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Gilead: A Novel Hardcover – November 19, 2004
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This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.
Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.
- Print length247 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateNovember 19, 2004
- Dimensions5.7 x 1.16 x 8.52 inches
- ISBN-100374153892
- ISBN-13978-0374153892
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The narrator, John Ames, is 76, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man.
The reason for the letter is Ames's failing health. He wants to leave an account of himself for this son who will never really know him. His greatest regret is that he hasn't much to leave them, in worldly terms. "Your mother told you I'm writing your begats, and you seemed very pleased with the idea. Well, then. What should I record for you?" In the course of the narrative, John Ames records himself, inside and out, in a meditative style. Robinson's prose asks the reader to slow down to the pace of an old man in Gilead, Iowa, in 1956. Ames writes of his father and grandfather, estranged over his grandfather's departure for Kansas to march for abolition and his father's lifelong pacifism. The tension between them, their love for each other and their inability to bridge the chasm of their beliefs is a constant source of rumination for John Ames. Fathers and sons.
The other constant in the book is Ames's friendship since childhood with "old Boughton," a Presbyterian minister. Boughton, father of many children, favors his son, named John Ames Boughton, above all others. Ames must constantly monitor his tendency to be envious of Boughton's bounteous family; his first wife died in childbirth and the baby died almost immediately after her. Jack Boughton is a ne'er-do-well, Ames knows it and strives to love him as he knows he should. Jack arrives in Gilead after a long absence, full of charm and mischief, causing Ames to wonder what influence he might have on Ames's young wife and son when Ames dies.
These are the things that Ames tells his son about: his ancestors, the nature of love and friendship, the part that faith and prayer play in every life and an awareness of one's own culpability. There is also reconciliation without resignation, self-awareness without deprecation, abundant good humor, philosophical queries--Jack asks, "'Do you ever wonder why American Christianity seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?'"--and an ongoing sense of childlike wonder at the beauty and variety of God's world.
In Marilynne Robinson's hands, there is a balm in Gilead, as the old spiritual tells us. --Valerie Ryan
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
From Bookmarks Magazine
Robinson writes with the gleaming, polished writing revealed in Housekeeping. In Gilead, the language is even more graceful and spare, recalling many of our nations most spiritual writers, from Herman Melville to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (to whom Robinson claims she owes great literary debts). If John Ames is initially a little baffling, earnest but too introspective for some tastes, he soon draws readers into his world of storytelling, questioning, and meditation. In all realms, from recounting his journey to find his grandfathers abandoned grave to his more philosophical probing of faith, he elevates the mundane into visionary life lessons. Other characters, including Amess fire-and-brimstone grandfather, are equally compelling. On the downside, Amess philosophizing can cross over into sermonizing. And the drama unfolds slowlythings do happen, but with a gentle suspense. "There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient," writes Ames. And there are just as many reasons to read this novel.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Robinson's 1981 debut, Housekeeping, was a perfect novel if ever there was one, and her long-awaited second novel proves just as captivating . . . Robinson's prose is lovely and wonderfully precise . . . Gilead is a gentle journey that will be even better the second time you read it." --Jeremy Jackson, People
"[Gilead] is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. Gilead possesses the quiet ineluctable perfection of Flaubert's A Simple Heart as well as the moral and emotional complexity of Robert Frost's deepest poetry . . . Immensely moving." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World
"A major work." --Philip Connors, Newsday
"A beautifully rendered story . . . full of penetrating intellect and artful prose . . . that captures the splendors and pitfalls of being alive . . . The world could use . . . more novels this wise and radiant." --Kathryn Schwille, The Charlotte Observer
"Compelling . . . Brilliant." --Martin Northway, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"There is a lot of pleasure to be had in the novel's probing, thoughtful narrative voice." --Matt Murray, The Wall Street Journal
