Gilead: A Novel

published	2006 by Picador
binding	Paperback
isbn	031242440X (isbn13: 9780312424404)
pages	256
literary awards	Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2005); 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
description	In 1981, Marilynne Robinson wrote Housekeeping, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and became a modern classic. Since then, she has written two...more [close] In 1981, Marilynne Robinson wrote Housekeeping, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and became a modern classic. Since then, she has written two pieces of nonfiction: Mother Country and The Death of Adam. With Gilead, we have, at last, another work of fiction. As with The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzards's return, 22 years after The Transit of Venus, it was worth the long wait. Books such as these take time, and thought, and a certain kind of genius. There are no invidious comparisons to be made. Robinson's books are unalike in every way but one: the same incisive thought and careful prose illuminate both. 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
date added	02-05-07 edit book

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Kj rated it:

03/06/08

Read in November, 2007

Dear Son:
The Too-Little-Too-Late Dilemma of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead

It’s deceptively tempting to approach a book like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and see only the main character’s theological musings. After all, in a novel about an old man reminiscing about faith and family, there’s a plethora of weighty spiritual content; everything from careful exegesis of Genesis 22 to references to Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans. Needless to say, this is no simple “I remember when...more Dear Son:
The Too-Little-Too-Late Dilemma of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead

It’s deceptively tempting to approach a book like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and see only the main character’s theological musings. After all, in a novel about an old man reminiscing about faith and family, there’s a plethora of weighty spiritual content; everything from careful exegesis of Genesis 22 to references to Karl Barth’s Epistle to the Romans. Needless to say, this is no simple “I remember when…” fable of love and loss. Issues are being grappled with, weighed and eschewed. However, to review the novel from a theological stance cannot merely mean discussing old John Ames’ opinions on war, forgiveness or predestination. That job belongs primarily to his congregants and family within the narrative. The question I, the reader, encountered was of the theology of a book wherein the entire premise is of a man wishing to leave a testament of his “better self” (p. 202) for his seven year old, but spends his final days journaling, instead of spending time with his son. This is the battle I fought with John Ames and Marilynne Robinson throughout my reading.
It began when I realized that about every four pages I found myelf drowsing off to sleep, or thinking of topics far beyond the narrator’s journal entries. As I had approached the novel with great enthusiasm (fiction at last!) I wondered what could be sending my mind off into orbit. Why the dissociation? From the frustration with not being able to stay focused from page to page, paragraph to paragraph, soon emerged actual anger. I found myself choosing to put the book down and find other activities, almost as if to spite the narrator. Something was wrong. I was refusing to sit passively and listen.
With a little reflection, this is what I discovered. I was incredibly angry that John Ames was writing on and on about how much he loved his son and his wife and how he wished he wasn't about to die, and there he was, “reflecting” instead of living! Enter the transference. I realized how little tolerance I had for the “nobility” of a strong, silent-type preacher man finally unloading the deepest parts of his heart and soul onto paper, instead of through interaction. The drowsiness coming over me was of not wanting to listen to this man write. I wanted to see him take action. I didn’t want to honor him by reading his last testament, because I do not respect the idea that somehow, as long as you say what you feel before you die, it doesn’t matter how little you expressed to those around you until that point. The book brought up anger with my father, his father, and the generations of quiet, long-suffering, missionary-type men I am descended from. Though I am not a man, nor very quiet, I know about long-suffering, and I could not suffer the boredom or veiled anger that lay between the lines of John Ames’ memoirs. I wanted to rip the journal from his hands, and essentially, tell Marilynne Robinson that I refuse to applaud her character’s poetry, theology or self-reflection, when he is in essence, taking the easy way out of sharing himself.
I’ll admit, there are plenty of passages in the novel that show Ames’ growth and interaction with others. Even the fact that he married late in life reveals that he was unsatisfied persisting in the loneliness of listening to baseball games on the radio, writing sermons and hiding from neighbors when they knocked on his door. However, all his loving descriptions of sunsets, children’s laughter and the smell of raindrops, appear hollow the moment he starts describing his son playing outside as he writes. In that the entire purpose of the novel is for this aging father to express his heart to his son, for all the descriptions of moments of communion, (p. 103), I gained no sense whatsoever of how this father related to his son. Every human interaction Ames (Robinson) writes is marked by constraint, weariness and shy civility. The aching lack of intimacy in this novel made every page a grueling ordeal to wade through. “Take action!” I shouted. “Stop writing!”
