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When I Was a Child I Read Books

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 621 ratings · 166 reviews

Since the 1981 publication of Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping—a stunning debut that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize—she has built a sterling reputation not only as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam—in which she reflected on her Presbyterian u

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Hardcover, 224 pages

Published March 13th 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published March 2012)

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Jun 23, 2012 Thing Two rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mfa-iowa-writer-s-workshop, books-you-might-have-missed, books-favorite-non-fiction

As you can probably tell from the number of times I posted interesting thoughts from these essays, I loved this collection! I read Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and was disappointed, not because of what he was arguing, but by the lack of research he presented with his argument. He seemed to want to say, "I'm Christopher Hitchens and here's what I think ..." and that was that. Marilynne Robinson is polar opposite from Hitchens, not only in beliefs, but i...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Ty rated it 4 of 5 stars

"I would say, for the moment, that community, at least community larger than the immediate family, consists very largely of imaginative love for people we do not know or whom we know very slightly. This thesis may be influenced by the fact that I have spent literal years of my life lovingly absorbed in the thoughts and perceptions of - who knows it better than I? - people who do not exist. And, just as writers are engrossed in the making of them, readers are profoundly moved and also influenced...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Joel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-bought

I don't mean to be overdramatic, but each book I read by Marilynne Robinson gives me slightly more hope that we are not doomed. This book, like much of her work, is ultimately about taking human experience -- that is, the history of ourselves and our institutions of culture, religion, politics, education, and so on --seriously when we consider what and who we are.

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Jun 06, 2012 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-about-books

I’ll go ahead and say it: Marilynne Robinson is too smart for me. I can be a lazy reader, seeking the quick answer, the easy answer.

This is not a book for lazy readers. It is not a book for simple readers.

Robinson is thoughtful and compassionate and deep. She sees past the first obvious answer and the second obvious answer and offers explanations that are unexpected and which embrace all we bring to a book. She is spiritual without being dogmatic and she is kind without leaving truth behind.

A b...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Vivian Valvano rated it 5 of 5 stars

These are essays, most of which were published earlier in slightly different form. Robinson's breadth of knowledge and elegance of style are humbling. In many of these essays, she presents formidable commentary on the American project - its past, its present, and its future. Her own deep roots in the American West (she was raised in Idaho and, of course, completely knows the Iowa that imbues much of her fiction), enriched by her enormous capacities for reading, interpretation, and discourse on A...more These are essays, most of which were published earlier in slightly different form. Robinson's breadth of knowledge and elegance of style are humbling. In many of these essays, she presents formidable commentary on the American project - its past, its present, and its future. Her own deep roots in the American West (she was raised in Idaho and, of course, completely knows the Iowa that imbues much of her fiction), enriched by her enormous capacities for reading, interpretation, and discourse on American history, literature, and culture yield essays that are meant for the sophisticated or searching reader. Her religious upbringing (Christian/Presbyterian) and expert knowledge of religious and philosophical texts also play an important influence, but in only one essay did I find her occasionally veerin toward proselytizing ("The Fate of Ideas: Moses.") Overall, I was left stunned - in awe and admiration. She begins her Preface with marvelous quotations from the incomparable Walt Whitman (who provides enough religion for me; he is my comfort and my joy). Despite the length that this review will be, I'll take the liberty of quoting from Robinson, lines that I find paricularly memorable. "To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again" ("Freedom of Thought" 18). "A man in Alabama asked me how I felt the West was different from the East and the South, and I replied that in the West 'lonesome' is a word with strongly positive connotations" ("When I Was a Child I Read Books" 88). "Rousseau said men are born free, yet everywhere they are in chains. Since the time of the Hebrew prophets it has been the role of the outsider to loosen these chains, or lengthen them, if only by bringing the rumor of a life lived otherwise. That said, I must say how beautfiful human society seems to me, especially in those attenuated forms so characteristic of the West - isolated towns and single houses which sometimes offer only the merest, barest amenities: light, warmth, supper, familiarity. We have colonized a hostile planet, and we must stanch every opening where cold and dark might pour through forgotten seasons beside the Euphrates, or in Eden. At a certain level housekeeping is a regime of small kindnesses, which taken together, make the world salubrious, savory, and warm. I think of the acts of comfort offered and received within a household as precisely sacramental. It is the sad tendency of domesticity - as of piety - to contract and of grace to decay into rigor and peace into tedium" (When I Was a Child ..." 93). "I tell my students, language is music. Written words are musical notation. The music of a piece of fiction establishes the way in which it is to be read, and, in the largest sense, what it means" ("Wondrous Love" 130). "I was traveling from Iowa to NY with my son not long after September 11. We pasdsed a great many of those tall highway signs that usually advertise harware sales and dinner specials. Most of them said, GOD BLESS AMERICA. Only one of them said GOD HAS BLESSED AMERICA. Yes, he has. He has blessed us with one another. We have had an extraordinary experience here together" ("Wondrous Love" 138). "In this universe of wonders and astonishments, perhaps we should allow for the possibility that something remarkale occurred in the eons between the emergence of whatever life-form began the movement toward humanity and the realization of this tendency in humankind. I would propose that there intervened a capacity for morally significant behavior, a singular capacity to do harm. And good as well, of course, though one crucial form of goodness, the ability to refrain from harm even despite our best efforts, is a gift we seem to lack" ("Cosmology" 186). "The meteoric passage of humankind through cosmic history has left a brilliant trail. Call it history, call it culture. We came from somewhere and we are tending somewhere, and the spectacle is glorious and portentous. The study of our trajectory would yield insight into human nature, and into the nature of being itself" (Cosmology" 201-2)."(less)

