The Dutch House: Family Memory, Quiet Illness, and the Weight of Inheritance

Well, all of us have ups and downs in our lives. Therefore, it is not surprising that the fictitious house, which outlived its first owners, becomes a witness (and sometimes the cause) of vagaries of fortune of every kind. Children set adrift with an estranged father, a—canonically—evil stepmother, children uprooted from their home—and children left in the home, and therefore no less unhappy. Excessive, unhealthy attachments. Attempts to forgive and to ask for forgiveness.

If you were ever captivated by East of Eden or A Hundred Years, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, which spans three generations of a single family (not counting minor characters), will be right up your alley. But unlike the other two books, here the main cause of misfortune is not some external force, but each character’s unwavering belief that they know exactly what is best. For others, of course, never for themselves.

Be prepared to clutch your head more than once, wondering why they would waste years of their lives on an uninteresting pursuit out of revenge, or cultivate hatred only to knead it back into themselves like over-risen dough. And why the narrative gallops ahead at times, only to return to events a quarter of a century old or drag itself along like one long, exhausting day.

If you nevertheless manage to push through the layers of grievances, a somewhat happy ending awaits you. Yet behind the scenes remains a question that is never fully addressed. It appears in the novel like the seeds in an orange: indispensable, but offering little to no pleasure, because not everyone can imagine the typical day of a person with diabetes in the middle of the last century. But let's try.

by mainblick on Pixabay

Insulin came into the world in 1921, when Frederick Banting and Charles Best managed to coax life out of a cloudy pancreatic extract, and, within a year, to save a dying boy in Toronto. But for decades afterward, diabetes remained a harsh companion

By the 1950s, when the main character, Maeve, developed the disease, insulin was still drawn from cows or pigs; glass syringes must be boiled, and the needles were so thick they need sharpening on pumice stones. Urine tests served as the only guide, imprecise and always late. A sudden low was treated with whatever sweetness stands closest to the hand: a glass of orange juice, a spoon of honey, a piece of candy fished from a pocke

The 1960s changed little. Even as an adult, Maeve, like many others in real life, administered her doses the old way, with no guarantee. Disposable needles existed but were rare; blood sugar was recognized not by numbers ('cause no numbers were available), but by the rush of cold sweat or the eerie dimming at the edges of consciousness. Like a quiet, constant negotiation with one’s own body.

The 1970s promised progress, but only in theory. The first glucometers were introduced, enormous and costly, meant for clinics rather than families. The real relief dawned in the 1980s. In 1982, Humulin, the world’s first biosynthetic human insulin, crafted by Genentech and produced by Eli Lilly, appears. It was purer, kinder, more predictable. Insulin pens followed this invention in the middle of the decade, finally replacing the glass syringes of Maeve’s youth; glucometers shrunk into something a person can actually hold with one hand.

And only toward the new millennium, almost at the end of the novel, analogue insulins and lightweight pens become standard. By then, a glucometer has been no bigger than a matchbox, and a normal day with diabetes less resembled a duel with the body that betrayed you.

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In the end, The Dutch House is not a novel about illness, but a novel about inheritance of houses, memories, loyalties, and the burdens we carry long after they cease to be useful. And yet the story invites us to dive beneath its polished surface. Looking at the bright fish with a mask on is pleasant enough, but the true depths emerge only under the faint lamp of an anglerfish, that unexpected, unsettling illumination that reveals what has been lurking all along.

What to read on the topic:

100 Years of Insulin

If you’re interested in how novels quietly rely on historical context they never explain, you might also enjoy my previous post on cultural references left deliberately unexplored.

Where the Veil Thins: Cat Messengers, Itako Shamans, and the Places Books Lead Us

 Messenger Cat Café — Shimeno Nagi

When night starts pussyfooting around again, there comes a time to open a new book. But what kind of book should it be? An adventurous novel that won’t let you bat an eyelid? A picaresque romance? Or simply whatever happens to fall under your paw first.