"Magnificent . . . A psalm worthy of study, a sermon of the loveliest profundity . . . [A] literary miracle . . . 'A'." --Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"A Great American Novel." --Time Out New York
"Robinson's long-awaited second novel is an almost otherwordly book-and reveals Robinson as a somewhat otherwordly figure herself . . . A work of enormous integrity . . . Original and strong . . . A beautiful book of ideas." --Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly
"The mature and thoughtful work of a superb and thoughtful storyteller." -Ellen Emry Heltzel, St. Petersburg Times
"An inspired work from a writer whose sensibility seems steeped in holy fire." --Lisa Shea, Elle
"The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America--and break your heart . . . Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." --Kirkus, starred review
"The long wait has been worth it . . . Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise . . . Destined to become her second classic." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Quietly powerful [and] moving." --O, The Oprah Magazine (recommended reading)
Praise for Housekeeping:
"I found myself reading slowly, then more slowly-this is not a novel to be hurried through, for every sentence is a delight." -Doris Lessing
"Housekeeping is a haunting dream of a story told in a language as sharp and clear as light and air and water." -Walker Percy
"The richness and variety and the peculiarity of tone Marilynne Robinson sustains are masterful." -Mary Gordon
"Housekeeping is a resounding achievement." -Chicago Tribune
"Housekeeping brilliantly portrays the impermanence of all things." -Time
"Stunningly moving . . . Dazzling." -People
About the Author
From The Washington Post
Marilynne Robinson draws on all of these associations in her new novel, which -- let's say this right now -- is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. Gilead possesses the quiet ineluctable perfection of Flaubert's "A Simple Heart" as well as the moral and emotional complexity of Robert Frost's deepest poetry. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth: "Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts."
Robinson's narrator is that rarity in fiction -- a thoroughly good man. As the Rev. John Ames approaches his 77th birthday (and an impending death from heart disease), he decides to record something of his family's history and his own inner life. The result, he trusts, may be of value to his young son, now only 7, as well as a testament of his love for the boy and the boy's mother, the unexpected blessing of his old age. After Ames lost his first wife in childbirth, he never remarried but instead devoted himself utterly to his parishioners. But one day a young woman, a stranger, entered his church and the 67-year-old minister fell in love with her, staunchly saying nothing because of the disparity between their ages. Then one day . . . but let Rev. Ames tell the story, as he does in this long letter to his son:
"I came near alarming myself with the thought of the loneliness stretching ahead of me, and the new bitterness of it, and how I hated the secretiveness and the renunciation that honor and decency required of me and that common sense enforced on me. But when I looked up, your mother was watching me, smiling a little, and she touched my hand and she said, 'You'll be just fine.' . . .
"She began to come to the house when some of the other women did, to take the curtains away to wash, to defrost the icebox. And then she started coming by herself to tend the gardens. She made them very fine and prosperous. And one evening when I saw her there, out by the wonderful roses, I said, 'How can I repay you for all this?'
"And she said, 'You ought to marry me.' And I did."
Elsewhere he tells us that he "was so startled when she said that to me that for a minute I couldn't find any words to reply. So she walked away, and I had to follow her along the street. I still didn't have the courage to touch her sleeve, but I said, 'You're right, I will.' And she said, 'Then I'll see you tomorrow,' and kept walking. That was the most thrilling thing that ever happened to me in my life."
The marriage proves utterly happy: One thinks of Ruth and Boaz. For Ames "Love is holy because it is like grace -- the worthiness of its object is never really what matters."
As one would expect of a preacher, John Ames has always written with what he calls "the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true." His prose is rich with Biblical simplicity and power (note all those "ands"). As a man, he loves reading and study, but even more the sheer joy of existence. "This is an interesting planet," he says at one point, "it deserves all the attention you can give it." Ames doesn't miss much, though once he finds himself "trying to remember what birds did before there were telephone wires." Joyfully, repeatedly, this dying man celebrates the simple wonder of being alive:
"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely."