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Mar 25, 2013 David rated it 1 of 5 stars

Sometimes I dislike a book and can't imagine anyone else liking it. This is not such a book. You might like it, but I didn't. I like essays, and her topics (mostly religion, intellectual history, American society/culture) are important and interesting. She teaches at U. Iowa writers' workshop, and I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something about her writing, but whatever; i didn't care for it. Trying to analyze a little more deeply why not.....

here's a typical excerpt, re John Shelby...more Sometimes I dislike a book and can't imagine anyone else liking it. This is not such a book. You might like it, but I didn't. I like essays, and her topics (mostly religion, intellectual history, American society/culture) are important and interesting. She teaches at U. Iowa writers' workshop, and I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something about her writing, but whatever; i didn't care for it. Trying to analyze a little more deeply why not.....

here's a typical excerpt, re John Shelby Spong's "why Christianity must change or die":

"In fairness, Christianity also suffers terribly at the hands of Bishop Spong, though he may not be wholly conscious of this fact. He gives an account, with Episcopal self-assurance, of what Christians believe, which I, who have long answered to that description, read with true astonishment." (p. 98)

It's not the wordiness itself that gets to me, though this is a long way of saying "I disagree with his account of what Christians believe.". I think what's annoying about it to me is (a) hyperbole (read with true astonishment), (b) seemingly pointless circumlocution ("have long answered to that description" -- really? people describe you as Christian and you agree? or you're just saying you're Christian.), and (c) condescension (with Episcopal self-assurance, not..wholly conscious....).

Another excerpt, from an essay about growing up in Idaho:

"A man in Alabama asked me how I felt the West was different from the East and the South, and I replied that in the West "lonesome" is a word with strongly positive connotations. I must have phrased my answer better at the time, because both he and I were struck by the aptness of the remark, and people in Alabama are far too sensitive to language to be pleased with a phrase such as "strongly positive connotations". For the moment, it will have to serve however." (p. 88).

OK, so to start we have the kernel of a semi-interesting observation - being a loner is viewed more favorably in the West. Not the first time I've heard that, but no problem. At this point, though, you could give an anecdote about being accepted as a bookish introverted young person in Idaho, or cite a character from a movie, or contrast the ease with which you fit in the West vs. in midwest later in life, or a hundred different possibilities. Maybe the worst choice (IMO) is to locate this observation as being something you said to someone (boring, no more vivid or informative than just saying it now), report that you can't remember how you put it (then why include this fragment of conversation?), brag that you undoubtedly put it well because both of you were struck by how well (ugh) and wrap it up with disingenuous "for the moment" (you're publishing this -- it's forever, not for the moment).

Probably shouldn't go on at such length. I'm just trying to figure out why I hated this book so much. Oh well. Next!(less)

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Mar 10, 2013 Chuck Lowry rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was, I thought, a very complex book. There were parts of it I liked and thought very useful, and parts which I thought were just regurgitation, and not very helpful regurgitation, of a party platform.

Parts of it are very sensible, almost a no nonsense reminder of a lot of things. In particular she does a great job of "rehabilitating" the Old Testament, which is generally regarded by readers, both believers and non-believers, as the almost crude and narrow retelling of a tribal history. Ins...more This was, I thought, a very complex book. There were parts of it I liked and thought very useful, and parts which I thought were just regurgitation, and not very helpful regurgitation, of a party platform.

Parts of it are very sensible, almost a no nonsense reminder of a lot of things. In particular she does a great job of "rehabilitating" the Old Testament, which is generally regarded by readers, both believers and non-believers, as the almost crude and narrow retelling of a tribal history. Instead she highlights not only the command to charity, but the extension of that command outside the genetic range, to foreigners and travelers and strangers and those seeking refuge. In that part, she conveys a very powerful corrective message. There are parts of the book, too, that can only be described as beautiful. She talks at one point (p. 127) about how and why Christmas and Easter are so universally observed: "Christmas and Easter are so full of church pageant and family custom that it is entirely possible to forget how the stories told on those two days did indeed rupture history and leave the world changed, implausible as that may seem. At the same time, they have created a profound continuity. If we sometimes feel adrift from humankind, as if our technology-mediated life on this planet has deprived us of the brilliance of the night sky, the smell and companionship of mules and horses, the plain food and physical peril and weariness that made our great-grandparents' lives so much more like the life of Jesus than any we can imagine, then we can remind ourselves that these stories have stirred billions of souls over thousands of years, just as they stir our souls and our children's. What gives them their power? They tell us that there is a great love that has intervened in history, making itself known in terms that are startlingly, and inexhaustible, palpable to us as human beings. They are tales of love, lovingly enacted once, and afterward cherished and retold--by the grace of God, certainly, because they are, after all, the narrative of an obscure life in a minor province. Caesar Augustus was also said to be divine, but there aren't any songs about him."

Mixed in with all this, though, is a collection of political attitudes and prescriptions that are so far outside the realm of reality that I do not know where to begin. I shall give only a couple examples. At one point she discusses Churchill's Iron Curtain speech. At the end, she launches into a couple paragraphs that pretty clearly set up an almost exact moral equivalence between the West and Stalin in the immediate post-war period. That is insane enough to be actively offensive. The Berlin Wall, you will recall, was put up not to keep people fleeing to East Berlin but to keep them from fleeing from it. The moral bankruptcy of her assertion can be established by the most simple of tests: look at the places the West administered after the war (West Germany, Italy, Japan) and the places the Soviets administered after the war (East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania) and decide where you would have wanted to live. You can make your decision based on free elections and representative government, economic freedom, economic prosperity, freedom of religion, freedom of travel and emigration, freedom of the press and right of petition, you know, any of the standards.

