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50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, 9 Jan 2006
I suppose I wouldn't have read this book if I hadn't, by chance, come across an extract in the 'New Yorker' a while ago. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity.Notionally, 'Gilead' is a letter from a father to a son, a testament to the hopes and fears that the father, now in the twilight of his life, will never be able to share with his son. It is an account of the troublesome relationship between the narrator's father, a pacifist, and his grandfather, a militant abolitionist who fought (apparently with vigour and with valour) in the American Civil War; it is a deep reflection on the meaning and purpose of faith (the narrator, in common with both his father and grandfather, is the Pastor in the eponymous town of the title); and it is a commentary on the fears evoked within him by the sudden reappearance of the long lost son of a friend, a ne'r-do-well whom he instinctively, yet irrationally fears. But 'Gilead' is much more than this. It is a work of art, as delicate and as beautiful as a painting or a sculpture. It is not overly concerned with the nicities of plot, of story development, of climax and resolution. Rather, it is more intimately linked with the evocation of an emotional state within the reader that is rarely found in fiction. And it succeeds. Robinson's language and expression is tight, precise and captures the world, the existence of her narrator, a 76 year old in man in the last days of a long and eventful life, perfectly. Too perfectly, one might argue; at least one understands why there was a gap of a quarter century between her debut and this, only her second work of fiction. I recommend this book as a masterpiece, nothing less.
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful, thought-provoking, beautifully written..., 12 Jan 2006
Gilead is a superb novel. It's a book that grows in stature and interest as it proceeds - it is the journal of a man who is coming to the end of his life, written specifically for his young son. His son is the child of a second marriage - his first wife and child died - and he married his much younger second wife late, and so is an old man (77) with a young son (nearly 7). As the journal progresses, he tells stories of his relationship with his own father, and of his grandfather - three generations of church ministers, the grandfather having been involved in the Civil War, the father an ardent pacifist, the narrator trying to come to terms with his own life and what will happen when he dies. The strength of the book is in the power of this narrative - the relationships that are evoked by the understated but beautiful prose of the journal, and the man's own wrestling with his inner life as well as the life and lives going on around him. A specific story emerges, and the book becomes very moving in unexpected ways. There is a lot of Christian theology, and yet because of the main focus of the narrative, this is interesting and pertinent, and should not put off those who have no interest in religion - odd to have so much theology at the centre of a novel, but it's a very human take on theology, and the open-mindedness of the narrator gives a richness and thought-provoking depth to ideas about belief in God and practical issues of being human. I found it a very subtle book, and one that slowly enthralled me. There is very little dialogue, because of the nature of the narrative, but it never becomes monotonous. It is like a meditation on the nature of father and son relationships, yet written by a woman - I found it quite extraordinary, and definitely to be recommended to anyone looking for a slower, more thoughtful read. Anyone who has read Marilynne Robinson’s previous novel, the beautiful Housekeeping, will surely not be disappointed.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
leisurely paced, touching, 30 Nov 2004
"Gilead" is Marilynne Robinson's second novel, written more than 20 years after "Housekeeping," which drew much critical acclaim as well as the 1981 PEN/Hemingway Award. "Gilead" takes the form of a long letter written in 1956 by a dying 76-year-old pastor to his 7-year-old son in the small town of Gilead, Iowa. The novel is very leisurely paced (think of Wendell Berry at his most leisurely) and meanders down the side roads of memory and reverie--telling a few tall tales, recounting the strange exploits of the narrator's firebrand abolitionist grandfather, and dwelling on the occasional theological issue (the narrator has wrestled much of his life with the humanist theology of Ludwig Feuerbach, a struggle made easier for the narrator by the works of Karl Barth). Being a slow-building, character-based novel, there is no plot to speak of in "Gilead." However, the story ultimately addresses the theme of the prodigal son and ends with a touching and nearly-unexpected poignancy. This is a thoughtful and deeply religious novel by a top literary talent: beautiful, if not a pinnacle work of the genre like Bo Giertz's "The Hammer of God."
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