adamschoenmaker's review
5.0
I'll admit, it took me a few pages to warm to the memoir-style and the seemingly random collection of memories and stories. But the beautifully measured prose and moments of profundity and beauty drew me in. Though 'Gilead' is undoubtedly contemplative, it manages to never seem self-indulgent, revealing, rather, the beauty that is to be found in the ordinariness and simplicity of life, if one is willing to look. I'll have to read this again. Wonderful.
silvae's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
wille44's review against another edition
4.5
Gilead is a novel that I most appreciate for how unabashedly happy it is, it is so rare to find a work of literary fiction that centers itself around contentment and wonder as its principle emotional drivers, and Gilead does so without sacrificing its narrative flow or complexity of character. The entire novel is loosely in letter form that reads more like journal entries, as a dying preacher writes everything he would have told his son had he lived long enough to see the boy through his childhood.
Robinson masterfully avoids both cloying melodrama and didactic monologuing, in and of itself an impressive feat given the choice of subject matter. Our preacher, John Ames, is certainly melancholic about his approaching death, but also suffused with love for his wife and son and life itself, his musings about death exist alongside his wonder at the beauty of being alive. This even handed approach infuses Gilead with a warm and affirming sense of contentment, and is deeply moving not in sadness but instead in hopefulness.
Obviously a major aspect of the book is spirituality, and Robinson's Calvinism underpins the religious aspects of Ames and his beliefs and thoughts. Far from being preachy, somehow she has managed to capture what feels like a universal spirituality, deftly avoiding dogma and condemnation in her writing to instead hone in on the sensation of the soul in her characters, elevating them above their flaws and virtues to instead all be beatified, in a sense, through her text.
The major conflict, Ames reconciling with and learning to forgive the prodigal son of his lifelong friend while coming to terms with why he himself was so hurt in the first place, is quiet and beautifully done. Through this man Jack, Robinson challenges religious condemnation, especially her own Calvinistic determinism by asking how we as humans can find peace and healing from our own broken pasts. In the end, both Jack and John, men who have led bad and good lives respectively by both societal and religious standards, are equally able to transcend themselves through love and sacrifice. While it doesn't quite reach the stratospheric heights of her novel Housekeeping, Gilead is a beautiful and moving book that stands unique in the literary landscape for its uncompromising belief and hope in a world in which the opposite is all too common.
Robinson masterfully avoids both cloying melodrama and didactic monologuing, in and of itself an impressive feat given the choice of subject matter. Our preacher, John Ames, is certainly melancholic about his approaching death, but also suffused with love for his wife and son and life itself, his musings about death exist alongside his wonder at the beauty of being alive. This even handed approach infuses Gilead with a warm and affirming sense of contentment, and is deeply moving not in sadness but instead in hopefulness.
Obviously a major aspect of the book is spirituality, and Robinson's Calvinism underpins the religious aspects of Ames and his beliefs and thoughts. Far from being preachy, somehow she has managed to capture what feels like a universal spirituality, deftly avoiding dogma and condemnation in her writing to instead hone in on the sensation of the soul in her characters, elevating them above their flaws and virtues to instead all be beatified, in a sense, through her text.
The major conflict, Ames reconciling with and learning to forgive the prodigal son of his lifelong friend while coming to terms with why he himself was so hurt in the first place, is quiet and beautifully done. Through this man Jack, Robinson challenges religious condemnation, especially her own Calvinistic determinism by asking how we as humans can find peace and healing from our own broken pasts. In the end, both Jack and John, men who have led bad and good lives respectively by both societal and religious standards, are equally able to transcend themselves through love and sacrifice. While it doesn't quite reach the stratospheric heights of her novel Housekeeping, Gilead is a beautiful and moving book that stands unique in the literary landscape for its uncompromising belief and hope in a world in which the opposite is all too common.
bewildered_and_blase's review
3.0
When asked what I was reading, my answer could be summed up to: "250 pages of the last words of a dying preast from Iowa...but it's well written."
It was beautifull, it was poetic, and it was a struggle to read.
I usually enjoy good prose, thinking that we need more authors in contemptorary fiction who use language as an actual way of expression of something...you might say deeper. On that scale this book is an absolute gem. It certainly seems quite profound and is filled with small sparkles of poetic insights and historic references.