She also has some very odd economic notions. While I admire her sometimes almost harsh insistence on our adherence to the obligation to charity, I am puzzled by how she expects this to work out practically. She makes the point, very stridently, that people who are worried about the debt and deficits are merely looking for an excuse to shirk the obligation to provide for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the sick, the elderly. I object, as Perry Mason might say. Until we live in a world where freely shared resources outstrip the requirements of all the needy--and I don't see it on the horizon--what we need is not charity, but intelligent charity. What do we do when we simply run out of money? What do we do when we have borrowed (as we currently do) all the surplus receipts from the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds for ongoing government operations once those funds are running a deficit (coming soon enough in both cases, as recipients increase and contributors decline) and we don't have the money to make the beneficiary payments without eliminating the school lunch program and FDA meat inspectors? I would love to live in a world where there is plenty for everybody, but I don't, and that means that I have to meet my obligation of charity with intelligent planning. I cannot just max out my credit cards, give the money to the poor and assume that it will somehow get paid. And the government can't do it either. If we make no provision for sensible budgets and economic growth, believe me, it won't be the rich who suffer. They never do. It will be the poor. There was no more socialistic society than the monasteries, and yet even the monks realized this with the grip on realism they bequeathed to us in a pithy phrase: nemo dat quod non habet, no one gives what he does not have. I wish that I had more to give, could be more useful to the poor, but the fact is that if I do not manage my resources wisely, and as a citizen, insist that the government manage its resources wisely, I'll have nothing for the poor, and eventually I'll have nothing for myself and my family. And how will anyone be better off when that happens?

How do the good elements and the perplexing elements and the troubling elements of the book balance themselves out? I'm not sure yet, and I don't suppose I ever shall be.(less)

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Dec 10, 2012 McCutcheon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is highbrow essays, and I don't mean a comment on how so many serious academic types have wiry eyebrows.

Ok, there is a theme as she is a writer and also a teacher and maybe even a theologian. I don't know. Some of it deals with, maybe- if we are made in God's image are we really supposed to like Jersey Shore (or impute any current reality show). Do we need to dumb down to understand beauty in our complex civilization.

Is yelling 'Oh God!' at sexual climax Old Testament or New Testament. Dep...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Scarlett Sims rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: church-book-group, contemporary, essays, literature, memoir, philosophical, political, real, religious, scholarly

Marilynne Robinson is an author respected in both Christian and secular circles. She has written a few novels as well, but this collection of essays was the first I had read of her. I'll give her fiction a chance, but probably won't be delving into any more of her non-fiction.

Her writing style, while skilled, isn't the kind of thing I enjoy reading. Often times the sentences are really complex and I find myself searching through paragraphs to find an antecedent to no avail. It's also not always...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Pamela rated it 5 of 5 stars

I bought this collection after listening to Robinson interviewed about it on NPR. I was captured by her comment (I don't know how accurately I remember it) that she has always been fascinated with the fact of interiority--that magnificent and nearly unique feature of human existence. These essays don't in fact talk a great deal about that point (I've just purchased Robinson's Absence of Mind, which I expect to say more), instead taking on another interesting topic, the concept of liberality. "Li...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Virginia Bryant added it

clunky in an academic way in parts, and i do not hold some of this authors core views, but good poetic writing in parts.

On the vernacular of the "american hero, the man of whom nothing can ever really be known"-"Only lonesomeness allows one to experience (this) sort of radical singularity: one's greatest dignity and privilege. Understanding this permits one to understand the sacred poetry in strangeness, silence and otherness."- -- well, also, perhaps most of us that are grown and possibly good...more clunky in an academic way in parts, and i do not hold some of this authors core views, but good poetic writing in parts.

On the vernacular of the "american hero, the man of whom nothing can ever really be known"-"Only lonesomeness allows one to experience (this) sort of radical singularity: one's greatest dignity and privilege. Understanding this permits one to understand the sacred poetry in strangeness, silence and otherness."- -- well, also, perhaps most of us that are grown and possibly good company will understand this form of singularity.

also, i like her definition of frontier as "the movement of European origin people into a part of the world where they had no business being".

and this "At a certain level housekeeping is a regime of small kindnesses, which, taken together, make the world salubrious, savory and warm. I think of the acts of comfort offered and received within a household as precisely sacramental." which is not an earth shatteringly unique in sentiment,( this sort of thing can be found in most womens' devotional day books), but gives a taste of the more appealing writings here. It gets better, as in here on the "evolution of the west"...."the idea of human nature has become the opposite of what it was when the myth of the west began, and now people who are less shaped and constrained by society are assumed to be disabled and dangerous" eehaw! mea culpa. ha!

In the chapter on "the human spirit and the good society"- "Every civilization, including this one, has always been able to reason its way into ignoring or denying the most minimal claims to justice in any form that deserves the name. The temptation is always present and powerful because the the rationalizations are always ready to hand." This goes on to describe the seemingly innate tendency we have to demonize those we perceive as "other" . In the Constitution, "Jefferson makes the human person sacred, once by creation and again by endowment, and thereby sets individual rights outside the reach of rationalization."
If. Only.

