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Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
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Sherry, Doyenne
(last edited Dec 12, 2008 06:37AM)
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Dec 12, 2008 05:21AM
Starting on December 15, 2008, we'll be discussing Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson.
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We have four Beths in CR. Which one nominated Gilead?
I am. I'm sitting here trying to decide how to start the discussion. I'm really more of a lurker, not much of a poster.
It seems customary to post a biography. Instead I would like to re-link this excellentinterview Candy posted in October.
In the Paris Review article linked above, Gilead is described as an “intimate exploration of personality.” I really liked this phrase because one of the things I love about Gilead is how intimate it feels. I loved Ames’ descriptions of his solitude, and the joy that he gleans from everyday happenings. Robinson describes them with such clarity and detail that I see what he sees and feel what he feels.
What were your first impressions of Gilead? What did you think the themes were?
Let me first say that this is not a book that would have crossed my path without CR, and I'm so grateful. I thought it to be moving, profound, challenging, and ultimately fulfilling, like an amazing meal or an extraordinary conversation. I took notes on things I found to be special, and discovered that I was stopping to take notes on something I found on each and every page, so I finally abandoned that effort.My first impression of Gilead was that, even though the threads were at first difficult to follow, and I was challenged, I was immediately hooked by the underlying simplicity of the theme - nothing in life is too small or insignificant to be beautiful, and remembered.
Some of my over-riding thoughts as I savoured Gilead:
- The universal desire to be remembered. To have someone "know" who you were and what mattered to you.
- Ames is gentle and avuncular - taking pleasures in small, yet mildly beautiful events such as the moon rising at the cemetery, the child and cat trading spots of sunlight in the study, and a game of catch.
- The child's mother "melting into" Trail of the Lonesome Pine (how many books have we "melted into" in just such a way?) and her constantly felt need to improve herself, even though Ames loves her just as she is.
- At the start, the stories are disjointed and seemingly unrelated, much as an elderly person might share their "stories" on a quiet afternoon.
- Unhealed rifts, even among "Men of God."
- "That's the pulpit speaking."
- Story of taking down the burned church in the rain was so beautifully written, with the evocative images of the women working and their hair getting wet and trailing down around their shoulders, and the comment at the end "now old women cut their hair short and color it blue." Even if the rest of the book weren't so amazing, I would remember this sequence as transformative.
- Ames waltzing with a book in one hand so that if he dies he can make a statement as to his taste and recommendation, then discarding the idea as too "theatrical." This amuses me, because I sometimes (morbidly, I admit) wonder what books will be on my nightstand when I leave this World. I remember my mother's books, with her bookmarks in them, the morning after her passing. The sadness I still feel that she didn't get to finish her book of Mike Royko columns is still palpable, almost 19 years later.
- "Children seem to think that every pleasant thing has to be a surprise." This is so incredibly accurate. I know that I was always trying to surprise my parents with things as mundane as cheese and crackers, and later I found that the children in my life wanted to do the same sorts of things for me.
- The idea of "sounding the food alarm" when Ames had a rough spell physically. This is also terribly accurate. I never have more food in the house than when I'm ill. Apparently, the best thing for a near-death experience is a casserole. :-)
- The most loving, evocative image was of Ames' wife sleeping with her head on his knees while she worried about him. She does love him, and they are good for each other. She will have a new and different life after he passes away, but it was clear to me from this sequence (along with "why do you have to be so damned old?") that she does indeed love her husband.
- The sequences with Jack were very interesting and showed Ames' humanity, as he struggles with being a forgiving, gentle, kind person who simply doesn't trust someone who might have an ulterior motive. These sequences were the most challenging for me, frankly, because Jack was a tough character for me to care about. I felt he was sapping Ames' strength, and I wanted Ames to stay around a bit longer for his little boy, and didn't want Jack stealing what time Ames had left. Having said all that, the bestowing of the blessing moved me to tears.
Graceann, what a wonderful and complete note you wrote. I never take notes--I'm so glad that you did. That blessing was one of the most moving things I've ever read in a book. It still resonates with me. Just thinking about it moves me. That Ames wasn't perfect, he made that perfectly clear, was what made this book ring so true, and his inner battle over Jack, over Jack's entire life, lent so much honesty to the book. Beth, I agree with you. The intimacy was what drew me in. The extremely honest exploration of his inner life, the beauty he found in little things. Robinson captures so many small wonderful beautiful scenes without being maudlin. I bet she's a good photographer.
Yes, the book did have a feeling of intimacy. Thanks for expressing that for me, Beth and Sherry. At times it felt as if old Ames was sitting next to me telling his story.The blessing was one of the passages I copied down in my notes. So very touching and magnanimous on Ames part, after all the doubts he had about Jack.
Thank you Graceann for bringing back so many of the scenes for me. Your observations are spot on.
