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A review by suzyb123
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
5.0
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.