Tag Archives: Marilynne Robinson

Home by Marilynne Robinson

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Synopsis:
Prodigal Jack Boughton has returned to Gilead, bringing joy to his dying father and an ache to his lonely sister’s heart.

Review:
It breaks my heart to say this, but I don’t think Home lives up to Gilead. Mailynne Robinson’s prose is still astonishing in its simplicity, and the characters are just as sharp as ever. Even her digressions are riveting. But when it was over, I did not feel it added anything to Jack Boughton’s story. If anything, it reads like an appendix to Gilead–the book is not equal to being called ‘twin’ or even ‘companion.’ If Gilead did not exist, Home would be a marvel. Unfortunately, Home can only be the little brother calling out, “me too!”

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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Synopsis:
An aging minister writes a letter to his young son, telling him all he’ll never have the chance to tell him when his son is a man.

Review:
“Just now I was listening to a song on the radio, standing there swaying to it a little, I guess, because your mother saw me from the hallway and she said, ‘I could show you how to do that.’ She came and put her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder, and after a while she said, in the gentlest voice you could ever imagine, ‘Why’d you have to be so damn old?’”

Only Marilynne Robinson’s own words are sufficient to communicate the grace and beauty of Gilead, her second novel and Pulitzer Prize winner. The narrator, Reverend John Ames Boughton, is nearing the end of his life and his heart aches with love for his younger wife and their seven-year-old son Robbie. His reflections are inspired by the return of his namesake, John Ames Boughton, the middle-aged scoundrel son of his dearest friend, the Reverend Robert Boughton. Known as Jack, Boughton’s son has squandered his heritage–and yet, in true prodigal fashion, Ames knows that he is the one of Boughton’s many children who is closest to his heart.

Ames’s recollection meander through memoir, apologia, philosophy and confession. Robinson’s prose isn’t showy, but she finds new ways to express the startling beauty of the ordinary. This is my second time reading Gilead and I found so much more in it the second time around. It’s about as deeply Christian a work of fiction as anything I’ve ever read, and Robinson surpasses even Walker Percy in the way she discovers the sacramental in the quotidian.

Teaser Tuesday–Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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A fun new meme!


TEASER TUESDAYS ask you to:

# Grab your current read.
# Let the book fall open to a random page.
# Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
# You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
# Please avoid spoilers!

From Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I chose 3 sentences to complete the paragraph.

“He just sat there for a while, and then he said, ‘A friend of mine–no, not a friend, a man I met in Tennessee–had heard about this town, and he had also heard of your grandfather. He told me some stories about the old days in Kansas that his father had told him. He said that during the Civil War Iowa had a colored regiment.’”

I’m actually reading Home for a review I’ll be publishing later this year, but the publishers ask that all quotes be checked against the final version so it’s not a good source for something like this. But Gilead is sitting right underneath, along with Housekeeping. I’ll be rereading both to prep for my review. Fun!