I think Merylin Robinson has not been very much able to create circumstances and ventures where characters could grow up naturaly, therefor she has profited by a classic linear narration through a long letter by one character instead, to describe the situations, personalities, manners and spiritual matters …
Love, Jealousy, forgiveness, fear, grace, all themes are tightly woven into this stories, sort of autobiographies in a long letter describing lives of two neighbouring families in a period of time from Civil War (mid 1800) through to the 1950's, somewhere in Iowa, and Kansas in American history. A handful of major characters are preachers.
Gilead is a fiction narrated by a 76-year-old pastor: Reverend John Ames, who knows he is dying of a heart condition, an account of his life for his now seven years old son Robbi (Ibrahim / Isaac!), to make sure he will have some memories of him. John Ames tries to remember experiences of his last two generations (his father and grandfather) to share them with his son: to draw a certain line between generations. Ames reflects on the death of his family (his grandfather, his father, his first wife Louisa, his daughter Rebecca…) as the source of a great sorrow for many years, in contrast with the growing family of Robert Boughton (Ames' neighbour and lifelong friend whom we get to know closely in “Home”). ''But one afternoon a storm came up and a gust of wind hit the henhouse and lifted the roof right off, and hens came flying out, sucked after it, I suppose, and also just acting like hens.'' John Ames wishes his own grandchild be grateful to him, as he is to his one - eyed grandfather: ''I feel as if I am being left out, as though I'm some straggler and people can't quite remember to stay back for me''.
As Ames writes his memoirs, Boughton's son, John Ames Boughton (Jack), reappears in the town after leaving it in disgrace twenty years earlier, following his seduction and abandonment of a girl from a poverty-stricken family... The daughter of this relationship has died poor at the age of three… Ames has been lonely through much of his life, now with his feelings of hostility and jealousy towards young and old Boughton. ''It was truly a dreadful thing he was doing, leaving his father to die without him… I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house. . .”. Much of the tension in the novel results from Ames's mistrust of Jack Boughton and particularly of his relationship with Lila (Ames’ second wife and much younger than him) and their 7 years old son, Robbi.
“Home”, Rabinson’s next novel is about Boughton’s when Robert Boughton’s faltering health has brought Glory, the youngest of his eight children and recently abandoned by a no-account fiancé, home to Gilead. The big, vine-covered house “The furniture and … the old robust domestic life were all still there, …and the old books.” Old life, old books, old habits: She observes. “What a strange old book it was,” Glory thinks as she reads the Bible, I will utter dark sayings of OLD, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us”. That’s the main point of Robinson in both novels: old text for modern life! “Nothing about that house ever did change, except to fade of scar or wear. Miracles of thrift in their grandparentes’ generation had meant that the words “free and clear” could be spoken over the house... Those words blessed the stodginess and the shabbiness. All that big, crowding furniture and all that prim and doubtful taste commemorated heroic discipline and foresight, which could be, and must never be, undone by bringing other standards …”
Transgression and forgiveness are key themes in both novels: Guilt and Shame. Glory Boughton, has returned to Gilead after the failure of a longstanding relationship and the evaporation of her dreams of HOME, marriage and children: "I am 38 years old, she would say to herself as she tidied up after supper. I have a master's degree. I taught high school English for 13 years. I was a good teacher. What have I done with my life? What has become of it? It is as if I had a dream of adult life and woke up from it, still here in my parents' house." … Jack Boughton, his father's most beloved son disappears as a young man, cutting off all contact with his family and not even coming home for his mother's funeral, is also back home …
The lack of confrontation and crisis left Gilead going absolutely nowhere. While The characters at HOME, migrate from kitchen to bed to barn to living room, over and over again, Jack apologizes; Glory weeps, so little happens … there is no tomorrow. HOME does not have the luminous spirituality of Gilead, and both novels are full of nostalgic tales.. but also pleasing as one of the pleasures by reading "Home" is Robinson's poetic nostalgic language: “Glory, you take things too much to heart” That was what they always said about her… Glory took everything to heart. She wishes they had told her how to do otherwise, what else she should have done”.
Both novels are translated to Persian by Marjan Mohammadi. Thanks to her for suggesting Marilynne Robinson to me.

خانم مریلین رابینسن را مرجان به من شناساند، که نوشت رمان سومش "خانه" را به فارسی ترجمه کرده. از آشنایی خواستم کتاب را از ایران برایم بفرستد، معلوم شد مرجان خانم، رمان دوم خانم رابینسن، "گیلید" را هم ترجمه کرده، منتها "خانه" از "ارشاد" گذشته اما "گیلید" در ارشاد "خانه نشین" شده. بهررو، حالا که هر دو رمان را تمام کرده ام، هنوز هم ترجمه ی فارسی به دستم نرسیده. با توجه به فضای رمان ها ("گیلید" و "خانه")، تصور می کنم ترجمه ی آنها مرجان خانم را واداشته باشد تا کتاب مقدس (عهد قدیم و جدید) را زیر و رو کند چون هر دو متن سرشار اند از ایماء و اشارات و تمثیلات مذهبی، حتی در اسم ها و شخصیت ها، به ویژه که نویسنده در روایت زندگی دو خانواده ی "اِی مس" و "بوگتون" از قصه های "عهد عتیق"، به ویژه ابراهیم و ازدواجش با "هاجر" و "سارا" و دو فرزندش اسحق و اسماعیل که در پیر سالی پیدا کرده و... بسیار سود برده است. قصه هایی که با روایت "اسلام" و قرآن، آن گونه که ما می شناسیم، تفاوت های اصولی دارند. رابطه ی "جک" و پدرش آقای بوگتون به زیبایی با داستان اسحاق و فرزندانش عیصو و یعقوب در "عهد عتیق" تبیین شده است... با تشکر بسیار از مرجان خانم، سخت منتظر ترجمه ی فارسی هر دو رمان می مانم تا با کار و زبان ایشان هم آشنا شوم.