Gilead: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marilynne RobinsonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-11-19
ISBN: 0374153892
Number of pages: 247
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Book Reviews of Gilead: A Novel
Book Review: "...earned innocence."
Summary: 5 Stars
"There is an earned innocence, I believe, which is as much to be honored as the innocence of children." (p.30).
So says the Reverend John Ames, whose journal and pseudo-last-will-and-testament we are reading when we are reading Gilead.
I found this to be a profoundly moving story, one in which a patient reader will be greatly rewarded during the last third of the journey.
Rev. Ames, a widower, marries a much younger woman who blesses him with a son in his old age. Now in his seventies and in somewhat failing health, so much of what John would love to communicate to his son must be sort of.... postponed. Post-dated. He therefore embarks on the record of an account of his own personal history, in the hope that his (at the time) seven-year old son will read it when he himself is an adult.
Enter now into the mix the town prodigal, Jack Boughton.
Jack's return to Gilead becomes a sort of Waterloo for Ames. A rapport develops between Jack and John's son, one in which John himself at times feels displaced and nearly irrelevant in comparison. I will not say more.... but there IS more. Much more.
The wonderful thing about this book, John's book, as it were, is that I believe he learns more about himself, in the writing of it, than his son will ever learn, in the reading of it.
John has to come to terms with the presence of Jack, and with what his presence means.
The simplicity with which Robinson develops this character of Jack Boughton... it is simply amazing. He becomes for me, (and for John) the main character in this book.
Is there a real place called Gilead, Iowa?
No.
But Gilead is a town in the Old Testament of the Bible, and in the ancient Hebrew the closest meaning for the word "Gilead" is "stronghold."
Somehow I am sure that Marilynne Robinson is aware of this!
Gilead... the town, represents a certain type of "stronghold" in each of the lives so closely outlined here... the lives of John and Jack. For John, we find that Gilead represents the stronghold of normalcy. Quietness. Not that John has never left town, in fact we learn that he did (briefly). But really, for John, Gilead has represented the idea of obedience and continuity. A sort of sustained innocence.
For Jack, we learn that Gilead represents the stronghold of disruption. Noise. He left Gilead because he had to. And he returned because he needed to. And for him it ends up representing a sort of earned innocence (if at all) and that received from a most unlikely source.
But the beauty of the book is that it bursts with grace.
This book is a quiet diamond amid shelves of zirconia, really it is.
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