I’m left to wonder what Robinson feels about her main character. I sense that she adores his humble (though never naïve) faith, and the grace he tries to offer others. But the portrait she paints, or at least the format she has chosen to use, counteracts any message I might derive from the old preacher’s wisdom and experience. By writing the story as a last testament in-progress, Robinson has created an utterly passive character, a true bystander of the life he is narrating. I don’t believe this was her goal. We are clearly supposed to revel in the homely and kindly spiritual reflections of a faithful old coot that is continually surprised by beauty. But for this passive bystander, I felt mostly pity, and quite a bit of anger.
Another perspective, however, is that Robinson has rightly captured the unfortunate experience of so many pastors, especially of Ames’ (and my grandfather’s) generation: that of distance and objectivity. My grandfather once spoke of a minister he served under who believed it was un-Christian for a minister to befriend his congregants because it would cloud his ability to pastor. Can we even imagine a pastor who would not eat supper at a parishioner’s home? Does Ames’ loner quality, his reticence to become entangled, simply reflect the expectations put on a country preacher? This was the time (and the concept persists in some realms) where the pastor was expected to run every aspect of the church. Ames’ statement that everyday felt essentially like Sunday because once one sermon was over, it was already time to work on the next (p. 232-233), reflects the overburdened lifestyle of one who is expected to shepherd whole congregations by sheer determination and will power- with no rest or support system other than other local pastors (Boughton). This symptomatic lone wolf quality made it difficult for me to believe Ames’ speculations on relationships, because I could hear his strained resentment trying to come out. (It finally emerges somewhat in regards to being given a godson without his consent, and over Jack Boughton’s flagrant disrespect for others).
I have not written much of Ames and Jack Boughton, mostly because the character was introduced far too late in the novel to bear the climactic significance it was clearly supposed to have. The real story should have been how Ames chooses to reveal himself and be present with his young son, not his struggle to give grace to his black sheep of a godson. That is indeed significant, but is again, un-served by the journal format of the book. The developing story of Jack Boughton’s struggles have no place in Ames’ letters to his son. Confined by Robinson’s poorly chosen device, the last fourth of the book (despite being the most readable) breaks the rules set in the beginning of Ames writing to his son. Instead, the reader encounters Robinson’s clunky exposition about the life of a character we have not been effectively convinced to care about. Overall, this is my greatest criticism for the novel, both artistically and theologically: it’s nearly impossible to care for these characters when they are introduced as part of an avoidant old man’s journal entry. The richer story to be told here is that of an old man opening his heart through action and engagement with his community, after a long life of loneliness. In order to experience this part of the story, Robinson needed to give us voices other than Ames to listen to. Ames’ emotional distance in interpersonal relationships makes his spiritual and poetic ruminations fall short of the impact Robinson so clearly intended. This novel made my heart ache; wanting the silent men in my life to get up from their journals, and actually say what they’re thinking. And this, perhaps, is too much to require of a novel. Is it too much to require of these old men as well? Isn’t the real point of a last testament the admittance that too much has gone unsaid? Should we celebrate a theology that waits too long to speak?

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Greg rated it:

05/09/07

Read in April, 2007

It often feels as if the contemporary literary scene has internalized Anna Karenina’s dictum on the nature of happiness—that it is not idiosyncratic, with the implication that it is not worth the kind of careful attention that literature applies to its subjects. We need look no further than our own lives to recognize the problem we’ll encounter if we preoccupy ourselves with the Tolstoyan “unhappy family” at the expense of the happy ones. Asked about our defining or most enlight...more It often feels as if the contemporary literary scene has internalized Anna Karenina’s dictum on the nature of happiness—that it is not idiosyncratic, with the implication that it is not worth the kind of careful attention that literature applies to its subjects. We need look no further than our own lives to recognize the problem we’ll encounter if we preoccupy ourselves with the Tolstoyan “unhappy family” at the expense of the happy ones. Asked about our defining or most enlightening moments, most of us are as likely to recount happy memories as we are moments of despair. Yet too often, contemporary literature ignores this. Authors able to give the lie to Tolstoy by rendering joy as a complex substance are few and far between: think Ron Carlson, Laurie Colwin, Ellen Gilchrist, Richard Russo.

