Book Review: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Initially, I struggled to read Gilead because it so little resembled a traditional narrative. Yet that was the very thing I grew to love about it. Gilead is so painstakingly honest that it's hard to believe it's a work of fiction. It feels rooted in a specific time and place, with events and emotions that resemble real life and struck familiar chords with me.

Too often, "realism" is taken as equivalent to "gritty nihilism." This is where Gilead differs drastically from other modern literary fiction. It acknowledges wickedness and suffering while also emphasizing the possibilities of grace and love. It refuses to sugarcoat its characters and the situations in which they find themselves, but neither does it paint a falsely hopeless view of the world. It embraces its characters exactly as they are, marveling at the imago Dei found in them, silently preaching the incredible value of the everyday person... of every person.

Gilead's ending feels unresolved, but the lack of resolution fits the book so well that I cannot view it as a flaw. To vastly oversimplify, this book is about life, and about how life doesn't really end. Individual lives do, but Life as an entity of its own does not. This theme is underscored by the multi-generational nature of the story, showing the impact of those who go before on those who come after. The very premise of the book-- a father writing a letter to his young son-- serves this message beautifully.

In spite of its narrator being a preacher, Gilead succeeds in avoiding preachiness. It respects the mysteries and impossible questions of life too much to trivialize them with pat answers. As finite beings pondering the infinite, our understanding is markedly limited.

I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said, "Drama is life with the dull bits taken out." Gilead reminds its readers that perhaps those "dull bits" are not so dull after all. Perhaps, if we look at them properly, they can be filled with meaning and beauty.