Gilead

I read the most wonderful novel during the summer, the Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead (2004) by Marilynne Robinson. This is Robinson’s long-awaited second novel after her acclaimed debut Housekeeping (1981), which made the Observer’s list of 100 all-time great novels.

Set in Iowa in the mid-twentieth century, Gilead takes the form of a letter, written towards the end of his life, by the Reverend John Ames to his young son, a missive of wise reflections and humble advice. Though, of course, a flawed character, Ames is a fundamentally good man, exquisitely realised in beautiful prose - and anyone who has read a life of Jesus - or, conversely, Paradise Lost - knows how difficult it is to portray virtuousness in fiction. Gilead is a novel full of grace and truth. Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite.

“. . . I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence . . . In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try” (p. 65).

“. . . I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face. . . Any human face has a claim on you, because you can’t help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. But this is truest of the face of an infant. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any” (p. 75).

“I always imagine divine mercy giving us back to ourselves and letting us laugh at what we became, laugh at the preposterous disguises of crouch and squint and limp and lour we all do put on. I enjoy the hope that when we meet I will not be estranged from you by all the oddnesses life has carved into me” (p. 134).

“How do you tell a scribe from a prophet . . ? The prophets love the people they chastise . . .” (p. 162). “And what is the purpose of a prophet except to find meaning in trouble?” (p. 267).

“. . . there are certain attributes our faith assigns to God: omniscience, omnipotence, justice, and grace. We human beings have such a slight acquaintance with power and knowledge, so little conception of justice, and so slight a capacity for grace, that the workings of these great attributes together is a mystery we cannot hope to penetrate” (p. 171).

“. . . in Scripture, the one sufficient reason for the forgiveness of debt is simply the existence of debt” (p. 183).

In a conversation with Ames, in which the priest has expressed his admiration for Karl Barth, a character observes: “‘Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?’ ‘Not really,’ I said, which surprised me, since I have wondered about that very thing any number of times” (p. 196).

“If you want to inform yourselves as to the nature of hell, don’t hold your hand in a candle flame, just ponder the meanest, most desolate place in your soul” (p. 237).

“There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world’s mortal insufficiency to us. Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true” (p. 280).

The novel ends: “I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep” (p. 282).

One reviewer (Stevie Davies) writes: “Gilead reminds us that words have power to spare, to forgive, to do justice.” Which hits the nail right on the head - like the novel itself, gently.