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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
While I prefer "Gilead"---the first novel in this trilogy---"Lila" added to the power of "Gilead": they go together beautifully. I'll be rereading "Gilead" someday, and then I'd be able to better review "Lila". I'm not sure how "Lila" will succeed with those who haven't read "Gilead" though: it's beautifully written, and Lila is a vivid character in some ways, but it's a very, very quiet story.
I love everything I've read by her, but this one is just really sticking with me. Ponderous in all the right ways about the important questions in life.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the kind of novel you could reread a few times. Lila is taken from a neglectful home as a toddler. She and her 'rescuer,' a well-meaning homeless woman, travel the countryside, mostly as itinerant workers, living hand to mouth.
When Lila arrives in a small town, as a grown woman, she settles into a shack, thinking she can handle the loneliness of her life. But then she takes a chance and walks through the town, where a tentative romance with a much older pastor-a widow-reshapes her life.
There is so much introspection in the narrative that the reader wants to go slow and steady, just to catch every word that Lilia says. The language is simple, sparse, but powerful.
Marilynne Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winner for her book, Gilead, which is related to this one. I enjoyed her writing so much that I'll read all of her books.
When Lila arrives in a small town, as a grown woman, she settles into a shack, thinking she can handle the loneliness of her life. But then she takes a chance and walks through the town, where a tentative romance with a much older pastor-a widow-reshapes her life.
There is so much introspection in the narrative that the reader wants to go slow and steady, just to catch every word that Lilia says. The language is simple, sparse, but powerful.
Marilynne Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winner for her book, Gilead, which is related to this one. I enjoyed her writing so much that I'll read all of her books.
3.5 stars
My least favorite of the Gilead books, but Robinson has such a lovely style. I good read for a time when you don't need a driving plot but are looking for a meander through some well-crafted prose.
My least favorite of the Gilead books, but Robinson has such a lovely style. I good read for a time when you don't need a driving plot but are looking for a meander through some well-crafted prose.
This book has one of my favorite characters. In the beginning, Lila lives with a group that I'd call gypsies, although other reviewers call them drifters or other names. One of the members of this rag-tag, one-step-from-starving group is "Mellie" (short for Melody?). [I'm not sure of the spelling because I listened to the book in audio format.] Mellie is a little girl with a knack of and desire to talk women who are strangers into letting her take care of their babies temporarily. The author calls these the "borrowed babies", as in "Once Mellie had returned the borrowed baby..." Any time the group met another group, like at a revival meeting, there would be Mellie holding someone else's baby. Myself, I know very well the joy of a borrowed baby, and how it feels to hold it and pretend it's your own. I can just imagine the skill this little girl had to get absolutely strange mothers to entrust their babies to her.
Anyway, this is a book about religion and the big question, "Why are things the way they are?" I wouldn't say the author tries to answer this question. It wouldn't be a Big Question if it were easily answered, but there's something profound about the relationships in this book and how your experiences determine how you extract meaning from your life. Along the way, the author touches profoundly on trust, community, love, tribe, good and evil and what I'd call "tokens" in your life.
What I learned from other reviewers is that this book has no chapter numbers. At first, when listening to the book, I thought my iPod had scrambled the book. Things happened in no particular order and we learned of the outcome of events before the events themselves occurred. This was pretty disconcerting at first, particularly since I wasn't totally sure the iPod HADN'T scrambled the book. Since there were no chapter headings, I couldn't be sure. But slowly the book took on a sort of structure. It was like a person's memory, specifically Lila's, if you can call memory a structure. That's how memory works. You're thinking of some incident in your life and it reminds you of some other incident, and then someone says something, and you're back to the present. This took a little getting used to, but after a while, I relaxed and trusted that the author would eventually tell me everything I needed to know, and let her paint the story section by section.
Now I want to read "Gilead", the author's previous book with some of the same characters and the eponymous town. I hope you don't have to read them in any particular order!
Anyway, this is a book about religion and the big question, "Why are things the way they are?" I wouldn't say the author tries to answer this question. It wouldn't be a Big Question if it were easily answered, but there's something profound about the relationships in this book and how your experiences determine how you extract meaning from your life. Along the way, the author touches profoundly on trust, community, love, tribe, good and evil and what I'd call "tokens" in your life.
What I learned from other reviewers is that this book has no chapter numbers. At first, when listening to the book, I thought my iPod had scrambled the book. Things happened in no particular order and we learned of the outcome of events before the events themselves occurred. This was pretty disconcerting at first, particularly since I wasn't totally sure the iPod HADN'T scrambled the book. Since there were no chapter headings, I couldn't be sure. But slowly the book took on a sort of structure. It was like a person's memory, specifically Lila's, if you can call memory a structure. That's how memory works. You're thinking of some incident in your life and it reminds you of some other incident, and then someone says something, and you're back to the present. This took a little getting used to, but after a while, I relaxed and trusted that the author would eventually tell me everything I needed to know, and let her paint the story section by section.
Now I want to read "Gilead", the author's previous book with some of the same characters and the eponymous town. I hope you don't have to read them in any particular order!
Such beautiful writing, such a fascinating character. Someday I'm going to read all of these novels together to have a clearer idea of how all of the characters fit together. Robinson's writing is gentle and quite, touching, specific and universal.
I was glad to complete the trilogy -but perhaps I read this too quickly. It was worthy of more meditation. This is a story of lonliness. I was brought to tears in many of the sections. Robinson conveys the human condition of lonliness as no writer I have ever read before. Calvin is discussed in more detail than her previous books and heaven looms large in her discussion. Their are passages of this book that make you ache in compassion.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
You should know this book is not divided into chapters. It is extreme of consciousness, reflection by the big character on her difficult life. There’s a beautiful passages, the strong symbols, and important questions in our life asked. For me, it was the kind of book you know is really good, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed reading it.