In this context, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead comes not just as a breath of fresh air, but as a ray of light, quietly penetrating to the heart of mysteries regarding joy and love, life and death. Because it’s written as a series of missives from the aged narrator to his young son, meant not to be read until long after the narrator’s death, Gilead is largely plotless—a conflict of sorts between the narrator and a friend’s child does eventually develop, but it is a quiet conflict, and one that doesn’t become clear until nearly halfway through the novel. The narrative is never as important as the meditations that surround it.

This is a novel that celebrates life, that variegated communion between inner and outer worlds, between ego and experience. But Robinson is also concerned with death, not only as the inevitable end of that communion but also as its thematic counterpoint. If Robinson’s territory here is the spiritual life of one man in particular, her thematic concern is how we in general can face the ends of our lives without despair or resort to existential reframings of the problem—how we can face the prospect of death, in fact, with quiet gratitude and even joy. Robinson’s portrayal of religion is especially deft; instead of opiate or panacea, her narrator’s Christianity serves as a lens, providing a stasis and a vocabulary through which the novel can wrestle with its concerns.

Ultimately, the quiet conclusions that Gilead seems to favor—that the experience of existence is one that we should treasure as a gift, that we too often lose sight of the immense beauty of the world amidst our quotidian bustle, that love and charity have the power to remake lives—are neither religious nor secular. Rather, they are humanist; they all concern a belief in the fundamental dignity of human lives. Is it melodramatic to say that these are the kind of quiet encouragements that we could usefully carry in our minds into the shadows of our own personal Gethsemanes? Regardless, Gilead offers us, in its portrait of a long life reflected upon with some degree of contentment, a reminder of just how deep, enthralling, and abidingly strange happiness can be.

Perhaps the problem is not that happiness is not idiosyncratic enough to be worth investigating. The problem may be instead that happiness is simply too big for most writers to write convincingly about, that perhaps joy, like God, is too capacious to fully describe. Yet here is the rare novel that suggests insights into the natures of both....less

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Amanda rated it:

04/14/08

bookshelves: as-i-lay-dying, fiction

Read in March, 2008

This was a really gorgeous book. It takes the form of a letter written by John Ames, an elderly preacher who knows that he is dying, to his young son so that his son will have some sense of who he is and what he was like when he was alive. The letter becomes a sort of love letter to life in general and to his own life specifically and a way for him to meditate upon and affirm his own worth in order to ready himself to leave the world and the life and family that he adores.
It is written in th...more This was a really gorgeous book. It takes the form of a letter written by John Ames, an elderly preacher who knows that he is dying, to his young son so that his son will have some sense of who he is and what he was like when he was alive. The letter becomes a sort of love letter to life in general and to his own life specifically and a way for him to meditate upon and affirm his own worth in order to ready himself to leave the world and the life and family that he adores.
It is written in this very slow and contemplative way that has a hypnotic, gentle beauty. It is filled with very thoughtful meditations on scripture and the nature of life and humanity and I found myself re-reading passages several times to grasp the complex thoughts that lay beneath the simple language. But I never felt that the book was pretentious or preachy, just thoughtful and lifted up by the wisdom and experience of a long life lived well and cherished.

As a mother with a young son of my own, I was particularly touched by the passages that described the achingly powerful love that Reverend Ames has for his son:

"I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a son 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."

or:

"Sometimes now when you crawl into my lap and settle against me and I feel that light, quick strength or your body and the weightiness of your head, when you're cold from playing in the sprinkler or warm from your bath at night, and you lie in my arms and fiddle with my beard and tell me what you've been thinking about, that is perfectly pleasant, and I imagine your child self finding me in heaven and jumping into my arms, and there is great joy in that thought."

