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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I can't quite decide what I made of this book - enjoyed, but also found style & jumping through time with no chapters / breaks quite confusing.
This book focuses on the poverty, shame, and isolation felt by migrant workers struggling for survival in the Midwest during the mid-1900s. It’s a story about redemption, restoration, and rescue. The central question this book aims to answer is essentially if all the suffering of life is worth enduring? if presented with an opportunity for a better life different from the bitterness that has been accustomed to, are people even willing to be rescued?
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I enjoyed this one even more than Gilead. It had the same reflective and vulnerable quality, but Lila is a much more complex character and much easier to empathize with. Her hardships and rough edges mean she is a rounder character, and her skepticism of what “the old man” would want her for speaks to the abuse and neglect she experienced in being unable to trust anyone. I know the ending was bittersweet knowing that John’s death is near at hand in the previous book, but I am happy she found years of rest somewhere in the middle, even if we don’t know what happens to her after John dies.
Kept waiting for that crescendo at the end of the story that Robinson does so well in other books, but there was no payoff. Skimmed the last 75 pages bc so repetitious and unnecessary.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
inspiring
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
As with all of Marylinne Robinson’s writing, Lila was a joy to read. The prose is just beautiful, and each feeling is so masterfully described. I have not read the first two installments of Gilead but enjoyed this one as a standalone work.
This book had me thinking a lot about the value of faith, in both personal and community settings. As Lila is exposed to Christian ideals and traditions, she finds a framework to explore her long held existential queries, arguably to a greater depth. As she dives deeper, though, she is both frustrated and amused by the idea of devotion to something that, by nature, cannot be fully understood. Lila expects that the reverend will be able to answer her questions. But, their conversations reveal that none is more entrenched in these mysteries than the reverend himself. Robinson seems to suggest that the goal of faith is not to uncover truth, but to bring meaning to one’s life in a perpetual search for it.
I also loved how the nonlinearity of this narrative captured something about the way our minds process the human experience, which is more than a string of events witnessed at certain points in time. Their significance waxes and wanes. Our memories become distorted and clarified (and then maybe distorted again) as we experience more and find new lenses for looking back. “Lying in her bed in the quiet house in the quiet town, she could choose what her life had been.”
Instead of deciding to be “saved” by religion and renouncing her upbringing, Lila chooses to live in acknowledgement of her experience. To know the impossible calculations people must make when the stakes are high, to remember that sin is not so black and white, and to be wiser for it.
This book had me thinking a lot about the value of faith, in both personal and community settings. As Lila is exposed to Christian ideals and traditions, she finds a framework to explore her long held existential queries, arguably to a greater depth. As she dives deeper, though, she is both frustrated and amused by the idea of devotion to something that, by nature, cannot be fully understood. Lila expects that the reverend will be able to answer her questions. But, their conversations reveal that none is more entrenched in these mysteries than the reverend himself. Robinson seems to suggest that the goal of faith is not to uncover truth, but to bring meaning to one’s life in a perpetual search for it.
I also loved how the nonlinearity of this narrative captured something about the way our minds process the human experience, which is more than a string of events witnessed at certain points in time. Their significance waxes and wanes. Our memories become distorted and clarified (and then maybe distorted again) as we experience more and find new lenses for looking back. “Lying in her bed in the quiet house in the quiet town, she could choose what her life had been.”
Instead of deciding to be “saved” by religion and renouncing her upbringing, Lila chooses to live in acknowledgement of her experience. To know the impossible calculations people must make when the stakes are high, to remember that sin is not so black and white, and to be wiser for it.
I loved getting to know Lila! She was the most mysterious aspect of Gilead and in this novel we get to spend time with her sharp mind as it is formed. Robinson loves transients, their struggle was the subject of her first novel, “Housekeeping,” and here we spend Lila’s life among sharecroppers as they move through towns and stay alive. Her first year with the Reverend is told through her eyes as she takes her practical view of existence and holds it up next to his idealized, scholarly, theological and ultimately theoretical view. For instance, Ames reads and then takes Lila to the movies to see “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Lila is unimpressed, saying she doesn’t need to go to the movies to see old men eat beans, that’s been her reality her whole life. Their differences are not insurmountable, they just spark thoughtful discussion.
Robinson deftly places several dichotomous world views alongside each other throughout the novel :
Genuine kindness versus self-serving acts:
“Doll wasn’t the first to own anything and she wasn’t the last either, if she could help it.”
vs.
“There are women who take pride in how kind they are and jump at every chance, their eyes are shining with it so you can’t help but notice. You keep clear of them if you can, but they do come in handy.”
Idealism versus reality:
“Maybe you don’t realize how important it is to me — not to be, well, a fool, I suppose. I’ve struggled with that my whole life.”
vs.
“I got my own thoughts.”
Proud courage versus circumstances in life:
“What could the old man say about all those people born with more courage than they could find a way to spend, and then there was nothing to do to get by?”
There are also themes of belonging explored, the meaning of life and religion’s potential and questionable usefulness. Now I want to re-read “Gilead” with this new understanding of Lila and how she came to be the Reverend’s wife.
Robinson deftly places several dichotomous world views alongside each other throughout the novel :
Genuine kindness versus self-serving acts:
“Doll wasn’t the first to own anything and she wasn’t the last either, if she could help it.”
vs.
“There are women who take pride in how kind they are and jump at every chance, their eyes are shining with it so you can’t help but notice. You keep clear of them if you can, but they do come in handy.”
Idealism versus reality:
“Maybe you don’t realize how important it is to me — not to be, well, a fool, I suppose. I’ve struggled with that my whole life.”
vs.
“I got my own thoughts.”
Proud courage versus circumstances in life:
“What could the old man say about all those people born with more courage than they could find a way to spend, and then there was nothing to do to get by?”
There are also themes of belonging explored, the meaning of life and religion’s potential and questionable usefulness. Now I want to re-read “Gilead” with this new understanding of Lila and how she came to be the Reverend’s wife.
Beautiful as always. This was my list favorite of the series so far though. Her observations are sharp, and her questions go deep. But this time I left wondering if her questions were correctly framed, or if they lacked some important piece that would have changed them.
Still, well worth reading and pondering, even if only to ask yourself what a better question might be.
Still, well worth reading and pondering, even if only to ask yourself what a better question might be.