Readers' Review: "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-29/readers-review-gilead-marilynne-robinson
In this month's Readers' Review, Diane invites listeners to join a discussion of "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson. The novel received the National Book Critics Circle award in 2004 and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005. On his Facebook page, President Obama lists it as one of his favorite books. Written in the form of a letter from a dying preacher to his beloved young son, the novel begins as an account of his son's “begats,” family history and other things he wouldn't be able to tell him over the course of his growing up. It evolves into a way for him to work out unresolved moral issues. The story spans the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, and Kirkus Reviews describes it as “a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and as moving as prayer.”
Guests
Reverend Derrick Harkins
Senior Pastor of The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D. C.
Susan Page
Washington bureau chief for USA Today.
The Very Reverend Samuel Lloyd
dean of the Washington National Cathedral
Related Items
Read an Excerpt
Excerpted from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Copyright 2004 by Marilynne Robinson. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. A paperback edition was published in May 2006 by Picador:
Comments
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Abolition and the ultimate defeat presented by our mortality are the major themes here. The moral (message) is the need to do the good and proper thing despite the shortness of time and the low probability of contributing to a successful outcome. We cannot know the future but we can know our own hearts. And a pure heart is the gauge of the good.
The abolitionist Grandfather Ames (deceased but recalled) advocates a violence and extremism beyond typical human tolerance. Upon entering this realm one surrenders aspects of free will and autonomy. He survived the Civil War but there was no return to peace. This novel is a pleasurable contemplation but is irrelevant to our political and ecological condition today. It is appropriate only to the upper liberal class, now surrendered, as described by Chris Hedges, and living in denial or suspended animation.
"It has taken so little time to change our minds about things," marvels Offred (nee June) in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." I remembered it because the totalitarian fundamentalist fascist state in which she exists is also called Gilead. It was highly predictive of our present condition including a false-flagged attack labeled Islamic that allowed a coup and ended the struggle for democracy. The wastelands to which dissenters and useless eaters are exiled to die are completely conceivable in light of predictions of oceanic collapse, nuclear contamination and climate change.
Atwood's novel is far more appropriate for discussion among Diane Rehm's feminist and progressive audience than this devotional by Robinson. It would be a point of resistance and a call to action. Barack Obama lists Marilynne Robinson's book as one of his favorites. That doesn't surprise me considering the Abolitionist theme and the Biblical references. But we have found by bitter experience that this President's tastes do not dictate his pragmatic and Oligarch serving actions. His wars kill more innocents than they free, and his economic policies callously commoditize working people without mercy. He will soon find his opponents are not the Taliban or the Republicans but Mother nature and human nature itself. And so the alert provided by a dystopian narrative is far more appropriate now than the assurance that halfway measures and compromise with evil for temporary prosperity are the good and proper choice. It is amusing to see wooden awkward Al Gore in the prophetic role. (His recent criticism of the O-ministration on energy policy.)
I was listening to Vann Jones on KPFA the other night as he lamented how the people in charge are out of touch. When you jettison your Green Jobs Czar on the criticism of Glenn Beck you prove your judgment truly impaired. Show your colors DRShow (Diane) and choose controversial books for discussion. Discourse that leads nowhere is futile.
day, I encounter a successful businessman in the old , although he fifty years old , but looks older than actual to be small. I saw the moment he received the customer , while reviewing correspondence , for a while and very neatly in a file sent by the Secretary to sign the work leisurely , handy . I could not help but ask him, you deal with so many complicated transactions every day , how can they so energetic ? he laughed : when I feel tired, behind closed doors, behind closed doors thank-you , sit for half an hour , Weibi eyes , intended to keep the pubic region , what is not in order , get rid of all selfishness, try to make the brain stop functioning , no longer thinking about other any questions , meditation for half an hour break , if time allowed, even sit twenty minutes is required. sit , the energy can be restored immediately to the best condition . later, I sit meditatively also became a trick to restore energy . Chinese pay attention to calm . Only the calm before the blood flow , less prone to disease . Clinical medicine has proven that meditation not only fatigue , but also for some chronic diseases have a good role of adjuvant therapy , such as: enteritis , frozen shoulder , leg pain , chronic nephritis , hypertension , etc., are cured or effective. If we can adhere to daily meditation , physical health is indeed good.
Jack Bouton, as the Reverend's godson should have felt very welcome at the minister's house, so there should not have been tension because of his visits. Jack was almost family.
I was surprised that readers felt threatened at Jack'sfrequent appearances at the reverend's house.
There was nothing in the text to suggest that Lila was ever thrown off balance by his visits.
The reverend realized that his deep-seated reluctance to have one of Bouton's son as his godson was related to his own unhealthy pride.
We can't measure the extent to which Ames himself was implicated, albeit indirectly, for all Jack's childhood pranks. So many pranks were aimed at him! This suggests the child's resentment.
The reverend was fond of the memory of his grandfather, who apparently was, to put it mildly, a conflicted person, but who was so forgivable.
The grandfather, who was so concerned with slavery, and was forever restless, was characterized as ' the poor devil.'
Jack is a repetition of the grandfather in being so deeply involved in the pain of racial prejudice, and at one point, the reverend refers to Jack as 'the poor devil.'
The inability of the reverend to forgive Jack was inexplicable, except for the reason that Jack reminded the reverend of his own hidden guilt of pride and envy.
Jack's repeated attempts to connect with the reverend were so instrumental in helping the old man.
I listened to the audio book many times and think it is indeed a masterpiece.
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I see this book as a case of one individual successfully working out his own salvation and facing the final developmental task we will all face if we live long enough - integrity vs despair. This masterpiece is one of my very favorite books, and its companion volume Home are always on my Kindle for rereading. I think Ames is wise to be concerned about Jack, whatever his own involvement in the boy's history. Jack has shown himself to be a threat to everyone's piece of mind, including his own, and Ames is worried about his own inability to protect his wife and son from Jack's ability to destroy and hurt.