Between Stephen King, James Patterson and Danielle Steele, the tally of novels published by the authors by the year 2004 was in excess of a hundred. By 2004, the tally of novels published by Marilynne Robinson was two with her first published in 1981. To then say that Robinson isn't a prolific author can't even be considered an understatement, it's more of a fact. She doesn't churn out books by the year, she doesn't give interviews, nor does she write blogs, but her clout and indeed her talent would make her contemporaries green with envy. It's a daunting task to follow up a book hailed as a modern classic within literary circles twenty-three years after it was published. But with Gilead, Robinson proved why if she had never written another novel she still would have enriched modern fiction.
The year is 1956, and Gilead, Iowa, is the home of John Ames, a third-generation Congregationalist minister. At the age of 76 he is diagnosed with angina pectoris. The text begins as a love letter addressed to his son, a 7- year-old boy who is the product of Ames' twilight-of-life marriage to a younger woman. In no time, however, Ames is writing more than a letter as he relates the "begats" that led to his son.
At first, the novel seems like an extended voice piece as Ames' reflections alight on one topic and then another, from his son's serious demeanor to the exploits of Ames' abolitionist grandfather, to the remembrance of a childhood father-son odyssey to Kansas in search of the old warrior preacher's grave. It's a controlled rambling, and Ames' thoughts flow with a natural logic. He's an intelligent man who seems amazed by and thankful for the blessings as well as the limitations that have been his over his lifetime. "I do not remember grief and loneliness so much as I do peace and comfort- grief, but never without comfort; loneliness, but never without peace." His is a wondrous and balanced serenity.
Robinson loves language and she loves it complex. Nobel Prize laurette, Doris Lessing wrote of Housekeeping that it "is not a novel to be hurried through," and such is also true of Gilead. For more than 45 years, Ames has written out his sermons, rarely referring back to old ones, and so naturally, in addition to being a man "interested in abstractions," he is also a man keenly aware of the power of words. Ames loves to question words; so does Robinson, whose novel shifts in a moment from discussions about cliche to the uses of dissent, and whose protagonist is a man who, when America joined the first World War, burnt his only real rollicking anti-war sermon because "I knew the only people at church would be a few old women who were already about as sad and apprehensive as they could be and no more approving of the war than I was". The word "anger" figures a lot in a book careful never to rise to it. Instead, it's a delicate arraignment. "Maybe new wars have come along since I wrote this that have seemed brave to you. That there have been wars I have no doubt."
Gilead wanders in that casual way that fellow master of reflection Henry David Thoreau manage without seeming vagrant; in true Robinson style, the book is largely plot-less, instead relying on reflections and musings to propel it forward. Ames's narrative is a mixture of wry commentary on the ministerial life, heartfelt reflections on God, and passing observations on what's happening that day. He makes a good effort to keep the preachy inflection out of his voice, but when it comes through, you can hear what fine guidance he must have given over the course of 2,250 sermons. He remarried late, after losing his first wife when he was young, and the decades of solitary service to his church were often lonely. Now, blessed with a child he never thought he'd have, the prospect of leaving his family behind for the glory beyond hits him squarely in the heart. But he continues on with his duties at church, feeling fine for the most part, meeting friends, watching his son, and knowing more intensely than ever the Lord's extravagance. "One of the pleasures of these days," he writes, "is that I notice them all, minute by minute."
Meditation and proceedings merge with the news that after a long absence, Jack Boughton, the son of Ames' best friend, Old Boughton, who is Gilead's Presbyterian minister, will soon return home from St. Louis. This troubles Ames, for Jack is the prodigal son of the Boughton family, a self-absorbed prankster who can do no wrong in the eyes of his father and siblings, although all he ever does is wrong. Ames is connected to Jack (he is his namesake, Jack's full name being John Ames Boughton) for he baptized him in Boughton's church. Their bond brings Ames unease. There's also the matter of a child Jack fathered but has not really acknowledged. Ames, whose first wife and baby girl died in childbirth more than 50 years ago, is deeply disturbed by this. During his visit, Jack connects with Ames' son and wife, attends his sermons and seeks him out for counsel. The question on his mind has to do with predestination: is a person who seems destined to perdition unable to do anything to change it? At first, Ames resists getting into a discussion with Jack, for his experience warns him that the question actually has to do with blind faith and that Jack, as he did in childhood, is simply baiting the old preacher. Yet it becomes obvious, as Jack reveals the secret heartbreak of his situation, that his question is far from flippant. Jack is in true anguish, and he's come home to find solace and perhaps refuge.
One might label this a religious book, but that would be overreaching. Rather, it's a meditation on the sacredness and inscrutability of belief, forgiveness and faith in human connections. Indeed, there are religious allusions in the title- Gilead was an ancient city in Palestine, east of the Jordan River. It's the place where Ahab, King of Israel, died in battle against the Arameans. The Bible also refers to it as a refuge.
Gilead reads like something written in a gone time. This is part of its purpose, to be a conscious narration to the future from someone whose time was different and is over. "I believe I'll make an experiment with candour here," Ames says in letters which will eventually reveal his own opacity, as Robinson discreetly disrupts the monology.
There are passages here of such profound, hard-won wisdom and spiritual insight that they may seemingly make you feel enlightened just by reading them-
"I woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes, which I clearly love. My heart was a sort of clayey lump midway up my esophagus, and that after much earnest prayer. Your mother found me sleeping in my chair and slipped my shoes off and put a quilt over me. I do sometimes sleep better sitting up these days. Breathing is easier... It is my birthday, so there were marigolds on the table and my stack of pancakes had candles in it. There were nice little sausages besides. And you recited the Beatitudes with hardly a hitch, two times over, absolutely shining with the magnitude of the accomplishment, as well you might. Your mother gave a sausage to Soapy, who slunk off with the unctuous thing and hid it who knows where. She is beyond doubt the descendant of endless generations of vermin eaters, fat as she is, domesticated as she ought to be I hate to think what I would give for a thousand mornings like this. For two or three..."
"A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation," Ames notes, and so is a good book. A book about the damaged heart of a country, it is a slow burn of a read with its crepuscular narrator, its repetitions, its careful languidity. One gets the sense that Robinson isn't concerned with complicated plots or dramatic developments in her stories, and in today's insta-world, this is a refreshing point-of-view. Finely detailed, Robinson's novel teaches us to how read it, suggests how we must slow down to walk at its processional pace.
Gilead addresses the plight of serious people with a calm-eyed reminder of the liberal philosophical and religious traditions of a nation whose small towns "were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter peace", citing a tradition of intellectual discursiveness and a historical cycle that shifts from radical to conservative then back to radical again, and presenting an era when unthinkable things were happening but were themselves about to change unimaginably, for the better. It takes issue with the status quo by being a message, across generations, from a now outdated status quo. "What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope?" Things can and will change; they have before, and they will again. Speaking of the material world he's about to leave behind, Ames advises his son, "This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it." The same can be said for Gilead, a quiet, deep celebration of life that you must not miss.
Questions for discussion:
1. Does the religious overtone of the text add or subtract from its effectivity?
2. How does the structure of the novel add to its emotional resonance?
3. Does the title of the novel have any significance?
4. When Ames says "My advice is this- don't look for proofs, don't bother with them at all", what could the author be saying about the nature of belief?