This is good on mystery and unknowingness, "If we do not know the character of being itself- I have never seen anyone suggest that we do know it- then there is an inevitable superficiality in any claim to an exhaustive description of anything that participates in being. And the assertion of the existence, or nonexistence, of God is the ultimate exhaustive description. The difference between theism and new atheist science is the difference between mystery and certainty" (not quite sure I agree with this totally, but the idea is good) "Certainty is a relic, an atavism, a husk we ought to have outgrown" go girl! "Mystery is openness to possibility, even at the scale now implied by physics and cosmology. The primordial human tropism toward mystery may well have provided the impetus for all we have learned". yes.
Late in the book, there are lots of spirited scholarly defenses of the morality of the old testament, not all convincing, but some give pause for thought.
if its on this list, i read the whole thing, and in itself, that is a recommendation.(less)

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Jun 17, 2012 Jessica Stock rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am really loving everything I read by Marilynne Robinson. This is a compilation of thoughtful essays on topics ranging from the global debt crisis to religion and education, as well as the titled essay of her childhood spent reading books. I especially loved her essay titled "Open Thy Hand Wide: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism," in which she argues that the Old Testament is more truly liberal than many theological camps have recognized. My favorite quote came from a chapter titled...more

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May 16, 2012 Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars

Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, "Housekeeping", was published in 1980, and she has written two further novels: "Gilead", which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, and Home, which won the Orange Prize in 2009. "Gilead" and "Home" contain many positive values, so "When I was a child I read books", a collection of essays, was met with anticipation and will likely arouse the interest of her readership.

Robinson has the convinced written style of an essayist. She comments on present-day North American soci...more Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, "Housekeeping", was published in 1980, and she has written two further novels: "Gilead", which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, and Home, which won the Orange Prize in 2009. "Gilead" and "Home" contain many positive values, so "When I was a child I read books", a collection of essays, was met with anticipation and will likely arouse the interest of her readership.

Robinson has the convinced written style of an essayist. She comments on present-day North American society and its values, analysing characteristics of its thought and religious life. Robinson’s skills as an essay writer do not quite match up to the great essayists: stylistically, it is not always easy to understand which idea or person she is referring to, which is especially challenging if one is already straining to follow her train of thought.

Some general impressions about the way the writer comes across: One weakness is Robinson’s tendency to group people into two opposing camps, to indicate how narrow the debate has been thus far. Yet the problem is that there is often little evidence that those camps really existed before she came to characterise them! For example, is America really divided into “those who cannot embrace fundamentalist religion [and] scorn the past[, and] those who embrace it [and] despise the present”? Nevertheless, Robinson’s essays are interesting historically, falling within the context of contemporary American questions in the first decades of the millennium.

There are some difficulties with the philosophical framework of this collection of essays, which emerge early on. They are perhaps not as evident in Robinson’s fiction, but worth being aware of in terms of this book. In early chapters, Robinson refers to Walt Whitman, a 19th century poet and essayist, and draws out especially his framework of opposition to religious traditions, signs and creeds. Robinson seems to argue that “individual experience”, somehow conceived as only synonymous with a society without dogma, is the basis of American democracy. She leaves little space for the idea that people come from existing contexts which transcend their individual experience, and unfortunately this excludes the idea that they could be a part of a tolerant dialogue.

A particular strain of subjectivism comes through in this book. From my perspective, at least, this perspective enjoyed its ascendancy in the 1960s but now it seems at odds with present-day experience. For example, Robinson asserts that “the situation of the undergraduate rarely encourages systemic doubt”. Perhaps that was the case for an older generation, but now undergraduates are usually exposed to things like postmodernism, which definitely encourages systemic doubt!

Robinson’s subjectivist approach to societal issues is mirrored in her theological assertions. Robinson weaves Calvinist ideas of reality into many of her essays. She also draws from other influences, such as cognitive science, but in a confusing turn, blends cognitive insights with metaphysics, leaving us with confusing definitions of things such as the soul and the relationship between nature and grace.

I would recommend staying with Robinson's fiction, and giving these essays a miss.
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Apr 12, 2012 Brinley rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have heard many a recommendation for Robinson's book "Housekeeping", yet for one reason or another I never had an interest, & have placed it low on my list of other books to read. Lately all my interest is in poetry and non-fiction; fiction has held a place in my heart in times past, but it seemed as though I had "moved past" the unreal, didn't have time for it. (Although you know, reality and shit, what is it really? Everything's a fiction in one sense, I get it.) Anyway when I found out...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Chanel Earl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Marilynne Robinson's writing is to be slowly savored. I would like to read this book again more slowly. Every chapter contained multiple insights that I enjoyed pondering, and my regret is that after reading them all I can only remember a few.

Robinson believes in a humanity that it is bigger, better and more complex than the average person allows for. I love this. She also believes in God and education. So we have three important things in common that made my reading experience wonderful.

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Mar 27, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays

Robinson now has three novels and four books of non-fiction to her name; she might end up as the E. M. Forster of the early twenty-first century (I consider that a great compliment). Thankfully this book of essays is a step up from Absence of Mind, although not quite up to the quality of Death of Adam. WIWACIRB, hereafter WIW, is a much easier read than DoA, but that's not necessarily a good thing- much of the pleasure of her first book of essays came from the prose, which did a nice job remindi...more Robinson now has three novels and four books of non-fiction to her name; she might end up as the E. M. Forster of the early twenty-first century (I consider that a great compliment). Thankfully this book of essays is a step up from Absence of Mind, although not quite up to the quality of Death of Adam. WIWACIRB, hereafter WIW, is a much easier read than DoA, but that's not necessarily a good thing- much of the pleasure of her first book of essays came from the prose, which did a nice job reminding its readers that syntax can be enjoyable. WIW continues the main tasks of that book, though: an attempt to refute reductionism, particularly with reference to human abilities (a noble task), and an attempt to convince everyone that Calvinism is really great (which, honestly, seems to be to contradict the former). [Addendum: just flicked through DoA again, and it turns out that WIW is better on the ideas side. I still think DoA is more attractively written, though.]