"To play catch of an evening, to smell the river, to hear the train pass" -- such is the quiet tenor of life in this small Iowa town. "It's just a cluster of houses strung along a few roads, and a little row of brick buildings with stores in them, and a grain elevator and a water tower with Gilead written on its side, and the post office and the schools and the playing fields and the old train station, which is pretty well gone to weeds now." If this sounds idyllic, Ames does mention darker memories -- a fire set at the Negro church, the plight of an ignorant unwed mother: "She and her family lived in an isolated house with a lot of mean dogs under the porch."
Still, an old man can't help but think of the past. More and more, Ames recalls the lives of his father and grandfather, both ministers of the Lord. Before the Civil War, Gilead had become a haven for John Brown and his supporters, it being located just across the border from bloody Kansas. Indeed, Ames's grandfather rode with Brown and once preached to his flock in a red-stained shirt with a pistol tucked in his belt. "It was the most natural thing in the world," notes the descendant of this visionary patriarch, "that my grandfather's grave would look like a place where someone had tried to smother a fire."
Fathers and sons, sons and fathers -- this never-easy relationship soon grows into the novel's major leitmotif, recalling the parallel theme of mothers and daughters in Robinson's revered Housekeeping, her only other novel. Inevitably, the crusading firebrand's son becomes a staunch pacifist, then suffers unforeseen sorrows over his own offspring. As Ames concludes, "We live in the ruins of the lives of other generations."
Much of Gilead reads like a spiritual diary, the journal of a country pastor. Nearly everyone seems to be unrealistically good and selfless, even those who disagree about how the Lord wishes us to carry out his commands in this world. But then one day the prodigal son of Ames's best friend returns to Gilead. Decades before, young John Boughton brought disgrace on himself and his family, then disappeared. Now in his early forties, he has come back to visit his dying father. But what was his crime? And what has he been up to all these intervening years?
The enigmatic Boughton starts visiting Ames and his family, going so far as to play catch with the little boy and to make Mrs. Ames laugh and grow fond of him. They are, after all, roughly the same age, and Ames gradually suspects some "kind of understanding between them." Yet even as he agonizes whether to reveal the evil of Boughton's past, the old minister finds himself preaching that, at least sometimes, we may entertain angels unawares.
The time span of Gilead is roughly a hundred years -- from the 1850s to 1956, when Ames sets down his story. Implicitly, it looks far into the future -- Ames imagines his little boy as an old man -- and in spirit back to Biblical times. Eventually one realizes that beyond a portrait of the human condition -- prey to isolation and loneliness, ever needful of faith and love -- Robinson has subtly introduced that great heartbreaking theme of American history, the often divisive, unfulfilled quest for social and racial justice.
But I've said enough about this immensely moving novel. It may not be quite as strange or lyrical as Housekeeping -- what could be? -- but it is an equal triumph of tone and imagination, another spiritual journey no serious reader will want to miss. Among recent novelists, Marilynne Robinson's only equal as an artist is the late Penelope Fitzgerald. And like the author of The Blue Flower, Robinson somehow manages to point up her moral wisdom and common sense with a dry, easily missed humor. As John Ames remarks, when thinking about the forgiveness of enemies, "It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health."
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I TOLD YOU LAST NIGHT THAT I MIGHT BE GONE sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren't very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you've had with me and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don't laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother's. It's a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I'm always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I've suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.
It seems ridiculous to suppose the dead miss anything. If you're a grown man when you read this--it is my intention for this letter that you will read it then--I'll have been gone a long time. I'll know most of what there is to know about being dead, but I'll probably keep it to myself. That seems to be the way of things.
