Domesticity

Tuesday

Annie Walton Doyle

Ménage à trois: Day, by Michael Cunningham, reviewed

Set over the course of the same April day, with morning, afternoon and night ascribed to consecutive years, Michael Cunningham’s Day is built around time’s march towards an inevitable ending. This feeling of being caught up in time and trapped by its onward force is shared by the novel’s small cast of characters. A married couple, Isabel and Dan Byrne, along with Isabel’s brother Robbie, are struggling with their floundering careers, ageing bodies and their place in the world. They are also balancing a painful platonic love triangle, with both Dan and Isabel more in love with Robbie than with each other. The claustrophobic domesticity of the novel is amplified

Saturday

Daisy Dunn

Every bit as well observed as Rembrandt – and often funnier: Nicolaes Maes reviewed

Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) relished the simple moments of daily life during the Dutch Golden Age. A woman peeling parsnips over a bowl; a young girl threading a needle; a peasant lugging pails of milk to sell on the doorstep. His paintings are sensitive, not showy, and, as you would expect from a pupil of Rembrandt, rendered with the most exquisite use of light. Maes was apprenticed to the Dutch master for about five years in his teens. He returned to Amsterdam later in life, but worked for two decades in his hometown of Dordrecht, 11 miles southeast of Rotterdam. Several of his paintings, including ‘The Apostle Thomas’ and ‘Christ Blessing