I read Marilynne Robinson ‘s Gilead late last fall, not having heard of Marilynne Robinson before, and I liked it so much that I then checked out Housekeeping from the library. I found the latter to be quite different from Gilead. I supposed that is not a surprise, since, as was just brought to my attention by Wikipedia, the latter was written 25 years later. But we’ll return to Housekeeping in a moment. I liked the pace of Gilead, although some of my friends found it slow. The tone and concept–an elderly minister writing his memoirs in the form of a letter to his young son–were compelling enough to keep me going, but it does take a bit of perseverance not to get bogged down in the first few chapters.I didn’t realize until the final section of the book that this novel was, if not primarily at least to a great extent, about race relations. Again, perhaps I’m just slow on the pick-up, but I liked what seemed to be a deliberate technique by the author. By delaying the revelation of significant facts until the end, Robinson ties together a number of passages that previously seemed rather random and disconnected (like stories about an abolitionist town). This “aha!” experience made me want to read the book again (which I haven’t done yet; maybe I can convince my husband to read it with me). The delay also enables the author to bring up an important issue without either preaching at the readers or merely being trite. Continue reading →