I don't know how many times people have asked me what death is like, sometimes when they were only an hour or two from finding out for themselves. Even when I was a very young man, people as old as I am now would ask me, hold on to my hands and look into my eyes with their old milky eyes, as if they knew I knew and they were going to make me tell them. I used to say it was like going home. We have no home in this world, I used to say, and then I'd walk back up the road to this old place and make myself a pot of coffee and a friend-egg sandwich and listen to the radio, when I got one, in the dark as often as not. Do you remember this house? I think you must, a little. I grew up in parsonages. I've lived in this one most of my life, and I've visited in a good many others, because my father's friends and most of our relatives also lived in parsonages. And when I thought about it in those days, which wasn't too often, I thought this was the worst of them all, the draftiest and the dreariest. Well, that was my state of mind at the time. It's a perfectly good old house, but I was all alone in it then. And that made it seem strange to me. I didn't feel very much at home in the world, that was a face. Now I do.
And now they say my heart is failing. The doctor used the term "angina pectoris," which has a theological sound, like misericordia. Well, you expect these things at my age. My father died an old man, but his sisters didn't live very long, really. So I can only be grateful. I do regret that I have almost nothing to leave you and your mother. A few old books no one else would want. I never made any money to speak of, and I never paid any attention to the money I had. It was the furthest thing from my mind that I'd be leaving a wife and child, believe me. I'd have been a better father if I'd known. I'd have set something by for you.
That is the main thing I want to tell you, that I regret very deeply the hard times I know you and your mother must have gone through, with no real help from me at all, except my prayers, and I pray all the time. I did while I lived, and I do now, too, if that is how things are in the next life.
I can hear you talking with your mother, you asking, she answering. It's not the words I hear, just the sounds of your voices. You don't like to go to sleep, and every night she has to sort of talk you into it all over again. I never hear her sing except at night, from the next room, when she's coaxing you to sleep. And then I can't make out what song it is she's singing. Her voice is very low. It sounds beautiful to me, but she laughs when I say that.
I really can't tell what's beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They're not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They're always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don't know why they don't catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.
When hey saw me coming, of course the joking stopped, but I could see they were still laughing to themselves, thinking what the old preacher almost heard the say.
I felt like telling them, I appreciate a joke as much as anybody. There have been many occasions in my life when I have wanted to say that. But it's not a thing people are willing to accept. They want you to be a little bit apart. I felt like saying, I'm a dying man, and I won't have so many more occasions to laugh, in this world at least. But that would just make them serious and polite, I suppose. I'm keeping my condition a secret as long as I can. For a dying man I feel pretty good, and that is a blessing. Of course your mother knows about it. She said if I feel good, maybe the doctor is wrong. But at my age there's a limit to how wrong he can be.
That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect a find it, either.
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition (November 19, 2004)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 247 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374153892
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374153892
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.7 x 1.16 x 8.52 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #882,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42,134 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #45,823 in American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the bestselling novels "Lila," "Home" (winner of the Orange Prize), "Gilead" (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and "Housekeeping" (winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award).
She has also written four books of nonfiction, "When I Was a Child I Read Books," "Absence of Mind," "Mother Country" and "The Death of Adam." She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
She has been given honorary degrees from Brown University, the University of the South, Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Amherst, Skidmore, and Oxford University. She was also elected a fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford University.
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Customers find the book thought-provoking and spiritually fulfilling. They praise the writing quality as refined, beautiful, and sublime. The story is described as compelling, unique, and realistic. Readers appreciate the well-developed characters and pacing. However, some felt the book was not exciting or engaging enough.
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Customers find the book thought-provoking and spiritual. They appreciate the narrative about faith and theological search for meaning. The story is described as heartwarming and a meditation on the miracle of being. Readers mention that the book is a thoughtful, heartwarming story about life.
"...This is a book to ponder, to read and re-read, and to carry through life as we grow older and find ourselves feeling the need to explain why we are..." Read more
"...liked stream-of-consciousness as a style of writing, and this book is a good example...." Read more
"...It is scattered and covers a wide range of experiences, as the minister's letter--meant for his child, who is too young to understand it yet--jumps..." Read more
"...He mostly comes to the conclusion that the world is a wonderful place, that you should enjoy every minute of it that you can, and that forgiveness..." Read more
Customers find the writing quality of the book excellent. They praise the beautiful, powerful, and sublime prose. The theological musings are insightful and the language is flawless. Readers describe the book as a literary masterpiece with clear language and wisdom.
