I just finished "reading" Marilynne Robinson's novel "Gilead". I use quotes because I tried Audible to listen to a narration by actor Tim Jerome. I have to say I liked it especially since the voice I hear in my head when I read is not nearly as dramatic and sonorous. Perhaps from too much technical reading. I actually have a paper copy and later started reading along with the narration which seemed to enhance the experience. Expensive way to go, however.
It is 1956. The narrator in the novel is a 76 year old preacher who is slowly dying from a heart ailment. Except for seminary, he lived his whole life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a posthumous letter to his young boy, a child by a young wife he married late in his life, to read in the future when he is old enough to understand. It chronicles the intergenerational tensions and attachments between three generations of preachers and other characters. His grandfather was a fiery John Brown abolitionist preacher who participated in the Kansas troubles and later served in the Union Army as a chaplain. The book is filled with theological and philosophical musings underscored with a deep loving wonder at being and life. Feuerbach, Barth, Augustine, Calvin play their parts. This was a moving and joyful book.
I had previously read a collection of essays, "Absence of Mind". by Robinson on mind and consciousness. She can express very much with a single sentence. I don't know how to explain it but it's like high density thought. Are any of you folks familiar with her?
I read Gilead a few years back, and I liked it. I enjoyed the back-and -forth between the main character
ReplyDeleteJohn Ames and his friend, who, if I am remembering correctly, was also a preacher, of a different denomination. I found the relationship between John and his young son touching. The part I didn't find particularly believable was that John married Lila, who was pretty much the antithesis of a likely preacher's wife. Though it did make a good literary device.
I see that Marilynne Robinson has written another book, called "Jack", which I haven't read. I'm a little reluctant to read it because Jack was the son of John's preacher friend, and was kind of a hot mess of a character in Gilead.
Ms. Robinson wrote a good, if disquieting, article on gun violence in Washington Post lately: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/17/marilynne-robinson-gun-violence-plague-evolving-dangerously/
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYes, Katherine, the marriage, with Lila making the proposal, seemed to come out of nowhere. Perhaps the book "Lila" in the Gilead series answers those questions. I expect to read them all now. I believe there are four books. Rev. Ames seems to indicate that even among those who love each other, there is a great distance, difficulty in knowing what is going on in other people's minds. The books, I suppose, will do that.
DeleteYes, I read it a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI recognize that it is very good, very erudite, captures a particular strain of American Protestantism without actually naming the denomination, and Robinson is a much decorated writer.
But I didn't connect with the character's penchant for philosophizing. I felt his letter to his son was a way of indulging his own musings than in spending any real time with the kid before it was too late. I don't think that's what most parents would spend their last days doing, so it seemed kind of artificial to me.
Glad to know that I’m not the only one who wasn’t as enthusiastic about this book as most of the rest of the English speaking world.
DeleteI appreciate that it tries to capture the spirit of someone with a deep faith. I do think she managed to make him seem humble and devout without being saccharine. It's a hard line to walk in this day and age when there is so much outright distrust or even open contempt for organized religion.
DeleteTo me, the quality of the man's faith was descended from his abolitionist grandfather's faith, which even led the grandfather to violent action in the Civil War. Ames' father was a pacifist during the Great War and his pacifist preaching didn't suit the grandfather. Both father and grandfather eventually leave Gilead. But Ames stays to his death. He is incarnated in Gilead, not a philosophy or theology, but a place.
Delete"Gilead" is an interesting place name with lots of reverberations--a place of healing, a place of testimony, a place where men contend. All of those things seem significant in John Ames's story. It's been a long time since I read the novel, though.
DeleteInteresting that Robinson weighs in on the gun problem. I suppose she has to, given her love of being and life. The events in Uwalde and Buffalo haunt my thinking these days.
ReplyDeleteMy protege Damien advertises his Hoboken block party on FB. My brain presents an image of a madman with an AR-15 firing into the celebrating crowd.
My friends Lou and Sue recently had me over for dinner. Their son was visiting with his girlfriend and her two energetic sweet little girls by a former marriage. I pictured them at Uwalde. Given their father is Haitian, I could picture them at the Buffalo scene as well.
Sometimes I think I'm starting to participate in a collective PTSD. I'm at the point where I'd ban anything besides hunting rifles and five-shot revolvers. Or even them as well. Whatever it takes. Time to kill the demonic second amendment.
It was Pride Day at the local farmers market here.
DeleteThere were some folks with an LGBTQ booth at the on one end of the market where civic groups or local talent can rent some stage space. The pride booth was giving out free water and snacks and providing info about bullying and mental health and legal resources for LGBTQ people.
Two blocks away, on the other end of the market, a preacher with a bullhorn was holding up his Bible, reading out Old Testament passages about sodomites, and talking about the gay agenda grooming kids. The preacher grew more strident as people ignored him, but he kept out of the market proper. A truck driven by his supporters with Trump and Don't Tread on Me flags was buzzing up and down the perimeter, occasionally honking.
Two pairs of cops were patrolling on foot. They chatted with the people at the pride booth, and then moseyed down to the other end and hung around for awhile chatting with the Trump truck people.
Thanks to the cops having a friendly word for everyone and staying visible, things didn't escalate.
But the truck made me think of that nut that drove into a demonstration in Virginia a few years ago. And those guys don't usually drive around armed just with flags.
So yah we all know how things can turn really ugly on a dime.
Stanley, I think you are right that we are in a time of collective PTSD. I think even the pro-gun people have it, because they think they have to have their guns to defend against their neighbors and the government ("remember Ruby Ridge!")
DeleteThe only notice around here given to Pride Week (or was it month?) was a text from some of my church friends linking an opinion piece in the local paper by a young man in the the community basically saying we shouldn't celebrate Pride anything since pride is one of the deadly sins and we also shouldn't celebrate sexual deviance. The point of the text was that we should e mail the paper in support of the author of the piece, because apparently the editor pulled the piece when they got some pushback.
The pushback was likely from family members of LGTB people. It's funny but even fundamentalists and conservative Christians usually find a way to accept their family members who come out.
One of the assumptions people make about the Pride movement is that it is all about sex. I see it more as people accepting themselves. They may not even be sexually active.
I can't see pulling anti-pride editorials. Let them rant. It helps people know who the haters are.
DeleteRaber's niece made a coming out announcement about a year ago, not long after her mom died. Raber, to my surprise, was very quick to reassure her that we would always love her and be her aunt and uncle. Normally he keeps tight-lipped about anything controversial in his family. However, he said wanted her to know that not all Christians were fear-mongering bigots.
Now if he just could have kept his mouth shut around my Trump-loving Okie brother we might all still be on speaking terms....
Jean, so happy to hear about Raber's words of support. To my mind, that's what Catholics do.
Delete