Good books pull you in, bad ones get pushed aside. But there’s a third kind: the one-time reads, the harmless little stories that leave almost no traces. And those, strangely enough, are not a waste; they’re invitations. A single throwaway detail is often enough to send you tiptoeing into the unexpected. And that’s exactly what happened here.

Who would deny a walk across the bridge—the one between the netherworld and the Great Beyond? Not me, for sure. Be my guest: see how and what life is like for all sorts of people—all this through the eyes of a ginger furball with paws and claws (a cat, of course, creatures best known for slipping through any crack).

by Art Attack on Unsplash

In a small café that exists on the edge of the living and the dead, Fuuta becomes a messenger, carrying notes between those who are gone and those who remain. Each delivery is a gentle adventure, a chance to witness the small, fragile ways people connect across life and death. All for one big goal—to see his beloved keeper Michiru again on her birthday.

No worries: this small book by Shimeno Nagi has nothing to do with the blue moods of complex dramas or the philosophical phrase-mongering of The Little Prince.

The idea that without due diligence a cat might do what he loves, that is, cause a little mayhem (and upset the balance on Earth), is nothing more than a bogeyman story. Five difficult tasks turn out to be not so difficult. And cats can complete them with a bit of luck, or even backwards. They can also fall asleep during important briefing, develop an irrational dislike for someone on sight, and even do the impossible a couple of times. However, don't be surprised; we've all seen ginger cats having the zoomies.

The book won't feature any tedious overcoming or 007-style chase scenes. And if you're not particularly sentimental, the stories with happy endings will be just as tiresome as the eternal “a happy ending is when everyone dies.“

But even when a book ends up only so-so, there’s always some small detail worth chasing, something that nudges you into a rabbit hole of unexpected knowledge. This time it was a throwaway mention of Mount Osore, a bleak landscape in northern Japan long believed to be a gateway to the afterlife, and the itako shamans who still gather there to call forth the voices of the dead. A single line in a middling novel, and suddenly you’re knee-deep in real folklore.

Mount Osore, or Japan's Terrible Mountain, lies on the remote Shimokita Peninsula in northern Japan: blackened volcanic soil, bubbling pits, hot steam rising, and a crater-lake said to mirror the river souls must cross after death. Some call it hell’s doorstep, others a sacred waystation between life and death.

In that strange geography dwell the itako: blind women trained, often from girlhood, through rites and long discipline to become mediums between the living and the dead. Historically their paths were many; today only a handful remain. In summer, they come to Mount Osore to perform the ritual known as kuchiyose, claiming they can summon spirits and let grieving visitors commune with lost loved ones.

Japan isn't alone in its thin places. Those uncanny borders where the living brush against whatever comes after. The Greeks imagined a river and a ferryman; the Celts spoke of windswept thresholds where the veil thins; in Korea, mudang shamans still negotiate with restless spirits on behalf of families. Every culture seems to carve out a spot where the ordinary world feels porous.

However, what seems like folklore or mysticism also reveals the practical ways societies historically supported the vulnerable. Despite their mystical reputation, itako were also, in practical terms, a kind of social lifeline for blind women in Japan. Consider:

• many were born blind or lost sight early, leaving few options for education, work, or independence

• training as an itako offered structure, skill, and social status, even if the path was harsh (cold-water purification, ascetic discipline, memorizing chants)

• performing rituals and serving grieving families provided a tangible role in the community, a form of economic and social participation

Over time, this tradition shrank, leaving only a handful of practitioners, but it remains a striking example of how marginalized individuals found a meaningful place in society.

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And so even a small, simple book can open doors to worlds you didn’t expect. Through Fuuta’s paws, we wander not only the cozy corners of a café but also the misty, sulfur-scented slopes of Osore, alongside spirits and itako, seeing the delicate ways life and death intertwine. Sometimes a single line is enough to keep your imagination wandering long after the book is closed.

What to read on the topic;

Mount Osore: The Dark Side of the River

Voices from the Other Side: Aomori’s Traditional “Itako” Mediums