"...-consciousness style, I appreciate how appropriate it is to this epistolary novel with its many themes...." Read more
"...But the heart of the story is beautifully human and contemplative...." Read more
"...is quite clear why the book won the Pulitzer; the tenderness of the language is nearly flawless, and although his contemplations are never..." Read more
"This is a well written story about a senior citizen, preacher, anticipating the end of his life. The setting is a small town in Iowa...." Read more
Customers enjoy the compelling story and find it unique. They describe it as a sophisticated, realistic novel with epic action. Readers mention that some passages can move them to tears while others make them laugh. The book is described as a blend of narrative and theological elements that brings an amazing unveiling of the truth of Christian faith.
"...match, the human drama at the heart of it makes the entire story compelling in a way that should resonate with many readers...." Read more
"...I like both novels. They are fairly mature and sophisticated novels. I like this novel more than the first one...." Read more
"...among the male friendships; how she has captured the respect, loyalty, love and the challenges of communicating the most intimate aspects of the..." Read more
"...As beautiful as the world's minutiae might be, there's an inherent tedium and laziness to making this philosophy and hope the centering force of a..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's character development. They find the narrator's depth and moral complexity to be commendable. The main character is described as humble, unpretentious, and compassionate.
"...Ames is a good, moral man who is compassionate and attempts to understand his fellow humans...." Read more
"...Set in the small Iowa town of Gilead, the novel is a series of letters from its main character, a preacher from a long line of preachers, to his..." Read more
"...The voice of John Ames is rather folksy, “When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is..." Read more
"This book is wonderful, very thoughtful. Beautifully developed characters dealing sensitively in difficult but loving relationship." Read more
Customers find the book's pacing engaging. They describe the prose as poetic and flowing like nature. The story flows along at a beautiful pace, with nice passages about the pleasures of life.
"...The story moves slowly and includes a lot of narrative about faith. It may not suit the taste of every reader...." Read more
"...n't really pick up until the last quarter of the book, and though it ends movingly, I'm not sure I would have plowed through to the end if this had..." Read more
"...our culture that fit that description and I found this one to be singularly moving and uplifting." Read more
"There is a quaint, slow movement to this book that made me take in smaller snippets at a time, but relish them all more deeply...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's pace. Some find it easy to read, with a fluid writing style and rich perspective. Others feel it takes a long time to get going and is slow-paced.
"...And while the book is definitely slow and contemplative--even the stories of the past rarely ascend beyond a shouting match, the human drama at the..." Read more
"...as the world's minutiae might be, there's an inherent tedium and laziness to making this philosophy and hope the centering force of a book on..." Read more
"...The story revolves around both history and faith. It is a slow moving novel and not an "action" novel...." Read more
"...Robinson's writing style is fluid and easily accessible, her use of language, exact...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's simplicity. Some find the prose clear and concise, exploring ideas without oversimplification. Others feel the ruminations are tedious and boring, making it difficult to get into the book. Overall, opinions vary on the book's complexity.
"...more, is devoted to Ames’ theological ruminations, which struck me as tedious...." Read more
"...Her prose is clear, concise, and at the same time infuses a lyrical grace into her sentences...." Read more
"...In this sense, the book is good but very demanding, it makes you devout your full attention to it, it's not a page turner and sometimes one simply..." Read more
"...found the first 25 pages and last 25 pages to be ok but everything in the middle was tedious...." Read more
Customers find the book dull and difficult to read. They say it's not an exciting read, a mystery, or a great story about a hero. The preacher is bland and indecisive, making it disappointing and annoying by the end.
