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Loading... Gilead (2004)by Marilynne Robinson
  
» 56 more Historical Fiction (40) Favourite Books (223) Books Read in 2016 (257) Female Author (126) Top Five Books of 2014 (341) Five star books (124) Best family sagas (57) Top Five Books of 2018 (248) Top Five Books of 2016 (228) Books Read in 2018 (319) 100 New Classics (23) 2000s decade (15) Top Five Books of 2015 (665) Top Family Stories (158) Books Read in 2006 (15) BBC Radio 4 Bookclub (118) To Read (31) Tour of Iowa (16) Books Read in 2019 (3,105) Alphabetical Books (59) Unread books (517) All Iowa Reads (4) Such a beauty. It started slow and in one direction but soon shifted elsewhere. Loved his voice and worries, the life story, the prose  davidwarwick | Sep 20, 2020 |  Sorry to say I could not get past 60 pages on this one. I had enough of the dull, rambling passages, overbearing religiosity, self important protagonist and lack of any semblance of plot. Pulitzer prize mu foot. (  ) Misprint | Aug 31, 2020 | Consistently paced and very engrossing, this is a moral tale told of a small town in Iowa in the 1950s, but also of the idea of ethical codes and contemplation on life in general - as if someone took a Flannery O'Connor story and stretched it out. Appreciably simple use of language. (  ) ephemeral_future | Aug 20, 2020 | Bumping this one up from 4 stars to 5 stars on re-read. This time I read it slowly, 10 or 20 pages each day, and I think that let it sink in better and impact me more deeply. Given sufficient attention, this is a beautiful book (as its narrator might argue that given sufficient attention, many things become more beautiful and more holy than otherwise perceived). (  ) elenaj | Jul 31, 2020 | Gilead is the story of three generations of Congregationalist preachers in Iowa and Kansas. It is told through a letter from John Ames, the latest generation preacher, who is dying to his young son. I found the incorporated history very interesting. The abolitionist grandfather moved from Maine to Kansas to affect the new state's decision on slavery. While I enjoyed the interior monologues of Ames regarding life and religion, I would have liked more about the characters. The characters of Ames, his grandfather, and his best friend, Boughton really got me invested. I believe the characters are revisited in Robinson's Home and Lila. Will definitely reading those as well. Favorite line: To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear. [bc:Home|2924318|Home (Gilead, #2)|Marilynne Robinson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1426188598s/2924318.jpg|2951639] [bc:Lila|20575411|Lila (Gilead, #3)|Marilynne Robinson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1393645345s/20575411.jpg|26208371] by [a:Marilynne Robinson|7491|Marilynne Robinson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1256021025p2/7491.jpg] ( ) JWhitsitt | Jun 26, 2020 |
 But in Gilead, Robinson is addressing the plight of serious people with a calm-eyed reminder of the liberal philosophical and religious traditions of a nation whose small towns "were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter peace", citing a tradition of intellectual discursiveness and a historical cycle that shifts from radical to conservative then back to radical again, and presenting, as if from the point of view of time's own blindness, an era when unthinkable things were happening but were themselves about to change unimaginably, for the better. It takes issue with the status quo by being a message, across generations, from a now outdated status quo. "What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope?" Gradually, Robinson's novel teaches us how to read it, suggests how we might slow down to walk at its own processional pace, and how we might learn to coddle its many fine details. Nowadays, when so many writers are acclaimed as great stylists, it's hard to make anyone notice when you praise a writer's prose. There is, however, something remarkable about the writing in 'Gilead.' It's not just a matter of writing well, although Robinson demonstrates that talent on every page [...] Robinson's words have a spiritual force that's very rare in contemporary fiction -- what Ames means when he refers to 'grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials. Marilynne Robinson draws on all of these associations in her new novel, which -- let's say this right now -- is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. Gilead possesses the quiet ineluctable perfection of Flaubert's "A Simple Heart" as well as the moral and emotional complexity of Robert Frost's deepest poetry. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth: "Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts." Belongs to SeriesGilead (1)
In 1956, as a minister approaches the end of his life, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets. No library descriptions found. 
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