The author is able to vividly capture a parent's love, a love so tremendous that it leaves you alone and vulnerable, and a love so momentous that it reintroduces you to the world and to life through every little step that your child takes.

She also delves simply and poignantly into the frequent difficulty of relationships between parents and their adult children, especially those who feel elusive to the parents. A Presbytarian minister in the same town, who is John Ames closest friend and who is also aged and ailing, has a "prodigal son" who remains his biggest mysterious failing:

"And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all of those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound."

This is the sort of book that is filled with passages that are jewel-like in their clarity, and I suppose that I could go on quoting it eternally. It truly seems to have an insight into life and the difficult beauty of what it is to live. I am not at all a religious person, but I was truly touched by the significance that Rev. Ames's faith lent to the smallest experiences in his life. I recommend this book to anyone who feels like looking at the little things with a greater respect and sense of wonder.

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Zinta rated it:

(review of isbn 0374153892)

11/04/07

bookshelves: fiction

Read in September, 2005

What a luxury, what a fine wine on the literary palate this book has been to read. "Gilead" by Marilyn Robinson is all that I seek in literature that achieves artistic form. The author's language is mesmerizing, frequently breathtaking, and her ability to develop her few but well chosen characters without relying on plot and action as crutch is worthy of respect.

"Gilead" is something of a journal, or letter, written by an elderly priest, John Ames, to his still very youn...more What a luxury, what a fine wine on the literary palate this book has been to read. "Gilead" by Marilyn Robinson is all that I seek in literature that achieves artistic form. The author's language is mesmerizing, frequently breathtaking, and her ability to develop her few but well chosen characters without relying on plot and action as crutch is worthy of respect.

"Gilead" is something of a journal, or letter, written by an elderly priest, John Ames, to his still very young son as he feels the approach of death. It is his attempt to pass something of himself and their family history on to his son, long after he will be gone. His story is a meditation on faith and the bonds of father and son, of husband and wife, of family and friends, of priest and his congregation, of man and nature. It is not, however, a religious story (those who are not drawn to Christian literature need not fear this novel might wax preachy or hit a didactic note -- it does not).

I was magnetically drawn to the character of John Ames because Robinson so ably created him as a man with the greatest courage possible -- the courage to be vulnerable to the world around him. He has achieved grace, because we see him address his own shortcomings and weaknesses without looking away. He works to love, even those he on some level fears, even when he feels tinges of jealousy, regret, suspicion, as any man might.

"This morning I have been trying to think about heaven, but without much success. I don't know why I should expect to have any idea of heaven. I could never have imagined this world if I hadn't spent almost eight decades walking around in it. People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That's clearer to me every day. Each morning I'm like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes--old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable..." (page 67)

Ames is filled with gratitude for all that his simple life has bestowed on him: the love of a devoted wife, the adoration of a young son, the warranted attention of a congregation, but just as fully, for the beauty of each day gifted to him.

"I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once, that word 'good' so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing. There may have been a more wonderful first moment 'when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy,' but for all I know the contrary, they still do sing and shout, and they certainly might well. Here on the prairie there is nothing to distract attention from the evening and the morning, nothing on the horizon to abbreviate or to delay. Mountains would seem an impertinence from that point of view..." (page 246)

Perhaps one must be facing one's own death to see life and the world so richly, and to express it with such eloquence and love. Readers may feel blessed to have found an author who accomplishes this level of eloquence. The Pulitzer Prize awarded this work of literary art is well deserved.
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Inder rated it:

04/02/08

bookshelves: non-victorianfiction, philosophyspirituality

Read in December, 2007

recommended to Inder by: Elizabeth
recommends it for: Serious, thoughtful, passionate folks.

I've been thinking and thinking about this book, so I find myself coming back to this review.

The basic plot (such as it is - this is a character driven book in the most basic sense): An old preacher finds out that he is dying, and writes a journal/memoir to his seven year old son.