I'm looking at my notes, one bit at a time.I liked the following simile on p.283 of the large print edition:
"... what can it mean to say that God exists? [...:] existence [...:] Another term would be needed to describe a state or quality of which we have no experience whatsoever [...:] So creating proofs from experience of any sort is like building a ladder to the moon. It seems that it should be possible, until you stop to consider the nature of the problem."
What a concrete simile... "a ladder to the moon" ... the sheer impossibility of it hits home immediately.
And he ends the paragraph with the words: "the nature of the problem". I loved the way he put that. What a grand example of understatement. The "problem" is a colossal conundrum!
The only reason I read Gilead to the end was that I really wanted to participate in the book club discussion. Several times I came close to deciding not to bother finishing it. Many times it was rambling and frankly, boring. Sprinkled throughout however, were interesting elements that made me curious. The diary style of writing reminded me of a buffet. Tasting little morsels of his life revealed some samplings were interesting and worth revisiting, while others were tangents not relevant to the overall plot. The observations and pleasure derived from watching his late- in-life produced son were lovely to read. I would, however, have liked the relationship between John Ames and his much younger wife to have been more fully explored.
I was intrigued by the relationship between old Reverend John Ames and young Jack Boughton. It became clear to me how this was a prodigal son story with the reverend as the faithful son resentful and apprehensive about the motives of one he perceived as wicked. The last 30 pages of the novel were compelling and beautifully written. Inner depths of Jack Boughton were revealed, causing the otherwise pious John Ames to shed some of his bitter feelings against the younger man.
Yet, for as well written certain portions were, I felt a good deal of the book was long-winded.
Janet wrote: "Many times it was rambling and frankly, boring. [...:] Sprinkled throughout however, were interesting elements [...:] The last 30 pages of the novel were compelling and beautifully written. [...:] Yet, for as well written certain portions were, I felt a good deal of the book was long-winded."I felt the same way, Janet. Also, some of the passages were so ambiguous that I felt positively annoyed. Below is an example from page 373 of the large print edition:
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"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or a parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal."
See full quote at bottom of:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quote...
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Now I admit that after studying that passage and deciphering its meaning, I understood it, but my first impression was a feeling of frustration because it seemed so vague. The words, "the eternal breaking in on the temporal", didn't quite express itself clearly enough for me. Of course I understand it now, but it's still not easy to grasp, IMO. Do things have to be that vague?
Ah -- I am going to be pulled to go get the library's copy of this again, I just know it. Reading all these posts will force me to go back to the book. I really don't have time -- but I know I'll find time. Joy, your "vague" passage is so lovely it takes my breath away. I don't think I would label it vague -- part of what makes sharing books with this group such a grand experience.
Dottie, I'm always puzzled by the fact that folks can "get" the meaning of certain poetic lines which flummox me. I wonder what's lacking in my ability to comprehend. As I said, after I studied the lines, I understood them, but the first reading made me say "Wha?".Maybe poetry is like trigonometry... you have to understand all the meanings of the different references/components and their relationships. I earned an A in college trig but I had to work hard at it. One time it took me 2 days to see the solution! I just kept staring at the problem until a light lit in my brain. That moment has always been amazing to me.
Literature can be just as amazing. But at least with math, the conclusions aren't so subjective. They're either right or their wrong. There's no discussing the pros and cons... but discussing pros and cons can be more interesting.
I enjoyed the following bit of humor on pp.213-14 of the large print edition:At one point Rev. Ames expounds about Commandment 10, "Thou shalt not covet." He says:
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"I believe the sin of covetise is that pang of resentment you may feel when even the people you love best have what you want but don't have. [...:] I avoided the experience of disobeying by keeping to myself a good deal [...:] [He quotes the Bible:]:'Rejoice with those who rejoice'. I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep."
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Perhaps no humor was intended here, but the last remark made me smile anyway.
In fact, I just noticed the sentence which followed his last sentence above. He says:
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"I don't mean that as a joke, but it is kind of funny, when you think about it."
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Joy -- if it's any consolation I am totally ignorant of trigonometry and my other math skills are fast going out into the world to someone who appreciates them more than I do.I think the understanding of a passage may hinge upon how quickly one reads through it the first time around or whether one actually returns to a passage that didn't quite "register" and spends more time upon it as you did with this one. I took no notes but I'm sure I marked my copy of Gilead when I read it originally. It is packed in a box which is stacked with other boxes of books in a closet so I'm not able to go find passages I've marked or find out if this particular bit was one I just read and didn't highlight in some way. I just know that it struck me when I read it in your post.
It's always interesting how each of us works our way around and through a book and what we take away with us to bring to the discussion. Fascinating things, these minds of ours.
Dottie
And I liked that humorous bit also. Yes, I can identify with him in that -- it is more difficult to rejoice with those who have rejoicing to do than to weep with those who weep.
