Jul 25

Jul 25 Gilead (Gilead, #1)

Author: Marilynne Robinson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
View on Goodreads

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Cover Description

Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Marilynne Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order" (Slate). In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and the often unbearable beauty of an ordinary life.

TL;DR Review

Gilead is an epistolary novel about a minister nearing the end of his life. I found it a tad slow in the middle, but very beautifully written.

For you if: You are drawn in by people struggling with mortality, or religious concepts, or civil war history.

Full Review

“I’d never have believed I’d see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time I think of it. I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you.”

I ready Gilead because it’s the prerequisite to Home, which won the Women’s Prize in 2009, and I’m working my way through all the past Women’s Prize winners. Gilead did win the Pulitzer, though, and it certainly reads like a Pulitzer winner. Beautiful prose, a bit cerebral, touching subject matter.

Gilead is an epistolary novel, “written by” the main character, John Ames. He is an elderly protestant minister who married late, has a young son, and recently learned that his heart is failing. He starts a sort of diary to tell his son all the things he’ll never get to tell him in person, including the history of his grandfather, who was a free soiler in Kansas, and his father. Along the way, he also narrates what’s happening in the current moment with his good friend and his friend’s son, who has returned to town following a questionable past.

I really loved the beginning and the ending of this novel. They drew me in and really tugged at my heart. In the middle of the novel, though, I found myself a wishing it would move along faster. I just wasn’t necessarily interested in the things that interested John Ames. I understand and absolutely admire the craft here, the portrait of a man grappling with the prospect of his death, coming to terms with it, finding his way to calm when it comes to the grudges he’s held in the past. But it lost me a little.

Still, there’s no denying that this book is beautiful and incredibly impressive, and I’m glad I read it. I recommend it especially if you are religious and Christian, or grappling with age or mortality.