Here Robinson argues against the reductionisms of contemporary 'rational choice' economics, scientism and the new atheism, and does it very well. As presented in popular forms, these three theories are, as she says, ideologies, and they do, as she argues, reduce our sense of wonder at ourselves in possibly harmful ways.

Her approach is often restricted to American concerns, which is fair enough, and she makes excellent points: the extreme 'patriotism' of contemporary American defenders of capitalism is probably due to the fact that America has only very rarely been a capitalist country; it's nice to know that a nineteenth century edition of Webster's defines socialism as 'agrarianism,' something that many Americans thought and think is a good thing. Also:

"Lately we have been told and told again that our educators are not preparing American youth to be efficient workers. Workers. That language is so common among us now that an extraterrestrial might think we had actually lost the Cold War."

Zing. Robinson offers some counter-weights to these reductionisms: education, particularly in the humanities; a sense of wonder; a greater immersion in history. This would be much more palatable if she wasn't so fond of saying things like "Calvinism is uniquely the fons et origo of liberal Christianity," which would come as news to the Anglicans/Episcopalians, Vatican II Catholics and liberation theologians she treats with so much scorn. Her 'me against the world' shtick can get tiresome, too- on what planet are abolitionists stigmatised?? Does she seriously think early Americans were fleeing religious persecution in the abstract, and if so, why did almost all of them try/succeed in setting up state churches? Does she honestly believe that the Old Testament was 'neglected and suppressed' throughout the middle ages?

Most of this can be forgiven, since the people she's arguing with are even more tendentious ('Monotheism causes war!' Um... tell that to the Greeks. And Romans. And Hindus.) What cannot be forgive is her failure to distinguish between rationalism and idealism. For whatever reason, everyone likes to cap their criticisms of other people's thinking by making a large scale procedural claim. Here, Robinson would have us believe that, say, rational choice economics is bad because it is "driven by righteousness and indignation to conform reality to theory." And yet she *praises* the Mosaic law because "the vision of the society preexisted the society itself." In both cases, reality is meant to conform to theory; but this is bad in one case and good in the other? Could it be that the problem with rational choice theory is not its procedures and methods, but its content? Alternatively, and I suspect this is what she means, economics looks only at how things are, and not how they should be; the Law looks at how they should be, not just how they are. This is not a problem of theory and reality, but of reality and ideals.

Anyway, the book is well worth reading, if only for zingers like this: "The notion that the laws ought to be ahistorical is no more sophisticated than the insistence that they are in fact ahistorical." (less)

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Apr 01, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Marilynne Robinson's essays are personal and intellectual and about Christianity (or religion more generally), America present and past, liberalism, science, and economics. The themes are familiar from the Death of Adam, but hardly feel overworked here. As with the Death of Adam sometimes the essays felt like they wandered too far, but her language, bold argument, and turn of phrase make them a delight. They all seem to go after limits, whether historical, economic, political, critical (love he...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Aeisele rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays

I love Marilynne Robinson. Ever since I met Ruthie and Sylvie in "Housekeeping," and the Rev. Ames and Jack Boughton in both "Gilead" and "Home" (and of course Glory in that latter - an amazing character) I've been captured by her prose, by her meditations on what life is all about.
Her essays are just as powerful as her novels, from her book ostensibly about nuclear power in England, "Mother Country" (it's really about politics and economics, or how a culture can use it's experts to dispropriat...more I love Marilynne Robinson. Ever since I met Ruthie and Sylvie in "Housekeeping," and the Rev. Ames and Jack Boughton in both "Gilead" and "Home" (and of course Glory in that latter - an amazing character) I've been captured by her prose, by her meditations on what life is all about.
Her essays are just as powerful as her novels, from her book ostensibly about nuclear power in England, "Mother Country" (it's really about politics and economics, or how a culture can use it's experts to dispropriate a huge population), to "The Death of Adam", essays that deal with unfashionable subjects like Jean Calvin and abolitionists. "Absence of Mind" were the Yale Terry Lectures that dealt with what she labelled "scientism," our pseudo-science, which she believes people like Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins are the best modern-day examples.
"When I Was a Child I Read Books" covers some of the same ground in both the Death of Adam and Absence of Mind, but is a little more varied, and a bit more sharp. There are two passages the exemplify her thinking in this volume come from the last essay called "cosmology." First, in a survey of the wondrous advances in physics and the amazing problems and speculations it has brought up, she says, "we have not escaped, nor have we in any sense diminished, the mystery of our existence. We have only rejected any language that would seem to acknowledge it." Much of the book is taken up with arguing these two statements (I would say she succeeds). That is, she argues that modern science, and the history of human thought, leads to the conclusion that humans are wondrous and amazing, and that existence is a mystery, yet much of modern thought tries to convince us that human culture and life is insignificant and worthless, either simply epiphenomena of evolutionary maladaption (scientism), or a bunch of lazy blood suckers (conservatism).
The second statement is a bit later. "Earthly nature may be parsimonious, but the human mind is prodigal, itself an anomaly that in its wealth of error as well as of insight is exceptional, utterly unique as far as we know, properly an object of wonder." This is the second part that she emphasizes, i.e. how human life really is unique, we can really do amazing things, and that it is our assumptions that we're so bad that leads us to make excuses for the bad things we actually do. Of course she argues all this from a Calvinist position, largely based on the OT, especially in the essays "Open Thy Hand Wide: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism" and "The Fate of Ideas: Moses." When I read these two essays I finally felt at home as a progressive Christian. Since often I've felt that progressives have such a terrible view of the Bible and the culture it produced, I feel as if I can fit in that camp, because much of the best of liberalism itself is Biblical.
My recommendation: read this book. Twice.(less)

