Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After I finished Gilead, I felt as if I had been washed, and I felt blessed. Reading the book is a wonderful, purifying experience. It reminds me of the truth that we are fallen creatures, but even the worst of us can be redeemed.

Here are some of my thoughts as I read and finished the book.

1. I enjoyed the characters in the book, and I especially loved seeing how the main characters changed through the course of the story. The main character is John Ames, a Midwestern pastor who has just been diagnosed with heart problems, and he knows his time on earth is short. He is most concerned about the fact that he is leaving a much younger wife and a 7-year-old son.

Because he knows he will not be able to see his son grow up (and therefore will not be able to raise him or teach him what he wants to teach him about life), he is writing out some thoughts for his son to read when he has grown up. The book consists of this long letter to his son. Ames gives his son the best advice he can, and he informs him of their troubled family history, which intertwines with the abolitionist movement and the Civil War.  His goal is to help his son know who his father really was, knowing his son is going to grow up without a father.

But as Ames is writing this letter over a series of months, Ames himself goes through a major trial: he struggles with bitterness toward another character. Robinson portrays this complex relationship masterfully. I don't want to say more, but for me personally, the book's ending was more emotionally moving than all but maybe one or two books I've ever read.  

2. Over and over through Ames' narration, Robinson shows the wonder and sacredness of God's world, and she makes us thankful for the people God has brought into our lives. To Robinson, nature is not only glorious, it is sacred, since it is created by a loving God. As I read the book, it made me glad to be alive, simply existing in the world God has made. The book also makes us appreciate the people around us just for being who they are, since each of them is God's unique creation, created with dignity and worth (even if their lives are messed up). I've thought a lot about these aspects of the book as I've been reading.

Here's one passage where the theme of the sacredness of nature stood out to me:

"There is a reality in blessing. . . . It doesn't enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. . . . I don't wish to be urging the ministry on you, but there are some advantages to it you might not know to take account of if I did not point them out. Not that you have to be a minister to confer blessing. You are simply much more likely to find yourself in that position. It's a thing people expect of you. I don't know why there is so little about this aspect of the calling in the literature."

3. I enjoy stories with the "atonement with the father" archetype. Robinson includes father-son conflict on multiple levels, and she uses symbolism from the Abraham-Isaac-Ishmael relationship in the story. John Ames is an Abraham figure, and there are Isaac and Ishmael figures as well. The main conflict of the story has to do with this complex relationship, and as I mentioned before, its resolution is sheer genius.

This is a book that brought me a blessing. As I finished it, I felt as if someone close to God had placed his palm on my forehead and spoken a blessing upon me. I hope to read it again.

View all my reviews