All that might seem well, but it was heavy ... not Tolstoy heavy, not shakespeare heavy...but even more, making it incredibly hard to focus. I might not even have finished it, if not for the public transport in Denmark which sponsored two extra hours for me to finish it.
And then again, maybe that wouldn't have made any difference. I would probably still have finished it. Not for the poetry or due to my will power, but due to the ability of the book to give me (a young northern european, who lives in an almost atheist milieu) the posibility of getting an insight in this priest's mind (who has such a different aproach to christianity) - something which might make it possible to understand the American way of thinking. Something which often seems queer, and hypocryte for a european, whose only contact with american culture seems to be through mass media.
This novel has many pluses, and gave a great insight in a part of society, which I haven't reflected much over yet. However, it's heaviness seemed way to much for me at this point of my life. Maybe I will read it again in 40 years, and maybe I will give it 5 stars then.
It was beautifull, it was poetic, and it was a struggle to read.
I usually enjoy good prose, thinking that we need more authors in contemptorary fiction who use language as an actual way of expression of something...you might say deeper. On that scale this book is an absolute gem. It certainly seems quite profound and is filled with small sparkles of poetic insights and historic references.
All that might seem well, but it was heavy ... not Tolstoy heavy, not shakespeare heavy...but even more, making it incredibly hard to focus. I might not even have finished it, if not for the public transport in Denmark which sponsored two extra hours for me to finish it.
And then again, maybe that wouldn't have made any difference. I would probably still have finished it. Not for the poetry or due to my will power, but due to the ability of the book to give me (a young northern european, who lives in an almost atheist milieu) the posibility of getting an insight in this priest's mind (who has such a different aproach to christianity) - something which might make it possible to understand the American way of thinking. Something which often seems queer, and hypocryte for a european, whose only contact with american culture seems to be through mass media.
This novel has many pluses, and gave a great insight in a part of society, which I haven't reflected much over yet. However, it's heaviness seemed way to much for me at this point of my life. Maybe I will read it again in 40 years, and maybe I will give it 5 stars then.
flynxnguyen's review against another edition
3.0
It was a strange sickness—I saw it over at Fort Riley. Those boys were drowning in their own blood. They couldn't even speak for the blood in their throats, in their mouths. So many of them died so fast there was no place to put them, and they just stacked the bodies in the yard. I went over there to help out, and I saw it myself. They drafted all the boys at the college, and influenza swept through there so bad the place had to be closed down and the buildings filled with cots like hospital wards, and there was terrible death, right here in Iowa. Now, if these things were not signs, I don't know what a sign would look like. So I wrote a sermon about it. I said, or I meant to say, that these deaths were rescuing foolish young men from the consequences of their own ignorance and courage, that the Lord was gathering them in before they could go off and commit murder against their brothers. And I said that their deaths were a sign and a warning to the rest of us that the desire for war would bring the consequences of war, because there is no ocean big enough to protect us from the Lord's judgment when we decide to hammer our plowshares into swords and our pruning hooks into spears, in contempt of the will and the grace of God.
sarasoycappuccino's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
mattgoldberg's review against another edition
5.0
What a beautiful book. I've never really read anything like it, and I love how Robinson explores notions of grace within the story. It was one of those books that I wanted to read slowly because I enjoyed luxuriating in the text. Just a lovely read from start to finish.
libbydmccarthy's review
3.0
I read this for my book group. It's about a preacher who is going to die soon, while his son is still very young, and so he decides to write to his son about some things he thinks he would have eventually told his son about if he were to be able to see him grow up.
It's funny, the style of it kinda reminds me of the journal I am writing to my son. (Not because I'm going to die, don't worry) I.e. it's an intermingling of comments about what the boy is doing, stories from the past, advice. I liked it, but I must admit I got a bit sick of it by the end. Maybe because I was rushing to finish it before book group, I don't know. Either way, I will take it as advice to keep my son's journal brief.
It's funny, the style of it kinda reminds me of the journal I am writing to my son. (Not because I'm going to die, don't worry) I.e. it's an intermingling of comments about what the boy is doing, stories from the past, advice. I liked it, but I must admit I got a bit sick of it by the end. Maybe because I was rushing to finish it before book group, I don't know. Either way, I will take it as advice to keep my son's journal brief.