I wasn't bored by the book, in fact I liked its meandering style, what GraceAnn describes as the often disconnected stories shared by an older relative. I especially liked what Beth calls "the joys gleaned from everyday happenings." I do admit to being a little impatient waiting to find out what the big problem was with Jack B. It might be interesting to talk about that a bit.One of my favorite aspects of the book was the way Ames would talk about light. Here's one example, on the apparent "weight" of light, from p.51 of the hardback Farrar edition:
I was struck by the way the light felt that afternoon. I have paid a good deal of attention to light, but no one could begin to do it justice. There was a feeling of a weight of light—pressing the damp out of the grass and pressing the smell of sour old sap out of the boards on the porch floor and burdening even the trees a little as a late snow would do. It was the kind of light that rests on your shoulders the way a cat lies on your lap.
Can't you just feel that light on your shoulders like a waarm shawl wrapping warmth around you? It is obvious that a part of the appeal of this book for me had to be Robinson's use of language.
This is one of my two favorite books, the other being Ed Jones' The Known World. It is difficult for me to articulate how deeply this book touched me. Phillip mentioned the frequent references to light - I don't think that I have ever talked about this nook without using the word "luminous". The language just shimmers. Water is another image throughout this book. I never found it boring in any way. Your notes, Graceanne, were wonderful, and expressed so much about this book far better than I can.
I don't think that we can discuss this book without acknowledging that this is a very spiritual book. Grace is a constant here - small moments of unexpected joy shine through everywhere. Grace is in the gift of love - a wife and child in old age, after all hope of that kind of happiness had long been abandoned.
Joy, the passage with which you struggled is very theological as well as poetic. In my own church, the concept of the eternal breaking into the here and now is discussed very frequently, so the passage was, for me, a beautiful expression of a familiar concept. (The world of poetry, of course, is loaded with other expressions that make me go "Wha?", but this one I know and it touches me deeply.)
I don't want to stop (for now) without saying that this book has one of the funniest stories I have ever read, starting on p. 58 in my book. It's the story of the very well-meaning abolitionists and ther earnest and zealous efforts to help fugitives from slavery, one poor fellow in particular. I laughed until tears came to my eyes. Then I had to read the whole thing to my husband and we laughed some more. Then I called my daughter...... Well, you get the idea.
Dottie and Wilhelmina, thank you for elaborating on the discussion about "the eternal breaking in on the temporal" passage. Your comments helped. It's still an abstract concept to me, but I do get the sense of it, as much as one can grasp the concept of the infinite.It's difficult to imagine something or someone with no beginning and no end. The idea is basically incomprehensible, just as it's hard to imagine how can space go on forever. Ames uses the words, "the poverty of our understanding" to express our inability to grasp the concept of existence.
(See p. 283, large print edition)
Already some wonderful notes here. COol!I really feel this is a lovely book. I guess the way it is told is a little like Plato and Socrates...in the way that the novel functions to be "indirect teachings".
I was also reminded immediately of the novels of Wendell Berry. There is a familiarity and fixation on similar details of rural life in common. Familiarity gives significance to certain habits, ages an phases that might not be so important in some urban people.
I am looking forward to working through this one and today have reached about page 50. I have no business reading this again...except I can't resist the group discussions here! What a habit!
I have found so many things quite humourous in these pages, where I laughed a little out loud. Not a guffaw but a jolt of laughter. He's really quite a character.
Candy wrote: I am looking forward to working through this one and today have reached about page 50. I have no business reading this again...except I can't resist the group discussions here! What a habit!
Well, I'm planning to follow the discussion while I meander through it again. So I've obviously got that habit.
But it's a good habit, Candy. Speaking for myself, it's one of the better habits and I'd like to root out some of those at the other end of the spectrum -- no confessions, just saying there are worse habits.
i loved your comparison of this to indirect teaching, Socrates, Plato and your mention of the aspects of rural living which enter into it. I think it's a matter of time setting to some degree IIRC.
Mina -- I'll have to pay attention to those stories more closely this time around as I have a tale of two families in my ancestors helping one woman escape to Canada -- just bits of info in local history books and after the fact so necessarily slim and uninformative -- but adding an interesting flavor to my genealogical research even so.
We are meeting friends for an early dinner in the downtown of Orange and I'm hoping I can pick up Gilead again at the library beforehand or maybe I'll just pick up a used paperback at Bookman so I can mark it up and make notes in the nargins.
It's funny, Joy, I had the exact same reaction to that passage as you did. It was just last night, I read that paragraph I think five times before I was able to zero in on what the heck he was talking about. (But it IS a beautiful image.)Part of the reason it isn't readily clear, I think, is that Robinson has broken a basic rule of prose. Generally, if one is going to talk about love in the end of a paragraph, the beginning of the paragraph would make a specific mention of the word love. But she doesn't do that. The idea of love is all of a sudden just there. In the paragraph above that one, Ames is talking about Old Boughton and Jack (no mention of love). Then, in the paragraph in question, he's talking about himself and his father (no specific mention of love.) Then, boom, here's this business about love and ultimate reality. It essentially comes out of nowhere.
I counted this happening at least a half dozen times throughout the novel. It probably happens a lot more.