There are a couple of breathtaking scenes in the book, that have stuck with me. The narrator remembers a time in his childhood, in the late 19th century, when the local church burned down. The community came ou...more I've been thinking and thinking about this book, so I find myself coming back to this review.

The basic plot (such as it is - this is a character driven book in the most basic sense): An old preacher finds out that he is dying, and writes a journal/memoir to his seven year old son.

There are a couple of breathtaking scenes in the book, that have stuck with me. The narrator remembers a time in his childhood, in the late 19th century, when the local church burned down. The community came out in force to clean up the wreckage and salvage what could be salvaged. The women sang hymns while they worked. It began to rain, and the girl's skirts were dirty and wet, and their hair hung down their backs. His father offered him bread from his hands, covered in ash and soot. To the narrator, this was the most important "communion" of his life. The image comes up over and over again, and the theme is repeated when the narrator gives his son communion in his own church many years later (although he is too young to formally take communion). I thought it was so beautiful, the essence of what communion should be about.

Which brings me to another thing I loved about the book: The strong sense of generations, the passing of love and knowledge and problems from father to son through the generations. As my friend Elizabeth says, the book lingers long on issues of masculinity. I related so strongly to the characters that I didn't even really notice that until it was pointed out to me! But it's true, this is a book about how to be a righteous man (in the best, least judgmental meaning of "righteous"), and how to grow your sons into righteous men.

I also loved the very last scene. I don't want to spoil it, but it is so beautiful. This is one of those rare novels where the end does not disappoint.

And, of course, there's the rhythm of the narration, and the language. So slow, lilting, sad, and lovely, like one of the slower Sacred Harp hymns I love to sing. It's almost Homeric, in the sense that it feels like oral history, with the rhythm of very old-fashioned storytelling.

Reading around on Goodreads, this is apparently something many readers found difficult and criticize on their reviews. I can see that it's an acquired taste.

I loved it, but I read older novels all the time, constantly seeking out that softer, slower, more detailed rhythm of writing that seemed more common pre-TV. If your obsessions tend more towards the cyber-punk post-modern, this book might seem too heavy and slow - in fact, it has almost no plot at all, which might throw some people off.

But of course, the adoption of an older style is, in itself, a bit interesting and pastiche-y. But now I'm out of my comfort zone - I'll let someone else deconstruct it.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend this book to all of my serious, thoughtful, passionate friends who like serious, thoughtful, passionate books....less

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Kyle rated it:

(review of isbn 0002005883)

05/17/07

bookshelves: literary-fiction

Great book. A 76 year-old minister finds out he's dying and he writes a letter to his 7 year-old son. The whole book is a letter. Sounds kind of dull, but it's not. He tells all about his family in Kansas and Iowa, incorporating history and religion into the tale. The writing is so beautiful it's like poetry. And it's all just this old guy's thoughts. He has a lot to say, if you can dig it. Some of my favorite bits:

p.6
"Above all mind what you say. 'Behold how much wood is kindled by h...more

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Nora rated it:

10/08/07

Read in May, 2007

I really loved this book. One of my favorite parts reminds me of a scene in Willa Cather's My Antonia . There is this lovely image when John Ames is a child and he and his father are at his grandfather's grave. They found the grave out on the prairie somewhere near a place the grandfather had been ministering. John's father is saying a prayer before they say their final goodbyes, as the grave is nowhere near where the family lives:

"... At first I thought I saw the sun setting in...more

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Giedra rated it:

04/21/08

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Giedra by: Carrie Neal

My book club read this book right before I joined the club. Most of the members hated it, and at many subsequent book club discussions, books were compared to Gilead as, "well, at least it was easier to read than Gilead, etc." After several months of hearing about this book, I decided I needed to read this book for myself. (Perhaps to get more insight into my fellow book club members!)

