Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by emma_hughes_
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
3.0
I can't put my finger on why I didn't like this book quite as much as the other two Gilead books. Something about Lila bothered me, or else I didn't understand her. Learning her life story was interesting, but I didn't like the light it put the first book in. I didn't like the way she related to her husband, the preacher, the narrator of Gilead. Maybe I'm one of the townspeople she doesn't quite get along with, but I struggled to empathize with her in the way I did Rev. Ames in Gilead, or Glory and Jack Boughton in Home. Something about her character (as in, the person she is in the book, not her morality) bothered me, especially in how she refuses to learn to love the life she's been given. The way she was written, it didn't feel like she loved Ames very much at all, even though I know she did, which doesn't make sense. Maybe it's just Robinson's amazing talent for writing the souls of her characters into her writing—as world-worn and weary as Lila is, it makes sense that she wouldn't wear her heart on her sleeve, but it made it harder for me to be able to connect with and appreciate her.
The first two books felt purposeful, but this one somehow felt more like filler than anything else, like Robinson wanted to fill in some of the gaps Gilead and Home left behind. However, she still left everything quite unfinished, which is of course intentional, but it frustrates me that we will likely never know the end of their stories. Lila left me wondering about the lives of the characters, which is of course much more reflective of reality, but I also believe we read stories because we need to know that things will turn out for the best in the end. Maybe it's not our idea of the best (take the end of La La Land, for example), but we want some level of completion in our stories, a reflection of hearts that yearn for the perfection of Eden. Maybe it's the frame of mind that I'm in, but I didn't get that sense of completion here; in fact, I felt the opposite.
I don't want to discount Robinson's writing abilities. She is a phenomenal writer. The ability to take the same town, essentially the same story, and tell it at slightly different times from three different characters' perspectives and make each of them sound completely unique is absolutely amazing. Ames' voice sounds nothing like Glory's, which sounds nothing like Lila's. And when Ames speaks in this book, I can hear his voice from Gilead speaking through Lila's understanding of the world, which is remarkable. And of course, the sheer beauty of the writing is also impressive. Sometimes it gets a little too heady for me (my roommate described it as something you almost understand, but can't quite grasp), but it's undeniable that Robinson is great at what she does. I didn't agree entirely with the choices she made in Lila, but her skill is not something I'm willing to argue against.
The first two books felt purposeful, but this one somehow felt more like filler than anything else, like Robinson wanted to fill in some of the gaps Gilead and Home left behind. However, she still left everything quite unfinished, which is of course intentional, but it frustrates me that we will likely never know the end of their stories. Lila left me wondering about the lives of the characters, which is of course much more reflective of reality, but I also believe we read stories because we need to know that things will turn out for the best in the end. Maybe it's not our idea of the best (take the end of La La Land, for example), but we want some level of completion in our stories, a reflection of hearts that yearn for the perfection of Eden. Maybe it's the frame of mind that I'm in, but I didn't get that sense of completion here; in fact, I felt the opposite.
I don't want to discount Robinson's writing abilities. She is a phenomenal writer. The ability to take the same town, essentially the same story, and tell it at slightly different times from three different characters' perspectives and make each of them sound completely unique is absolutely amazing. Ames' voice sounds nothing like Glory's, which sounds nothing like Lila's. And when Ames speaks in this book, I can hear his voice from Gilead speaking through Lila's understanding of the world, which is remarkable. And of course, the sheer beauty of the writing is also impressive. Sometimes it gets a little too heady for me (my roommate described it as something you almost understand, but can't quite grasp), but it's undeniable that Robinson is great at what she does. I didn't agree entirely with the choices she made in Lila, but her skill is not something I'm willing to argue against.