On one hand, it could be that Ames is old and his thoughts tend to meander. On the other hand, I think the technique reflects the way grace or beauty or ultimate reality arrives with seemingly no warning. Or only thematic warning, not specific warning.
It reminds me of the poetic form called the ghazal (at least as Jim Harrison practices it), where there are five stanzas that are thematically related but not specifically related by shared words or images.
Obviously, when Ames is talking about his loyalty to his father's house, he's indirectly talking about love, but it's still a leap to suddenly be talking so specifically about love in the same paragraph. It's like a twist at the end of a section to wring a different feeling or thought pattern from the reader.
On the other hand, I think the technique reflects the way grace or beauty or ultimate reality arrives with seemingly no warning.Andy, to me, that is the theme of the entire book - that love and beauty and grace crash through into life without warning and without our doing anything to deserve them. The beauty in the cemetery, the love in old age, the sweetness in simple moments. As Ames says, "Ah, this life, this world."
Mina's mention of the beauty in the cemetery reminds me of another favorite passage, where Ames is reflecting on the trip he took to Kansas with his father in search of his grandfather. I admire Robinson's description of how child and father respond differently but with comprehension to each other's feelings; this resonated with me and brought to mind my experiences with the night sky with my own father and son (even though I doubt that most sons would have kissed their father's hand in this moment). The way an elderly pastor was able to summon up a bit of the tedium felt by his young self during "a very long prayer." The way the moon rising at sunset made the moment beautiful both naturally and spiritually for the younger Ames.
Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while I had to look around a little. And this is something I remember very well. At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where east was, because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning. Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I'd have to startle him out of his prayer and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it. And then I said, "Look at the moon." And he did. We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time. ... And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time ...
The descriptions are so beautifully sharp: Each of them was standing on its edge and as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth
Pp. 14-15 in the Farrar cloth edition
It's funny the book is written in such an intimate way when distance (cosmic distance, pastoral distance, the distance between the gulf coast and Iowa) plays such a major role. There's a lot of intimate face touching (hand kissing, blessing, etc) but also a lot of discussion of distance and perspective.
I like Ames' mention toward the end of how, since the first day, there really has only been one day, the sun has never stopped shining.
Going back to Beth's original question, I think intimacy versus distance is another major theme. The sun and the moon are good ways of considering distance (the ladder to the moon, etc).
How does the title relate to the story I wonder. It's the name of town in Wis right?I was wondering if she picked the town because it sounds like "illiad?
oops...I just googled it. I am not christian so I had no idea this was a bible word. Here I thought it was latin or greek. I see it's generally a Judeo-Chritian word...In Hebrew, Gilead can also mean a memorial site, and is used to name boys, while "Gil" equals joy in Hebrew and "ad" means forever or eternity.
It also might mean in useages: testimony.
Here are some wiki notes of pop culture references:
The Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) repeatedly mentions a mythological or real "balm in Gilead" or "balm of Gilead," references and symbolism which have appeared repeatedly in Western culture, see Balsam of Mecca.
"There Is A Balm in Gilead" is a traditional United States African-American spiritual.
In Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," the speaker asks the spectral bird: "Is there balm in Gilead? Tell me truly I implore."
Balm in Gilead, the American dramatist Lanford Wilson's first full-length play, centers on a cafe frequented by heroin addicts, prostitutes, and thieves.
In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the theocratic totalitarian nation, (which has replaced the United States,) in which the story is set is named "the Republic of Gilead", referencing its biblical connotations.
In Stephen King's Dark Tower novels, the protagonist, Roland Deschain, hails from a kingdom called Gilead, which was destroyed by agents of the Crimson King.
In Christopher Paolini's Inheritance cycle novel, Gil'ead is a location through which Eragon travels.
Gilead is also the title of the 2004 award-winning novel (2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award) by American writer Marilynne Robinson. The novel is a remarkable testimony - a Gilead.
Meaning "hill of remembrance" or the like? So Gilead (Iowa) would allude in part to the biblical place/personal name.Wiki article
Thanks Philip...Iowa. I knew that! Ha!Um, which leads me to ask...are our Iowa sisters and brothers reading this novel?
Isn't this set in Steve's and Lynn's neck of the woods?
Andy, we both had trouble with the passage in question, but I think in each case it was for different reasons.I can see the way Ames arrived at the subject of love after starting the paragraph talking about his loyalty to his father. When I think of my own parents, the overriding mood is one of love. So that wasn't such a jump for me.
What threw me was the talk about the temporal and the eternal and the one "breaking in" on the other. There has got to be a better way to say that so that I can grasp how that happens. Surely, it refers to two different dimensions. There's love on earth and then there is the love for my mom, a living essence which I feel will never die. But that dimension of the eternal is so hard to grasp. I can't see the two dimensions breaking in on each other, unless it happens in a surrealistic dream. And then the surreal is usually incongruous and hard to grasp as well.
