Gilead

I first became a bit curious about Marilynne Robinson when Maclin Horton's wife posted a couple of quotes from Robinson's books on Facebook. Then a couple of other people mentioned her, so I went to the library and checked out Gilead, her second novel. I was immediately drawn in by the first page, but as I read further I was thinking, "Well, this is a nice book, a good book, an enjoyable book, but not much more than that"--and then I would come across something really lovely or something amazing.

The novel is written in the form of a long letter or journal being written by an old, dying man, John Ames, to his seven year old son. His intention is that the letter is to be read when the son is grown. Set in a small Iowa town, the narrative drifts back and forth in time, now describing physical realities in minute detail, now pondering metaphysical mysteries, now remembering the loves and friendships of the past, each informing and illuminating the other, all interwoven into a panorama of Ames's life.

I'm sure that most if not all of the readers of this post when seeing its title immediately thought of the hymn, There is a Balm in Gilead. It's a beautiful, peaceful, hopeful hymn, There is a balm in Gilead that makes the wounded whole/There is a balm in Gilead that heals the sin-sick soul. It doesn't, however, reflect the text from which it is taken. In a lament that sounds much like a description of our own day, Jeremiah (8:22) has been bemoaning the evil that has overtaken his people, and ends with,

Is there no balm in Gilead, no healer here? Why does not new flesh grow over the wound of the daughter of my people?

While John Ames's life is filled with beauty and consolation, it is far from being free from wounds, both in the past and the present. Ames often mentions his regret that not having ever imagined having an heir, he won't leave much for the boy and his mother; his family's past has its share of tragedy and unresolved relationships; and there is one long, difficult relationship that comes to the forefront of the novel.

When I was briefly discussing Gilead with Maclin, he sent me a link to this post so that I could see the discussion in the combox. He sent it mostly because I had said something about a comment that Robinson had made about Flannery O'Connor (negative) and there is a discussion of this in the combox. However, what really struck me about the comments was the varying opinions of what the novel was about: American slavery and the reactions of the churches, Calvinism and various other theological issues (Ames, his grandfather, father and best friend are preachers), liberal theology, and I get the idea that some people thought it was basically about nothing much. No one mentioned, at least I didn't see where anyone mentioned, what I thought was a strong and recurrent theme in the novel, and that is the relationships between fathers and sons.

As we read through the story of the Ames family, we encounter almost every sort of relationship between a father and son. We meet John's grandfather, father, brother, his best friend Boughton, and Boughton's son Jack, who is John's godson and namesake. Love runs through all these combinations of father and son, yes, but also anger, unforgiveness, and disappointment. And in some sense the culmination of this story of fathers and sons lies, I think, in the relationship, ongoing in the narrative, between the two who are related only by their name and sacrament.

One of the factors that contributes to the success of these stories of fathers and sons, and the novel in general is Robinson's ability to capture a male voice. I have found that it is very unusual for authors to write convincingly in the voice of the opposite sex. Thus with a few exceptions, it's Dickens's men that stand out for me, and Austen's women. Robinson, though, was really able to get into the male character.

Another strength of Gilead is the beautiful images she draws, and this is one of my favorites:

That mention of...joy reminded me of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl weeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn't. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don't know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to  believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a Protestant novel and so readers will not always agree with the theology found in it, but this was not much of a problem for me. It's a quiet, beautiful novel of time and place, and thought, and familial love. I recommended it to, (read, forced down the throats of) my Catholic women's book club for next month, which is a departure for me because I never recommend anything that isn't Catholic unless it was written by C. S. Lewis, and I would recommended it to everyone.

Well, I have mentioned Maclin a couple of times and that is because I knew I wanted to write something about Gilead and I knew that he would too, and I didn't want to read what he had to say, or any discussion of it on Light on Dark Water before I wrote, so I thought maybe it would be fun to post on the same day, and that's what we decided. So if you are interested in reading what he wrote (He says it will be short.) You can click here. I suspect if there is any discussion, it is far more likely to be there, but if you do want to comment here, remember that before you click on the button to post your comment, you ought to save it first, so that if the comment disappears, you can paste it in another comment box. It usually works the second time around.  Blogger is very annoying nowadays.

AMDG