In the third book of Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” trilogy,
“Lila,” John Ames realizes that, to his wife, his Christian observations on
existence are stories:
“It is a story, isn’t
it? I’ve never really thought of it that way. And I suppose the next time I
tell it, it will be a better story. Maybe a little less true. I might not tell
it again.”
Robinson’s three novels – “Gilead,” “Home” and “Lila” – run
the same risks of retelling, but are full of rewards. In them, she gives us the
same characters from different points of view, with shifting perspectives and
their own perceptions of what truth is. Which is key, since at the core for
some of these characters is the proclamation, or rejection, of ultimate truth
in the person of Jesus Christ, and what effect that has had on these few
fictional residents of a small town in the United States of America.
There are times in these books that can tax an
unsuspecting reader. In “Gilead,” the free-form ruminations of John Ames, aging
Congregationalist minister, sometimes cry out for a narrative band to emerge
within the book’s first 75 or so pages. Ames is writing in the first person to
his young son, who will presumably read them at some future date after he is
long dead. We are treated to what seem like repetitious epiphanies about warm
summer afternoons, the glories of neighborhood baseball, the wonder he finds in
that same son. The only temptation at this point is to put the book aside.
In “Home,” the narrative is more conventional – third
person, showing what is going on at virtually the same time in the home of
Ames’ best and oldest friend, the Presbyterian minister Robert Boughton. He is
entering his final days, cared for by his daughter Glory and his ne’er-do-well
son Jack. Here, the repetitions are the mundane affairs of caregiving, the
preparation of meals and the renovation of the Boughton flower beds. Coffee is
endlessly prepared and consumed. Because of Jack’s two decades of absence due
to his alcoholism (among other things), there is polite distance and
awkwardness among them all. “I’m sorry,” is repeated countless times. Jack
perpetually puts his hand to his face, shielding himself from scrutiny. Jack is
not a believer, but the most frustrating kind of would-be believer; a sly,
secretive dissembler who has taxed his father’s patience and faith his whole
life.
In “Lila,” we are treated to Gilead, Iowa through the life
of Ames’ second wife, Lila. She walked into Ames’ church one day out of the
rain, the latest steps in a vagabond life as the stolen child of a defiant,
proud, relentlessly private woman named Doll. Lila sees disease, privation,
murder, prostitution and a lifetime’s regrets before she becomes a preacher’s
wife and a mother long after she had given up any idea of roots or a shared
life. The narrative style is closer to “Gilead" - meandering to reflect
how quickly Lila’s consciousness flits between the past and the present,
ambling toward eternity.
Robinson’s style reminds me of Updike, without the old
lecher’s insistent need to go tiptoeing into some elaborate and vividly
described adulterous episode. No, the Christianity of Gilead, Iowa is the kind
that understands the temptations of the flesh come in less vivid colors than
those worn on a passing female form, but on often mundane, familiar objects
much closer at hand, on our insistent wants disguised as needs, on the politics
we would risk every relationship on.
Robinson’s strategy establishes itself in “Gilead” – the
reader is introduced to the characters, the contours of interaction and
observation are established, and the reader slowly begins to realize that
hidden within these seemingly drab surroundings and mundane movements are old,
desiccated resentments, bleeding regrets, impossible hopes, and stark,
insurmountable obstacles. But there is one secret that must force itself to the
surface and be confronted, and the escalating tension toward that climax is
meant to hook the reader, and instruct.
In “Lila,” Ames writes a letter to his would-be bride,
hoping to explain himself romantically and theologically:
“I realize I have
always believed there is a great Providence that, so to speak, waits ahead of
us. A father holds out his hands to a child who is learning to walk, and he
comforts the child with words and draws it toward him, but he lets the child
feel the risk it is taking, and lets it choose its own courage and the
certainty of love and comfort when he reaches his father over – I was going to
say choose it over safety, but there is no safety. And there is no choice,
either, because it is in the nature of the child to walk.”