Perhaps I'm looking for something concrete in the concept when there's nothing concrete about it.
While we're talking about love and the infinite, I'll post this quote which seems to be apropos here:
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"Love is Eternal [...:] "love [...:] will always be enough [...:] And, as the starlight knows no boundary of space or time, so too, our illumination will shine forth throughout all eternity, for darkness has no power to quell such light. And this is a lesson we must all learn and take to heart - that all light is eternal and all love is light. And must forever be so."
-p. 335, _The Letter_, by Richard Paul Evans, 1997.
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That says it for me.
Phillip, I'll probably always think of the passage you posted when I watch the moon come up over the mountain and shimmer on the waters of Lake George. The way Robinson draws the picture of the sun setting and the moon rising at the same time is brilliant. It's enough to enjoy one, but to enjoy both at the same time is thrilling... and Robinson translated that thrill into words.And, oh, the kiss on the hand. How exquisite.
Joy, I think these sentences are your answer!But that dimension of the eternal is so hard to grasp. I can't see the two dimensions breaking in on each other, unless it happens in a surrealistic dream.
And having experienced a dream such as that more than once, perhaps, the passage was more readily acceptable to my mind.
Now, there's another way as well but that is a replication of experiencing such a surreal dream except that one is not asleep while having that experience. I've had a few of those experiences as well so again, perhaps not so strange to my mind.
Thanks, Dottie. Perhaps one day I'll have one of those experiences. There's only one sure way I can see that happening. But I don't want it to happen too soon. :)
Joy H. (of Glens Falls) wrote: "Thanks, Dottie. Perhaps one day I'll have one of those experiences. There's only one sure way I can see that happening. But I don't want it to happen too soon. :)"Aaack -- not that kind of experience, Joy.
Perhaps it was the kind of experience I had on the morning of my mother's funeral. While at her apartment, I opened a random book to a random page which said:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
She is not dead,--the child of our affection,--
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.
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-From Longfellow's poem, "Resignation"
A message from beyond?
An example of "the eternal breaking in on the temporal"?
Or simply coincidence.
That would be one form of this, I think. As you say, one could say it was simply coincidence or depending upon the depth of feeling in the experience one might call it something else and give it a more spiritual meaning.
Whatever that memory means, I wish I could preserve it for my children. It was such a shocking moment for me. I didn't know what to think of it. It was almost like a message from my deceased mother. (However, I'm unable to believe that even though I'd like to.)There's a passage in _Gilead_ about memories and remembering which I have saved. Ames says:
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"I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am.
"...to be able to return to a moment..."
"A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve."
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(Above quote was from p. 257 of the large print edition.)
Joy H. (of Glens Falls) wrote: "Whatever that memory means, I wish I could preserve it for my children. It was such a shocking moment for me. I didn't know what to think of it. It was almost like a message from my deceased mother..."Joy those are beautiful bits of this book which you have noted. And just your written wish, that is a preservation of your memory. Share it with your children/family just as you have spoken of it here. That is how we gain our memories -- the moments, shared or discovered or rediscovered throughout a lifetime of interactions with those around us, no?
Gilead is so intimate as others point out and for me much of that comes from the interior monologue of Ames while he writes to his son. There is a question which arises though, in writing this letter he is in point of fact writing a solo voice which is a part of his own inner dialogue. When the child reads the letter in the future, he will also have some basis of inner dialogue which he has experienced with his father and yet the perception of the letter may be either. Or am I getting too far ahead of things?
A while back I remember a CR thread about "books you wish you could have liked," or something similar. I can't remember whether I listed "Gilead," bu I could have. I was primed not just to like it, but to love it... And though I appreciated the beautiful writing, and really did love all the imagery with light (seeing the different qualities of light at different times and places is a particular delight to me), at times I just thought...can't he get on with it? When will this end? And each time, I was shocked at and somewhat disgusted with myself. But there it is. Reading the discussion here entices me to give Gilead a second try, however!
Mary Ellen
I finally finished reading Gilead yesterday, and this morning read through all the posts here. I too felt very touched by this book, and intend to re-read it because I think that there is much here that I missed. I also have two or three people I want to lend this to. Much of my thoughts have already been mentioned by others. Mina brings up how spiritual this book is, and I want to add that I found it very refreshing to encounter Christian questioning that is not enveloped in self-rightness. I also read Robinson’s interview and she comes across as someone who is very intrigued by the human experience of the transcendental, and who, although she obviously practices a Christian tradition, refuses to narrow the experience to that religious tradition but approaches it as an experience inherent to the human condition. (Do I make sense?)
Answering Dottie’s question, I think it is it is always perplexing to a son/daughter when they finally realize that their own parents are just human beings. I may be talking about my own experience, but now in my 40’s and with parents in their late 60s, I am baffled at times by their humanity – sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. In this book, I find it a great gift from Ames to his son, that eventually the child, when he becomes an adult, will be able to hear his father as an adult. It certainly will not be the same voice that the son will have in his memory, but hopefully it will humanize his father to him.
