Gilead: "A Rich Book"

Marilynne Robinson's novel, Gilead, was a long time coming, and at first it may be hard to see why. The story of a terminally ill pastor in rural Iowa unravels in the form of a long letter to his young son. Reverend John Ames's remarks at first seem an unremarkable attempt by a dying man to convey a family history, his "begats" as he calls them, to a boy he will never know as an adult. Yet as we read we begin to be struck by just how extraordinary an ordinary life can be. Moments of clarity and wonder appear in the text like drops of rain catching sun; plodding along quietly, readers will suddenly find themselves face to face with a sentence or a paragraph that unapologetically confronts them with the full richness of life. This is a novel of hidden treasures, a love song to a planet "that deserves all the attention we can give it." In religious terms, it is a baptism and a blessing that acknowledges the sacredness of the everyday in a way that may make readers want to rediscover it for themselves. Is this kind of story, then, this kind of life, the best kind of theology?

Suggested Reading:
Gilead, 3-85 (". . . Bible.")