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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I absolutely love Marilynne Robinson's writing. So many beautiful passages, so much to think about.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Another beautiful story of pain and loneliness, love and kindness, belonging and hope. These books by Marilynne Robinson are now no doubt my favourite series of books.
Lovely. And nice to revisit the slow and sunny and sad world of Gilead. A bit harder with the stream of consciousness style, no chapters, but it did fit the character, Lila.
challenging
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
*Lila* reads to me like the female version of Huck Finn about a century later. The limited third-person narrative, from the tightly filtered perspective of a homeless, uneducated migrant worker, echoes the raw authenticity of America's most famous literary adolescent. In the difference between Lila and Robinson's readers lies the vast space where social norms and formal education intervene to shape our moral choices. Lila's access to these moral choices is both unmediated and disturbing.
If you have not read *Gilead* and *Home* it might be difficult but not impossible to appreciate *Lila* fully. Also, if you like fast-paced, action-filled novels, this lyrical meditation on loss, abandonment, love, belief, and forgiveness might not appeal. But if you know *Gilead,* and you like Robinson's meticulous inquiries into the most imperceptible motions of the human heart, this novel feels like a delicate treat at the end of a memorable feast. All of the questions you had about Lila in the previous two novels get answered here, plus a lot more. The love story between her and John Ames assumes an outline no reader of the earlier novels could have imagined, and the seeming strangeness of that relationship takes on the beauty and grace that inhere in Robinson's prose itself. While religious belief is not a requisite for appreciating Robinson's engagement with questions of theology, curiosity about the source of belief will get you through. This is the middle America--now, no less than a century ago--which every serious reader of American fiction should get to know.
If you have not read *Gilead* and *Home* it might be difficult but not impossible to appreciate *Lila* fully. Also, if you like fast-paced, action-filled novels, this lyrical meditation on loss, abandonment, love, belief, and forgiveness might not appeal. But if you know *Gilead,* and you like Robinson's meticulous inquiries into the most imperceptible motions of the human heart, this novel feels like a delicate treat at the end of a memorable feast. All of the questions you had about Lila in the previous two novels get answered here, plus a lot more. The love story between her and John Ames assumes an outline no reader of the earlier novels could have imagined, and the seeming strangeness of that relationship takes on the beauty and grace that inhere in Robinson's prose itself. While religious belief is not a requisite for appreciating Robinson's engagement with questions of theology, curiosity about the source of belief will get you through. This is the middle America--now, no less than a century ago--which every serious reader of American fiction should get to know.
Whoever has not read Marilynne Robinson is missing out on one of the best novelists of our time. Everything she writes leaves me in tears because of she is able to so completely and authentically capture both the suffering and aching beauty we all experience in our lives. She handles huge themes of faith and human experience in ways that are never trite, or sentimental, and she engages questions and difficulties head on.
Another beautifully written book by Marilynne Robinson. It is a book about harsh lives, written with tenderness and compassion. Its themes are love, hope and grace. The last part of the novel is particularly moving, and I had to read it twice in order to take it all in. It is a book that demands to be read slowly, so that the reader can appreciate the wonderful prose, and absorb the layers of meaning. If you enjoyed Gilead, I think you will enjoy this too.
'And he'd walk along beside her, her hand in the crook of his arm. If only she'd known then what comfort was coming, she'd have spared herself a little' p179, perfect.
Marilynne Robinson's books are quiet little masterpieces. Gilead is a fully realized world, its characters deeper and more complex than many real people I know.