Now, one aspect that has not been discussed and that I found quite interesting was the historical background. I don’t know much of American history, but I never realized how engaged some religious groups other than the Quakers were in abolishing slavery and in helping slaves in the run. I never knew either that Iowa allowed mixed race marriage. Iowa never comes to my mind as a radical state, but in this issue it obviously was.
Mary Ellen and Capitu, I read your posts and appreciated both of them. I'll follow the replies as they come.Dottie, thank you for your soothing and thoughtful comment, including the advice about sharing my thoughts with my children in order to preserve the memory about my mother.
You also wrote:
"There is a question which arises though, in writing this letter he is in point of fact writing a solo voice which is a part of his own inner dialogue. When the child reads the letter in the future, he will also have some basis of inner dialogue which he has experienced with his father and yet the perception of the letter may be either. Or am I getting too far ahead of things?
Dottie, are you saying that the son will have two different perceptions of his father, Ames, one from the letter and one from his own memories of his father? Yes, I think that's what you mean. I must say, that when I read my father's old letters to my mother when they were courting, I can see my father saying those things. I wish he had left more writings behind.
Ed's father, (my FIL) left behind some writings about their struggles during the depression. I can imagine him saying those things.
The perceptions of them through their writings and how I remember them are similar.
I think that if the writings we leave behind are our true selves speaking, perhaps our children will see congruencies in the characteristics of our writings and how we were in person.
This is a very nice discussion. All this business of fathers and sons makes me think of the parallel stories and how they work together.I like this quote from page 194:
And the fact is, it is seldom indeed that any wrong one suffers is not thoroughly foreshadowed by wrongs one has done. That said, it has never been clear to me how much this realization helps when it comes to the practical difficulty of controlling anger. Nor have I found any way to apply it to present circumstances, though I have not yet abandoned the effort
He seems to be saying that his taking offence to JA Boughton's actions is a result of some offence he (John Ames) delivered in the past (presumably involving his own family).
I can't quite puzzle out how that the tension between JA Boughton and John Ames relates to John Ames' relationship to his own father (brother, grandfather?) What was the wrong that John Ames did earlier that foreshadowed the wrong JA Boughton did to him?
Aside from that, all these father-son relationships in the novel are--to put it as John Ames might--remarkable. John Ames to his grandfather, John Ames to his father, John Ames to his son, John Ames to JA Boughton, Old Boughton to Young Boughton, the one-eyed grandfather to the father, the father to Eward, etc. It's interesting to me that John Ames, in telling the stories he tells, seems to see a part of himself in all these different characters. Or he has an interesting grasp of how all these other people have shaped him? It's almost like he IS these other characters somehow, that's the impression I get. Maybe it's because everybody has the same name.
Candy, when you mention Wendell Berry's books, I also thought of his "Memory of Old Jack" when I was reading "Gilead." They both dip into that rural tradition and are products of that society when things "mattered", not like the throw-away society of today. When I was growing up, people used a lot of expressions from the Bible (when the electricity failed, someone always asked "Where was Moses when the light went out?" answer "In the dark." That kind of thing. "Old as Methusalah" ect. Ms.Robinson captures the essance of this so completely in her telling of the story I didn't realize when I was reading it why it was so familiar. She does a great job of bring the past back to life. I'm going to read Gilead again, it's been a number of life-changing years since I read it. My perspective will be a bit different, but like Joy 's quote from Longfellow, we take our comfort wherever we can find it.
I haven't commented since my original posting early on, but following this thread prompted me to randomly reread certain portions. Closer examination yields a greater appreciation; perhaps if I were to read the entire novel again my opinion would be altered. However, a copy of the next novel to be discussed became available and I am totally enchanted by it.I have considered why one work immediately captured my attention while I struggled over the other. I'll compare it to the choice of eating vegetables or sipping cherry brandy. Intellectually, I can appreciate the nutritional value of brussels sprouts, but they require time to develop a more sophisticated palate for thorough enjoyment. On the other hand, the warm liquor’s initial pleasing sensation tickles the taste buds, promptly followed by a fire that radiates from the inside out.
I guess it comes down to a simple preference for the writing style. In Gilead, the rambling style of John Ames inserting preaching into his diary, at times felt like listening to an hour-long sermon, where I got the point 5 minutes in. I'll save the discussion of Sawtelle until the appropriate time and place, but just insert one simple phrase here as an example of what I mean. In an effort to illustrate the boy’s anxious anticipation of a momentous event, the author writes: "Time thickened like wet cement." This reverses the old adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words”; in this case, a few simple words paint an elaborate portrait.