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Mar 30, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another exemplary and mind-expanding installment of essays from one of the most distinctly American writers in recent memory. This book furthers many of the arguments captured in The Death of Adam, so people familiar with that book and its many difficulties will find a little bit of overlap (and more breathing room, as the prose in this case is easier) and will in all likelihood hit the ground running. This does not stop her, however, from loading the book up with fascinating information and int...more Another exemplary and mind-expanding installment of essays from one of the most distinctly American writers in recent memory. This book furthers many of the arguments captured in The Death of Adam, so people familiar with that book and its many difficulties will find a little bit of overlap (and more breathing room, as the prose in this case is easier) and will in all likelihood hit the ground running. This does not stop her, however, from loading the book up with fascinating information and interesting forms of argument so articulate and detailed, so frustratingly difficult to capture and summarize - in a situation like this - that I have to go back and consult the many, many, many highlights, underlines, and notes I had taken. The only regret here is that I wanted more - more evidence, more examples, more meat to sink my teeth into with regard to the cases she put forth. This is not to say she doesn't put forth enough; I was just relishing the opportunity to really inhabit an alternative mode of comprehending the world. You know, a particularly thoughtful, optimistic, and - dare I shudder - religious one.

This is not to say I'm a full-fledged believer, or that Robinson is a converter in such-and-such respect, but for a practicing Christian she is a good read for anyone who wants a little more enforcement of the scientific method in science. She's also an excellent read for people who want a little more nuance in their history. These are the kinds of things that are to be treasured, even if I can't quite make the leaps she does with God. But one can still enjoy that part and be completely smitten with her reservations with Freud, Darwinism, and the priggish and overtly proud nature of modern thought. This book takes the intellect for a joyride in that it pushes against the very frays of cosmology, and dwells - at great length - on the mysteries of the uber-complex brain. It even dabbles in economics, rescuing the Old Testament from its horrific reputation, and giving Edgar Allan Poe a shout-out. It's a shame to think my grasp on this material will slip, as it already has, if only because I'm not directly immersed in it and re-reading it.

As much of a relief it is that Robinson engages in a more current dialogue - which I thought was a little lacking in The Death of Adam - and as much as I admire that she's wrestling with issues a little more topical than, say, Calvinism, the only real thing stopping this read of being short of amazing is that some of it is very Robinsonian, and thus some of it has amazed me already. Alas, I am too familiar with the breadth of her work. Yet this is an excellent place for a Robinson newcomer to start; definitely less esoteric than The Death of Adam, yet more urgent, more readable, and probably just as capable of giving you some very fundamental means of education to really ponder. The Death of Adam is denser, yet both of these are equally rich. The title, When I Was A Child I Read Books is too cutesy for the call to intellectual arms that saturates the text. Now, to go back and look all those highlights and let all those truth-bombs sink in a little.(less)

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Jul 24, 2012 Dean Anderson rated it 3 of 5 stars

It’s tempting to say that as an essayist, Marilynne Robinson is a great novelist. Of course, no matter what the first clause of the sentence is…Robinson would still be a great novelist. Her 2004 novel, “Gilead” won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award and sold a whole lot of copies. And I liked it, a lot. 1980’s “Housekeeping” and 2008’s “Home” are also great works of fiction.
Some of the essays in this collection are bring history, theology and insight together and allow the reader (at least...more It’s tempting to say that as an essayist, Marilynne Robinson is a great novelist. Of course, no matter what the first clause of the sentence is…Robinson would still be a great novelist. Her 2004 novel, “Gilead” won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award and sold a whole lot of copies. And I liked it, a lot. 1980’s “Housekeeping” and 2008’s “Home” are also great works of fiction.
Some of the essays in this collection are bring history, theology and insight together and allow the reader (at least me) to look at things in a whole new way. And some of the essays have the air of an academic journal that is only read when it’s assigned.
My favorite essay in the book is the last, “Cosmology” which begins puzzling on how Edgar Allen Poe in his work, ’Eureka’, seemed to anticipate 20th century physicists ideas about the Big Bang. She uses this as a starting point to assert that the human mind has tools beyond science to consider the big questions of life. She bemoans that students rely only on the theories of Darwin and Freud to understand the human condition. She argues that not only does that limited perspective lead to a poorer life, it leads to poorer fiction.
I appreciated her defense of great Christian leaders of American history, such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, whose intellectual, social and moral achievements are belittled by modern historians who have different theological perspectives (or believe mistakenly believe they have no theology.) As the father of a Knox College student, I was happy to read Robinson give honor to many of the small Midwestern colleges that stood up for the rights of women and enslaved African Americans. (This in the essay, “Who Was Oberlin?”)
But there were essays that made intellectual leaps and bounds that I couldn’t follow. Maybe it’s because I’m not bright enough (certainly well within the realm of possibility) but I think Robinson at times leaves dots disconnected.
And there are times where I think she just gets things wrong. In the essay, “Austerity as Ideology”, she ponders Winston Churchill’s famous Iron Curtain Speech. She seems to argue that the speech hurt the tender feelings of Joe Stalin, still hurting for WW II, and was the reason for the Cold War. No where in the chapter does she talk about the military aggression of the Soviet Union, or their oppression of the people of Eastern Europe (let alone the slaughter of their own people.) She seems to subscribe to a moral equivalence between the East and West of that period that strikes me as morally bankrupt.
In the same chapter, she frets about those that call for austerity in government budgets, that might cut education budgets. (She seems to feel academics are holy creatures that never waste money.) She seems to think the two wars of the Bush and Obama years were the only budgetary challenges of the 21st decade and yet she never mentions vast majority of government spending goes to entitlements.
Marilynne Robinson does have a great mind, but at times I think she buys into the group think of the academic world. But in the area of the church and theology, she fights the received Ivy League wisdom and come up with true and powerful thoughts.
Reading everything Robinson writes is a worthy endeavor. But it would probably be best to start with the fiction.
(And frankly, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t at least one chapter about what she read as a child. Was she more of a May Alcott or Ingalls Wilder fan?)
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Oct 17, 2012 Christopher Bryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