"...Gilead is not an easy or quick read. Be prepared to reread passages, especially those with theological depth...." Read more
"...This is not a story for the inattentive, or even for those who simply prefer a straightforward plot...." Read more
"...The story more or less meanders and there is little action. This is the second novel of Marilynne Robinson...." Read more
"...Structurally, I find the book a bit of a difficult read...." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2012I've read many good books, many bad books, and many mediocre books over the course of my lifetime. There is a fourth category, however, which I call "Books-That-Stir-Your-Soul" (BTSYS). You know, the ones that start something warm coursing down your chest, speaking to you in a way you never knew possible, and making you conscious in a new way. Books in this category are few, but include Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Faulkner's Light in August and As I Lay Dying, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Your list will probably differ, but you get the idea.
There is now an addition to my BTSYS list, a novel by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead (Picador, New York, 2004). This is not a new book, but I only encountered it upon reviewing Marilynne Robinson's recent book of essays, When I Was A Child I Read Books. In the process, I found myself in awe of Ms. Robinson's ability to express the ineffable with words that wrap themselves around you and then pull tight the knots of meaning in an unforgettable way.
The book's title refers to a place, a small community in Iowa, not far from the Kansas border. The time frame is the early 1950s. The narrator is a man named John Ames, a seventy-six (soon to be seventy-seven) year old Congregationalist minister. The entire book is a letter to his six-year old son. John's heart is giving out, and he will soon die. In the letter, he is telling his young son--born of a late-in-life marriage to a much younger woman--about himself, his life, his family, and his faith.
In this letter, Ames confronts his family's history. He is the son of a preacher, whose grandfather was an abolitionist preacher during the years of "Bloody Kansas." His grandfather hovers over this story and reminiscences abound about how the old man rode with John Brown and how he sometimes stood in the pulpit with a pistol and bloody clothing. These were the stories John Ames heard from his father, but all he remembered about Grandpa was the way the old man would look at him, as if knowing what was in his mind, and how he had a habit of just taking stuff from other people. The people around Gilead just came to accept the old man's idiosyncrasies.
The love story between Ames and his wife, who showed up at a service on a Pentecost and who seemed to be taken by the much older man's kind and gentle ways, is the reredos behind the story: the curtain is parted only slightly in his portrayal of the woman, but she remains largely a mystery to us. We do know that she loved John enough to give him a child in his old age and to fill his life with love long after he lost his first wife and child. When the ne'er do well son of his closest friend, a Presbyterian minister he grew up with, arrives back in Gilead John begins to notice that his wife and son seem taken by the younger man and John's creeping mortality begins to work on his fears for the future.
The themes that streak though this novel include respect, something people had for one another in earlier times; and light. Images are constantly appearing about the light, and it intrudes upon life in the most unexpected moments, such as when his young son and a friend are playing in the sprinkler:
"The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare... I've always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water."
The phrase "in the way we go about it" refers to the fact that John's denomination baptizes by sprinkling, not immersion. This issue and many other religious questions pop up in his letter, only to make very evident that there is a real difference between his faith lived and that same faith observed from outside. This is why atheists as well as Christians should read Gilead. Much of what those who attack Christianity base their attacks on are misunderstandings. For example, when confronted with a sincere question about salvation, particularly the famously Calvinist notion that God has pre-determined who is saved and who is damned before they are born, John addresses this question with a startling lack of dogmatism and comes down decidedly on the side of a merciful God.
John Ames is not a man who bases his life on dogma. He is a believer who understands the intricacies of faith and does not rest on its supposed certainties. And, in spite of the fact that Christianity is often seen as a life-denying faith, John's statement in this letter to the child he will not see grow up makes it quite clear that his faith is anything but. In fact, faith is the element in his life that adds the sparkle to existence.
"Remembering my youth," writes John, "makes me aware that I never really had enough of it, it was over before I was done with it...Oh, I will miss the world!"