Janet, I truly believe that there is a right book for the right time. Sometimes a book just will not fill my needs for that moment, or a narrator’s voice will not keep my interest because my reality at that time is too different. And that is completely OK.But, I think I had the very opposite reaction than you to this book because the previous book I read – The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks – was so disturbing and so distant from the Christmas carols already playing on the radio and the houses decorated with lights, and the school pageants my kids are taking part, etc… that I welcomed a book that was more meditative and spiritual. I wonder if I would have enjoyed this book as much reading it by the beach during the summer months. It just seemed “fitting” for a season that is supposed to be more introspective.
I also want to comment both on Marian and Candy’s posts about this book taking us back to a rural, old-fashioned way of living. We all seem to have this positive bias about the old times and the old way of living, but what we are forgetting in this book is that Ames did not say to John that the town would accept him and his wife, because the town would not. People in that town went to help when someone set fire to the black people’s church, but never welcomed the same black people to their church. African-Americans were never really integrated. (Maybe it was grandpa setting the fire, because he did believe in complete acceptance, but he became the odd, marginalized one, didn’t he?)
The old times were maybe full of woman bringing casseroles to those in their flock that were sick, but those are the same people that watched and gossiped when Edward came home “different”. There is a great tradeoff in the old-times; the same goodness that is shown to “your own” can become extreme prejudice and small mindness towards “the other”.
I think we diminish Ames character when we embedded him in the idyllic idea of old-times. He is a highly spiritual person, patient and dignified and, if nothing else, completely breaks the mold of his environment that he is not self-righteous in his Christianity.
***spoiler***I really liked this book. I agree there were a couple parts where Ames belabors his points, but on the whole, I think Marilynne Robinson does a pretty good job of keeping the mystery of the plots alive until the very end.
Something that is a bit trying is Ames' tendency to see every darn thing in the world as delightful, amazing, remarkable, astonishing, etc. To me, it seems like his version of the piousness that a lot of people find frustrating about very religious people. Plenty of people have problems that probably aren't solved by faith and prayer, so the ear and council of a man like Ames may not do the trick. And reading a whole book of it can seem tedious.
I think deep down, though, Ames recognizes that his tendency toward piousness is at least partly a strategy of self-protection. I think it's his way of dealing with his central problem, whatever that may be (I vote for abandonment issues).
On page 95 (soft cover Picador) there is this part that I really liked:
A great part of my work has been listening to people, in that particular intense privacy of confession... Not that I thought of these conversations as if they were a contest... But as you might look at a game more abstractly--where is the strength, what is the strategy? As if you had no interest in it except in seeing how well the two sides bring each other along... how the life that is the real subject of it all is manifest in it. By "life" I mean something like "energy"... When people come to speak to me... I am struck by ... the "I" whose predicate can be "love" or "fear" or "want" ... the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around "I" like a flame on a wick, emanating itseld in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else... But quick, and avid, and resourceful...
I think Ames is trying to see himself as one of his parishioners. He has a problem that he can't quite get a right perspective on, it bubbles up in anger here and there, but especially when young Boughton is around, and his strategy to protect himself is his piousness, and his piousness is certainly quick and avid and resourceful (he's worked pretty hard reading books to see to that).
On either side of this passage, Ames says these things:
A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation.
and
I listened to thousands of baseball games... Sometimes I could just make out half a play, and then static, and then a crowd roaring, a flat little sound, almost static itself, like that empty sound in a seashell. It felt good to me to imagine it, like working out some intricate riddle in my mind, planetary motion.
All this business of one sided conversations, holes in baseball narratives, I think he's talking about the holes in his own self understanding.
It's interesting to me that the events between young Bought and Ames are so carefully detailed and recorded in the book, but the events between Ames and his own father (with the exception of the trip to Kansas) are left very cloudy. And for all the good Ames sees in pain and suffering (another major theme, I think), I'm not sure that he mentions good that comes from the passing of his first wife and child. The loneliness that followed he seems to have accepted. But does he mention a blessing in their dying? I don't know, I wasn't really looking for that.
I can't quite figure out what went on between Ames and his father. It think that's done on purpose by Robinson. I think Ames is not capable of really confronting (understanding) whatever it is that exists between himself and his father. I was wondering toward the end what happened to his father, then come to find out in the very end that the father takes off to live with Edward in the gulf coast? (And didn't the passage where Ames shares that tid bit seem uncharacteristically bitter? That page or two seemed like a little burst of anger, and I thought Ames got over that anger by resolving his anger at young Boughton?) And the father had been reading those books on atheism over Ames' shoulder leading up to that? What the heck happened between Ames and his father?
I want to make a rather odd suggestion. The language and the heart of this book are spiritual and unabashedly Christian. I want to suggest that those people who are not spiritual view this book as if it came from another culture. The ideas that Robinson has embedded throughout this book are common Christian theological ideas. What you called being pious, Andy, would be seen by someone (like me) who has a similar theological view to Robinson as "Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary." It's not piety, it's not supposed to solve problems, it's just the way that Ames, especially at his age, sees the world. He's certainly got failings and problems just like any other person, but that doesn't stop him (and many real-life people with greater problems) from experiencing moments of grace. I'm not asking anyone to buy into my viewpoint or Ames' viewpoint. (I'm an Episcopalian; the joke is "What do you get when you cross an Episcopalian with a Jehovah's Witness?""Someone who knocks on your door and says nothing." We don't talk much about our faith, even to each other.) But I think that if you just accept that Ames' world view is honest and sincere for him, even if it makes no sense to you, the book would flow more easily.I think that we (myself included) are used to a different kind of Christian fiction, a kind that I personally don't enjoy. But this book is really steeped in Christianity. No way around it.