“When I was a child,” Marilynne Robinson writes at the beginning of the essay from which this collection takes its title, “I read books. My reading was not indiscriminate. I preferred books that were old and thick and hard. I made vocabulary lists. Surprising as it may seem, I had friends.” As one would have expected from the author of Home and Gilead, these essays are beautifully written. They are also wise and thoughtful, evidence of one who thinks deeply about God and society. I particularly...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Edward rated it 4 of 5 stars

Anyone who has written three fine novels such as HOUSEKEEPING, GILEAD, and HOME gets my attention to see what she has to say in her non-fiction, This is a collection of ten essays about what Robinson knows best – American history and literature and their place in the functioning of American society.

In one of her better essays, “Imagination and Community” she deplores the “marketing of rancor” that debases our political conversation and comments, “I think it is reasonable to wonder whether democr...more Anyone who has written three fine novels such as HOUSEKEEPING, GILEAD, and HOME gets my attention to see what she has to say in her non-fiction, This is a collection of ten essays about what Robinson knows best – American history and literature and their place in the functioning of American society.

In one of her better essays, “Imagination and Community” she deplores the “marketing of rancor” that debases our political conversation and comments, “I think it is reasonable to wonder whether democracy can survive in this atmosphere. Democracy in its essence and genius is imaginative love for and identification with a community with which, much of the time and in many ways, one may be in profound disagreement.”
This “disagreement” is evident in most of her essays.
One of her governing assumptions, she says, is that history is a dialectic between bad and worse, an opinion arrived at by looking at the history of European civilization from the 15th century. America has behaved no better than the rest of the world, but what particularly interests Robinson is the paradox of good intentions and bad outcomes. For Robinson, who says she is a Calvinist at heart, this can be explained by our “fallen state” and can only be modified by a good deal of humility.

Some areas of disagreement for Robinson are the tendency to overrationalize, to make reason our god, a god that too often lets us down. Such speculation leads to religious concerns on her part. She finds that our national imagination has reversed itself over the past century or so, to the extent that we tend to distrust outsiders, loners, as “dangerous or disabled.” Certainly, there may be reasons for this trend, but it leads to a perceived homogeneity as a goal, and one that in her opinion fails to enrich us as human beings. It’s here that her interest in Christianity becomes relevant. The obligation to charity and love of one’s neighbor at its best knows no limits.
For her it is only religious language that celebrates the “mystery of our existence”. The new popular atheism, and even science, is something in its dogmatic assertion that God exists, or doesn’t exist, to Robinson’s creative mind shuts off mystery, an openness to possibilities
She doesn’t claim that Thomas Jefferson was a religious man, but his language in the Declaration of Independence, strains toward this mystery of human experience. He writes that we are endowed with certain rights, “among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Not an exhaustive list, but one that points the way toward seeking our “well-being as we define it and determine for ourselves, the means by which it might be achieved.”

As individuals, then, we need to both love and respect our community and nation and realize that the best way to do this is through individual and critical study of the humanities, especially history. All too frequently, she contends, our schools and churches fail us – they fail to examine historical context and end by giving us oversimplification in all areas of life.

Robinson’s thought is dense and allusive, often difficult, but worthwhile. I think she could be considered a cultural contrarian. For any value that American society promotes today, there are always other sides to be examined. In the title essay, she mentionsher novel, HOUSEKEEPING, a strange evocation of childhood loneliness. From that may come something of value, but what it is, is for each individual to work out for himself, and that is what these essays point to. .

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Apr 04, 2013 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I Was a Child I Read Books is a beautifully written collection of essays on a range of topics. Perhaps because I share several personal characteristics with Robinson--a believing Christian from the Western United States with left-leaning political tendencies--the essays seemed to ring especially true to me. But regardless of your background or perspective, I think the book has much to offer. I particularly enjoyed the vigorous defense of the Old Testament against critics of its backwardness...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Blake Osborn rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 or 4 essays, I loved. The rest were still high quality but too pedantic at times, and too repetitious (yes, Marilynne, we know you love John Calvin, liberalism, etc. ad NAUSEAM) Her prose is Ciceronian; she piles clause upon clause, upon clause, upon clause, thick with learned adjectives and fractal syntax: a turgid but highly stimulating read - I love Robinson's prose. This is a short collection, just over 200 pages. But it is still slow-going because of her unique prose. There are many excel...more

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Apr 04, 2012 Steven Monrad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: political, religion, science