This is a book to ponder, to read and re-read, and to carry through life as we grow older and find ourselves feeling the need to explain why we are the way they are to those we are about to leave behind. Most people don't really think about it, however. What a shame. Letters like this from parents a just might help to make our children better human beings.
Unfortunately, the notion of what a "better human being" is may seem strange to a world that demands empirical demonstrations for every concept. If you are among those, don't read this book. Unless you want to rethink some of your basic assumptions.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020I do most of my reading and reviewing as a solitary occupation until I publish my thoughts on a book. I was glad to have read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson as a part of a book club where we could all bounce our reflections on the book off the mirrors of the impressions of others. The member of our group who suggested this book had read it several times. When I first began the book, I could not imagine enduring more than one reading. I have never liked stream-of-consciousness as a style of writing, and this book is a good example. John Ames, a Congregationalist minister, puts pen to paper to share his final thoughts with his young son, the things he would have told him as he grew, were their age difference not so pronounced. Having finished the book, I reread the first page to gather my thoughts and was amazed at what a perfect beginning it holds, carefully crafted and full of promise.
Although I still don’t favor the stream-of-consciousness style, I appreciate how appropriate it is to this epistolary novel with its many themes. The setting is the Midwestern town of Gilead that was once part of the underground railroad. Racial issues keep popping up at the most unexpected times in this book. Much of the story deals with relationships across generations. Without strict attention, it can be difficult to sort out which generation is being referenced. There are many ministers in the family line, but father and son bonds can be troublesome as the characters struggle to answer for themselves what is required to have a good life. Another level of complication is added in the thread of John’s namesake, Jack, the son of his best friend Robert who is also a pastor. There are undertones of the Biblical story of the “Prodigal Son” in some of those difficult associations. John, who never says anything bad about anyone, will leave behind a loving wife with a mysterious past, a much loved son, and boxes and boxes of sermons. How will he be remembered?
Gilead is not an easy or quick read. Be prepared to reread passages, especially those with theological depth. Some I just had to walk away from; others benefited from group discussion. I plodded through the first half of disparate pieces; I was fascinated with the second half as those pieces came together to form a beautiful design. At some point I probably will reread Gilead after I stand apart a bit and allow the characters of Gilead to become a comfortable part of my vision of “the good life.”
Top reviews from other countries
- DenyseReviewed in Canada on November 23, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars A good read
Not finished yet but a great story teller! If you enjoy good writing, highly recommend.
- María AlejandraReviewed in Germany on January 20, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars An ember of a book
I am thankful for this book. I loved the pace it establishes for us to get to know the life of a man and his people. I am in awe at the surprises the author weaved. An extraordinary talented person wrote this story.
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estrellaReviewed in Spain on October 26, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars ha llegado en perfecto estado y en la fecha prevista
me ha gustado el precio y la rapida entrega
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Cliente AmazonReviewed in Brazil on November 15, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
This is a reflexive book about faith, life, choices... everything in a good story that you can't stop reading! Amazing!
- DeepReviewed in India on July 8, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read
A great piece of work penned down by Marilnne Robinson. This book is a delightful read and i breezed through pages and chapters.
It was gift and what a gift it turned out to be. I have recommended this book to my friends and families. Gilead, a book about fathers and sons, where Housekeeping was a book about girls and women, and fragmentary where one of Housekeeping's achievements was its fluid narrative completeness, takes an opposing narratorial position with a protagonist whose insider credentials could not be stronger.
It reads like something written in a gone time. So much so that when Ames's child draws Messerschmitts and Spitfires, it is actually shocking. This is part of its purpose, to be a conscious narration to the future from someone whose time was different and is over. "I believe I'll make an experiment with candour here," Ames says in letters which will eventually reveal his own opacity, as Robinson discreetly disrupts the monology.
A book about the damaged heart of America, it is part vibrant and part timeworn, a slow burn of a read with its "crepuscular" narrator, its repetitions, its careful languidity.