The way I read Gilead is that Ames is a Christian -- the capitalized kind -- who is speaking of christianity -- the uncapitalized kind. The basics of human kindness, the underpinnings of all spiritual, religious life, the nitty-gritty of many religions -- the capitalized versions.Hopefully, that makes sense.
Behind the capitalized Christianity -- he is after all, a minister -- is his faith, his beliefs, his embodied religion which is the uncapitalized reality of his confessed faith and belief in his particular religion.
CapituI was not saying that the "old times" were BETTER. I was simply pointing out that people were more inclined to be believers than they are today. If today's people do not believe in the "Old-time religion" that does not make them BAD. I was not saying that believers are better than people today. I also believe that people today are not all that much better. There are still hypocrites & I know plenty of people who would not welcome people of other races into their homes -- tho they would be polite about it. Most of you discussing "Gilead" do not remember the rural, church centered society of the 1st. half of the 20th. century. I do becaue I am older. I was trying to give some background because being "A Christian" was different than being "A Christian" today. Then it was normal in rural areas & people liveing in rural areas did not meet people of other beliefs like they do today. Also there were no quotation marks about the word question. There were Catholics & Lutherans in our area, you were one or the other & no big deal. Now there are people who make a big deal of "Christian" & I can only understand it as a reaction to the wordly atmosphere of our society. Women today still bring cassoroles, or cookies, not because they belong to any particular faith, but because they want to help. There are plenty of people today who live lives some would label as "Christian" but do not belong to a church, (In the old days, w/no TV, movies only on week-ends & few of NO cars) social life centered around the local church. So it was also a social thing as well as religious. Human nature remains the same, whether you belong to an organized religion or not, human beings are social people.
Wilhelmina, I see your point. I think I was trying to get my mind around why some people have a hard time connecting to the story, so the comments about problems were more or less directed at people who were having trouble. Bridge building, that's me (right). But I put the whole thing in rather insensitive terms, for which I apologize. I should have mentioned that those very same problems (the problems for which faith and prayer can seem irrelevant to some), are seen in a completely different way by people with strong faith.I may have made too great a leap, also, to equate faith (I guess I can use the word faith if "pious" gives offense) with a method of self-protection (or a balm). But Ames has no problem looking at other people's words and actions and interpreting them as strategies, so I have no problem doing the same thing to him. I've listened to baseball games on the radio, too, I can sure come up with my own little ideas about Ames' motives.
But my comments on what his strategies are are just interpretations, I may be wrong about them. I just want to try to find out what makes the characters and the story dynamic.
In the case of this novel, I think the dynamic interest comes from the play between the known and the unknown. Ames, the character, has things he knows about himself and things that he doesn't want to talk about. The plot holds interest in a similar way, it holds out a bunch of information until the very end. The theme of known versus unknown in character and plot are symbolized very nicely in the theological interplay between humdrum daily life and moments of "embracing, incomprehensible reality"--another example of known and unknown. Ames' shows us his anger, guilt, pain, in little moments the same he shows us grace and love in little moments. But I don't think he tries as hard to understand his anger.
In other words, I get the impression that some people don't like the novel for the same reason some people don't like church, it can all seem a bit overly holy. I don't think that's the case with this novel (or with all churches). But I think the problems of the characters, the very things that keep the plot moving, are subtle because part of the theme is that some problems ARE subtle and difficult to see and understand. Either that or I just have a fondness for dwelling on characters' problems.
Ames does dwell on misery quite a lot, but mostly it's the pain of being alone. He doesn't want to get into the anger he feels toward his father or the anger he feels toward God.
And then there's Jack, who is a manifestation of pain and failings. Jack seems to take the unknown and make it physically observable. "Blessed are the cracked, for it is they who let in the light." (Not in the book, but fruitful for me never-the-less.) Does Ames have to access some of his own anger and failings in order to muster up the empathy he needs to put things right with young Boughton?
Maybe Ames was mad at everybody, because they didn't understand his pain. Old Boughton could never forgive Jack if he understood Ames' pain. His father and mother wouldn't leave him if they understood his pain. Etc?
The book did flow very easily for me, and I agree that Ames account is honest and sincere. But maybe it would be even more sincere if he would tell us what the heck his problem with his father is?
Constant Reader
Books mentioned in this topic
Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1 (other topics)Beloved (other topics)
Gilead (other topics)
The Holy Bible: King James Version (other topics)
The Gnostic Gospels (other topics)
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