Much of these three books has to do with history – family
history – and the passage of time as measured against the demands of
Providence. God means for us to move forward, but each of our characters are
consumed with the past and its demands. Lila later thinks that she has to “get
through her life one way or another.” So the image of a child learning to walk is
instructive, because a child only learns to walk forward. The first steps
forward burn off the baby fat and begin to nurture the idea of eventual
independence. And a child must grow. John Ames, and his father, grew away from
the shadow of the abolitionist preacher who was their forebear. Jack Broughton
has been dogged his entire life by the example of his father, which his
siblings embraced. “Lila” begins with a child stolen from the cold, or was she
rescued? And how many times does she fight the notion of rescue?
For me, the moment that will live in my memory forever is
Ames’ memory of his father and the men of the community pulling down the ruins
of a burned church, destroyed by fire, during a rainstorm. His father, black
with soot, hands him an ashy, soggy biscuit, which reminds him of communion.
The scene is rendered in three unforgettable pages filled with priceless
English sentences. One is reminded of the comforting cadences of old hymns and
the fussy devotion baked into church pies by women of deep, abiding faith. That
is history – American history; history written by millions of men and women in
small towns and obscure counties unbuilding and building.
And there is Christ. Ames tells his son that we come closest
to Jesus when we sit next to Him in our own Gethsemanes, taking the cup life
hands us even as we beg it off. The dying Robert Boughton in his dementia tells
his friend Ames, “Jesus never had to get old,” as though rickety limbs would
have taxed His infinite grace. Each time we encounter these people, we are
allowed to see the terror that hope inspires. If I love a person, and love them totally, they will disappoint me, and
I will disappoint them, and then where will I be? It is better to be alone, but
it is impossible. Ames and his preaching ancestors, Boughton and his
children, Lila and her ominous past, all have risked and lost and understand
that is the nature of human life. Yet they remain willing to risk again and
again.
These characters have walked the streets of Gilead so many
times, wearing holes in the pavement and passing by homes that a visitor might
find distinctive, but which long ago lost their allure. And still Robinson has
managed to take this parochial patch of what is now known as “flyover country”
and invest it, like Faulkner, with all the importance in the world. Or rather,
with the importance that God presumably brings to every human life.
Joan Acocella, in The New Yorker, writes that Ames “is a
kind of character that people say novelists can’t create, an exceptionally
virtuous person who is nevertheless interesting.” Though the stories
occasionally risk crossing the line into the precious, they never quite succeed
in doing so. “Gilead” and “Home” concern themselves with aging ministers of the
Gospel, while “Lila” from the unchurched world teaches Ames a few things at the
end of his life even as she is introduced to the dogged permanence of baptisms.
Christianity dogs us with the idea that, in the end, God will not accept
partial surrenders. He wants everything, and He is ruthless, because sin and
death have no remorse. That dogged, brutal, consuming love makes as many run
away from it as run to it, as judged by the receding shadow of Jack Boughton.
But Ames finds comfort in knowing that even his words, like himself, will pass
away.
“We fly forgotten as a
dream, certainly, leaving the forgetful world behind us to trample and mar and
misplace everything we have ever cared for. That is just the way of it, and it
is remarkable.”
And there are the words of Lila, intoned toward the end of
“Gilead” and repeated – “A person can change. Everything can change.” The
reality of grace means that being born again is terrifying, and exhilarating,
as long as we keep walking forward.
Set Your Fields on Fire
The award-winning novel by William Thornton
Available now
Some of the coverage of "Set Your Fields on Fire"
You can order "Set Your Fields on Fire"for $14.99 through Amazon here.
It's also available on Kindle at $3.99 through Amazon here.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast.
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book.
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here.
Here's a review of the novel by Robbie Pink.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.
Read an interview I did with AL.com on the book here.
Here's my appearance on the Charisma Network's CPOP Podcast.
Here's an interview I did with The Anniston Star on the book.
Shattered Magazine wrote a story about the book here.
Here's a review of the novel by Robbie Pink.
This piece appeared in the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal.
Here's the write-up from The Birmingham Times.
Read a story for Village Living here.
This story appeared in The Trussville Tribune and this video.
Here's my appearance on East Alabama Today.
Story and video from WBRC Fox6 here.
Here's the write-up in The Gadsden Times on the book.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.
Read a piece I wrote for WestBow Press about writing the book here.
A piece about some inspiring works for me.
This is another interview with the fleegan book blog here.