A great and friendly writer, arguing against the prevalence in politics of anxiety, (of "imagined adversaries"), and austerity, (which she calls an ideology), both destroying liberality or generosity in treatment of others and devaluing spiritual life.
In the science vs. religion debate, she makes a rational defense of religion, and junk out of the selective arguments of atheists promoting science over all.
Satisfying to read, unless you sing in one of those very different choirs, but she is to...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Mark Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays

As a novelist, I think of Marilynne Robinson as a pointillist: she presents a succession of tiny details and minor revelations which gradually fill up the canvas of the narrative, leaving the reader astonished at the apparently magical appearance of fully realized characters and grand themes of great import from the plenitude of elements which, considered in isolation, seem utterly insignificant. Unfortunately, this same style, which is so effective in fiction, does not fare so well in the essay...more As a novelist, I think of Marilynne Robinson as a pointillist: she presents a succession of tiny details and minor revelations which gradually fill up the canvas of the narrative, leaving the reader astonished at the apparently magical appearance of fully realized characters and grand themes of great import from the plenitude of elements which, considered in isolation, seem utterly insignificant. Unfortunately, this same style, which is so effective in fiction, does not fare so well in the essay. In a work of fiction, the world of the story is the author's creation; when she places a dab of color, it stays put and retains its hue and brilliance. In these essays, Ms. Robinson attempts to persuade using a similar pointillistic technique; unfortunately, because the world is not the product of her imagining - she is most definitely not a solipsist - many of the individual points fail to correspond to reality, and thus drop out of the picture, degrading the total effect, like the image on a plasma TV which has lost half it's little gas bubbles over time. This collection is certainly worth reading, for anyone who appreciates Ms. Robinson's genius as a novelist, if for no other reason than to provide valuable insights into the fictive world of her novels. In her best essay, which begins as a history of Oberlin College and transforms into a consideration of the importance of religious revivals in American social reform, she tells us the name and location of the real town that served as her inspiration for the fictional Gilead of her two greatest novels. This essay will also acquaint the reader with a number of fascinating personages whose names are unfamiliar to even those who consider themselves well-read in American history. Sadly, most of the pieces are more like the last which is a fairly ham-handed attempt to refute the 'new atheists' - Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al. - with largely discredited arguments from design, teleology, and ontology which are here presented in craftily reworded versions. Now, I happen to think that the 'new atheists' do need to be answered, but these arguments were already old a century ago. The vital point is the absence of an ethos and an aesthetic from the scientific world-view. Many individual scientists express both ethical and aesthetic sentiments, as when a physicist describes a theory as elegant. Even Occam's razor, the darling of the atheist, is a codification of the aesthetic principle that simplicity is beautiful. These sentiments and principles come from the scientists themselves, not from empirical investigation. On the whole, these essays are a manifesto by one of the leading lights of a group of writers I call neotranscendentalists; these men and women are justifiably disturbed by the direction the world has taken since the vaunted triumph of science, their themes are, like their predecessors Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, concerned with the unsolved mysteries of existence, the nature of the universe, with God, the capital 'G' Good and the captital 'B' Beautiful and their tone, unlike those predecessors, is elegaic.
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Sep 23, 2012 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I've been holding off commenting on this one because I wanted to give it the time it deserved. Alas, I don't have time. Quickly, I read all the essays but one. I found the Preface, and the 1,2,3,5,7 essays to be extraordinary - even as Christian apologetics. Ms Robinson combines theology, history, ethics, and philosophy in ways that open the modern world by charting courses of thought through history. I tried chapters 6 and 8 but found them to be too esoteric to be useful to me - although they'r...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: wish-i-owned

Perhaps her ideas won't be as refreshing and original to everyone as they were to me, but I've never read anything that so intelligently synthesized thoughtful Christianity with the love of literary fiction and a liberal education. She refined my understanding of politics, economics, and faith, and renewed my courage as a teacher of a subject that--while eminently practical in some respects (grammar)--can be considered frivolous and rather impractical. She made me feel that what I do as a teache...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm sorry I cannot do justice to Robinson's books of essays. I am truly sorry. I wish I had the necessary focus and determination to persevere in reading her cumbersome prose style. Each time I sat down to confront my weakness, my mind wandered to the stack of less worthy but more approachable books awaiting me. I found myself paging quickly, skimming rather than devouring her words. A couple of essays on Old Testament teaching on liberality should be required reading for Tea Party conservatives...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Rita Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This intriguing collection of essays is very challenging to read. The author writes exactly -- EXACTLY -- what she means, and one must pay attention. I stopped often to ponder the ideas she presented. There are many quotable bits, but they are not short or pithy. On the contrary, Robinson is a master of the long, complex sentence -- not quite to the Henry James level, but who would want that anyway?

Speaking from a firmly Christian/Protestant believer stance, Robinson examines how we live and thi...more

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About Marilynne Robinson

Her 1980 novel, Housekeeping, won a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Her second novel, Gilead, was acclaimed by critics and received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the 2005 Ambassador Book Award.

Her third novel, Home, was published in 2008 and was nominated f...more

More about Marilynne Robinson...

Books by Marilynne Robinson

The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self

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“I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of God’s grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, after all, so love the world.” — 13 people liked it

“I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find his epics on the shelf of such an unimaginable being as myself, in the middle of an unrumored continent. I love the large minority of the writers on my shelves who have struggled with words and thoughts and, by my lights, have lost the struggle. All together they are my community, the creators of the very idea of books, poetry, and extended narratives, and of the amazing human conversation that has taken place across the millennia, through weal and woe, over the heads of interest and utility.” — 7 people liked it

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