallmark of Craig Higginsons own writing. Beauty is another important character so she follows the rhythms of her life almost unthinkingly blinded by her station in life. She's a poignant in other words a sad character and she herself carries a poignant name but she feels anything but beautiful in a world that's discarded her in so many ways. Now when it comes to the theme of these this story the first of course is a shadow of the past so the dream house tackles the question of how the past impacts the present both on a personal and national level. Its contemporary South African setting and the issues with this novel engages are really familiar and highly relevant. Now the dream house grapples with the contention's topics like persistent inequality and racism in a way that's accessible but also not self-righteous or didactic. Against the backdrop of a country still in a state of transition the personal struggles of the main characters of the novel do take a greater significance. Each of the characters is in some way trying to discard the burdens of the past and make a fresh start but we wonder if this is possible when they don't truly understand those burdens. Will confronting the truth of the past mean that they're free of hatred or are the wrongs of the past too indelibly etched into the characters to be erased? Now the theme is memory and truth. Now the unreliable nature of memory is poignantly explored through Richard's suffering from an advanced stage of dementia. The author Higginsons sentitively and effectively captures Richard's sense of disorientation, frustration and fear as he roams through the farmlands whilst simultaneously trying to navigate the ravaged landscape of his own mind. However Richard isn't the only character whose memory isn't to be trusted. Indeed each of the characters are in their own way trying to grope through the mists both literal and figurative that enshroud them to find the truth of their collective past but the truth as it turns out will not be the same for each of them. The next theme is loss and disappointment. So an unfulfilling marriage a stillborn child an unrequited love a vicious assault and a brutal murder are just some of the sources of loss pain and disappointment that are expressed in the lives of the characters in this novel. As these characters trawl through the past and quite literally unearth the bones from long forgotten graves they're forced to examine how these past pains and losses have shaped the people they have since become. The final theme is retribution and forgiveness. There's an unspoken need for forgiveness which haunts the characters in this novel as they're forced to confront the distressing revelations from the past. For hatred and resentment to be released pardon must be sought even from those who are in no position to grant it. The novel closes on an ambiguously optimistic note nonetheless as each character departs to Dualeni Farm with a deeper understanding of the pain that they're felt there. So that's all. If you found this video useful do subscribe to our channel and give this video a thumbs up. 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