Well, I liked the book a LOT. I was very surprised to find that it's a pretty slim book--from ...more

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Jonathan rated it:

01/03/08

Read in December, 2007

"grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways", a beautiful quote from the reverend John Ames, the Father who, at the end of his life, writes this extensive letter/journal to his son. This book is beautiful, showing how grace comes to us in an endless number of forms, shapes, faces, people, words, circumstances, trials, and depth. I feel that I only grasped an iota of grace contained in this book, and that I need to read it several more times to rea...more

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Meredith rated it:

10/24/07

Read in January, 2006

I loved this unique, deep, and warm book. It is written as if by an older pastor in the 50s who would like to write his “memoirs” for his young son, as he knows he is going to die soon. He lives in and is very connected to the small town Gilead. The female author does an excellent job of taking on the perspective of this older pastor who is about to die (John Ames), eloquently writes, but also convinces you that it you are reading a person’s intimate and sometimes random thoughts. The ...more

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Jessica rated it:

10/12/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: heathens

This book is amazing. I can't believe those frikkin twits didn't give Marilynne Robinson the Pulitzer for this..... oh wait, they did. Well, I can't believe they didn't give her two!

Seriously, you are probably thinking, "I've heard this book takes the form of an elderly, angina-stricken preacher in Iowa's long, Lord-laden letter to his young son about how beautiful the world is. I'm sure it's all very nice for some people, but I am way too big of a jerk to enjoy something like that.&quo...more

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Noralil rated it:

(review of isbn 0006393837)

06/21/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: Folks Interested in Religion & Redemption

Craddled within the world of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, there's a quiet yearning, a desire inherently expressed within the novel's structure to slow down, to walk lightly, to observe without participation. In its reflections on religion and moral goodness, its story is undemanding, thoughtful and filled with a sense a peace, the kind found only when spiritual worries fade to divine acceptance.

Through the eyes John Ames, a Methodist preacher coming to terms with his immenient death,...more

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Tung rated it:

01/09/08

Read in January, 2007

The Pulitzer-winner from 2004. The book is told from the first-person narrative of John Ames, a 76-year-old minister from Gilead, Iowa, and traces bits and pieces of his life – his relationship with his father and grandfather (an anti-slavery preacher during the 1800s who fought alongside John Brown); his relationship with his friend and fellow-preacher Rev. Boughton and Boughton’s wayward son (named after John Ames); and especially his son and his much-younger wife (younger by 30+ years). ...more

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Nate rated it:

04/28/08

recommends it for: you

I just finished reading it this morning. I cried at its end, not for its end, nor because it was sad. It was beautiful. I sat there on the toilet reading until my legs were asleep to finish, a ridiculous place to experience beauty that would make one weep.

The book is no master piece of poetry, no epic, not the brash offspring of sharp wit or forceful essay of vast intellect. I would not call the story or its players particularly memorable. No surprising twists. No strange quirks. No gimmicks...more

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Hannah rated it:

07/22/07

This book is nothing less than miraculous, in my estimation.

In Oliver Stone's documentary, "Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads," someone who's interviewed talks about how Dylan, in the sixties was like this almost unintentional conductor of the cultural ethos of the time. I can't summarize it properly without seeing the movie again (which I will, and so, I'll update this later), but the idea was that Dylan was almost a lightning rod for the beat of the times, and he...more

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Evil_Dead_Junkie rated it:

(review of isbn 0002005883)

02/25/08

To any non Christians wishing to understand The Christian mindset I can scarcely think of a better representative then Gilead. I'm most grateful to Robinson for illustrating how Christianity when practiced properly is a conduit to thought rather then a detriment to it the way it's critics always assume.

However, I'm even more grateful to the way in which she writes the book. I'm a fast reader and all too often I'll blast through a novel with only the faintest sensation of having actually rea...more

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Sarah rated it:

02/10/08

My latest book club book. This was the Pulitzer Prize winner in 2005
for Fiction so I was a little worried - they often seem to be either
REALLY boring or totally out there! But I really liked this one.

The book opens on an old preacher (in his 70's) with major health
problems who decides that he needs to write some letters to his 6 year
old son to tell him who he was before he was old. It's written with
the assumption that his son won't be reading it until he, himself is
an older man. ...more

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