Gilead (Oprah's Book Club): A NovelHardcover

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. The time frame is twentieth century America. The protagonist is looking backward and composing a very lengthy letter to a young son about his life and the history of his family. The story revolves around both history and faith. It is a slow moving novel and not an "action" novel.

The novel itself is essentially one very long letter. It is written in first person. The writer is a man of the cloth, who is seventy seven years of age, who has a medical condition and anticipates death. He nonetheless has a very young son. He feels he will die with his son having little or no memory of him.

I liked the novel very much. There is a lot of narrative about faith. At times, not always, the story sounds like a sermon in church. This may not appeal the taste of every reader. The story more or less meanders and there is little action.

This is the second novel of Marilynne Robinson. The first is "Housekeeping". I read that novel first. I like both novels. They are fairly mature and sophisticated novels. I like this novel more than the first one. However I am glad that I read both of them.

In summary I liked this novel very much and have become of a fan of Marilynne Robinson. The story moves slowly and includes a lot of narrative about faith. It may not suit the taste of every reader. In case a reader enjoys Marilynne Robinson, for what it is worth, her writing reminds me somewhat of Joan Didion's "Run River". Thank You...

Reading this book is like reading poetry written in prose. Each phrase is full, rich, radiant. The images and metaphors bring out meaning that's beyond the actual words or stories. It's a book that touches the reader deep inside, and it's not a book to rush through. It's meant to be savored.

Written in the form of a letter, this is the account of a dying man writing to his young son. John Ames, the narrator, is a pastor in rural Iowa. He's writing in hopes of giving his son a picture of who he is and where he has come from - in hopes of overcoming the fact that his son will likely be left with only vague memories of him as an old man. The letter takes on a life of its own. It becomes a record of his thoughts, a plunge into his memories, a confession of his fears.

The characters in this book are deep - and very real. John Ames is a man full of life, hope, and kindness. He's a man who's struggled with bitter loneliness, and been pulled out of it into a renewed wonder at life in his old age. In the course of his stories and musings, we are introduced to other memorable people in his life: his fiery abolitionist grandfather, his quietly intense wife, his difficult and struggling namesake. One comes away from this book with renewed understanding of the depth and struggles of humanity.

John Ames is a very spiritual man, and this book deals perceptively with what it means to live a faithful and devoted life. Though it's about a pastor, it's not "preachy." Many of John Ames' struggles are with the interaction between his faith and his life. He asks the tough questions, and learns more of how to live out love and forgiveness.

No, this book isn't a page turner. But it's beautifully and subtly written and has incredible depth in its characters. It's a book that will impact your perspective on what it means to be human.

Deeply touching and powerful in its prose, this story will take the reader to a world where one can almost hear a dandelion seed glance against a tree leaf; a world where children's chores were still required and marriage was viewed as sacred. It is a world that is dying, with its memories passed on only in writing. The gentle brushes of the wind in this world are being replaced by the chaotic vortices of change in the twenty-first century. Its nuances are not to be experienced any more. But a close approximation can be, by the reading of this story.

One should not view John Ames in the confines of his Christian beliefs, for these beliefs were only part of who he is. They were his personal schema; sometimes active, sometimes brought into his attentive consciousness, but at times replaced by others. One could easily view his beliefs as flexible, as tolerating different worldviews, or as ones where Christian steps can take different routes. "There are many ways to live a good life," he writes in the first paragraph.

Being a minister, people insisted that he be a "little bit apart." He was not permitted to engage in humor, or appreciate the same. People changed the subject when they saw him coming, but also were able to confide in him things that they would never to anyone else. Religion is frequently a catharsis, but not always. He recognizes also the destructive power of anger, which them must be constrained by an upper bound, both in degree and frequency.

And religious beliefs, like all others, find their origin in the surroundings, in the context in which one finds oneself. He was a "pious child" from a "pious household" in a "pious town". Such an environment affected his behavior greatly, he writes.

He has read Ludwig Feuerbach as well as Karl Barth, and he holds the optimism of the former to be just as valuable as the wisdom of the latter. The atheism of Feuerbach he tolerates, because Feuerbach "loves the world." His optimism is refreshing and realistic. He wakes up every morning and celebrates his existence and the efficacy of his mind. Grief and loneliness are rare in this life; peace and comfort are the norm. And in a moment of exuberance, he tries to dance to a waltz, not having been trained in the steps. No mind as optimistic as his can finish life without a dance. It is impossible.

Even his conception of God is interlaced with his optimism; bound tightly by it. It is one where God is not judgmental, but one where God takes pleasure in the viewing of his creatures. We are all "actors on a stage, " and "God is the audience."

In the most awesome passage from the book, he declares with humility and with understatement that "this is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it."

He's right.

I'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.

I was wary at first of a book that references the Bible and has such a slow cadence but it worked its magic. It’s like the antidote to modern life. I love the beauty of the language and the gentle voice of the narrator. I love how deep his self reflection goes and how much joy and beauty he finds in so many small perfect things. I appreciated the familiarity of his depiction of small town America. It made me think of the world my grandparents and great aunts and uncles had in Minnesota many years ago. I look forward to the other books in this series.