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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-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
Of the trilogy, I think I liked this one the best.
emotional
hopeful
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
3.5 stars. Another difficult, elliptical novel concerning the most profound spiritual questions. It has its moments of transcendence, especially toward the end (as all of Marilynne Robinson’s books do), but it feels more padded and repetitive than her other, leaner works. That said, it is a worthy expansion to the interior and exterior worlds of Gilead.
This is quite beautiful and emotive... I think I liked Lila best of all the Gilead books. I feel it would reveal more of itself with rereading as well.
Book 4 had better be the life and times of Doll. I'm starting the viral Internet campaign now.
If anything, I read this too quickly, and in too few gulps. Beautiful prose, fascinating characters, simple depictions of complex spiritual ideas. Someday, I will skip work for a month and revisit the Gilead Novels with a pen and a notebook. Maybe two months.
"That was one of those days that is so mild and bright you know you'll never see a better one." -252
Just realized I finished this on Christmas Day. What a gift!!
The Gilead novels by Robinson are all about the writing. If you love her writing, you'll love Lila.
I love these books beyond anything, even though much of the subject matter revolves around Christianity and small town life in the mid-west - and I am not a Christian nor have I ever lived in the mid-west, and I probably wouldn't like it. But beyond the superficial subject matter, the Gilead novels are about life and death and love and family, and faith (whatever the word means to you), and the possibility of redemption, and how to overcome one's demons, and how to live a life that matters internally and if you're lucky, to others. And that's really all there is.
Lila is the much younger wife of the Reverend John Ames, the character we originally met in "Gilead", the first book of the trilogy. In this novel we learn about her life. Lila was born into poverty, abandoned as a toddler, then picked up by a kind-hearted drifter named Doll, who raises her in a series of camps, doing seasonal farm work and odd jobs around people's homes. After a brief time in a St. Louis brothel, Lila, with nothing to her name but a bedroll, a few clothes and a knife, stumbles into Gilead and into Reverend Ames' church. The rest of the story is about how these two reserved and much different individuals fall in love with each other. In Lila's case, she has to learn how to have feelings at all, having numbed herself as a survival strategy. She learns about Ames' experience of faith and how to build her own. We also find out how Ames learns to balance his love for Lila with the knowledge that she might find it all too overwhelming and have to leave him, someday.
Because this is Robinson, you can see and feel every sight Lila describes. As a child of drifters, she finds joy in sitting around a campfire with her circle, having found something to eat & having a field to play in with her friends. There's a pain and a necessary obsession in owning the knife that her friend owned and with which a terrible deed was done. There's contentment and yet a terrible fear that comes from being in a home with geraniums in the window and coffee in the pot and white curtains blowing in the breeze. How can the person with the campfire and knife memories, reconcile herself to the comfortable home, the loving husband, the possibility of children?
The Gilead novels by Robinson are all about the writing. If you love her writing, you'll love Lila.
I love these books beyond anything, even though much of the subject matter revolves around Christianity and small town life in the mid-west - and I am not a Christian nor have I ever lived in the mid-west, and I probably wouldn't like it. But beyond the superficial subject matter, the Gilead novels are about life and death and love and family, and faith (whatever the word means to you), and the possibility of redemption, and how to overcome one's demons, and how to live a life that matters internally and if you're lucky, to others. And that's really all there is.
Lila is the much younger wife of the Reverend John Ames, the character we originally met in "Gilead", the first book of the trilogy. In this novel we learn about her life. Lila was born into poverty, abandoned as a toddler, then picked up by a kind-hearted drifter named Doll, who raises her in a series of camps, doing seasonal farm work and odd jobs around people's homes. After a brief time in a St. Louis brothel, Lila, with nothing to her name but a bedroll, a few clothes and a knife, stumbles into Gilead and into Reverend Ames' church. The rest of the story is about how these two reserved and much different individuals fall in love with each other. In Lila's case, she has to learn how to have feelings at all, having numbed herself as a survival strategy. She learns about Ames' experience of faith and how to build her own. We also find out how Ames learns to balance his love for Lila with the knowledge that she might find it all too overwhelming and have to leave him, someday.
Because this is Robinson, you can see and feel every sight Lila describes. As a child of drifters, she finds joy in sitting around a campfire with her circle, having found something to eat & having a field to play in with her friends. There's a pain and a necessary obsession in owning the knife that her friend owned and with which a terrible deed was done. There's contentment and yet a terrible fear that comes from being in a home with geraniums in the window and coffee in the pot and white curtains blowing in the breeze. How can the person with the campfire and knife memories, reconcile herself to the comfortable home, the loving husband, the possibility of children?