Gilead (Oprah's Book Club)

By Marilynne Robinson

Book Overview

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER- OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER- A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - MORE THAN 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD

"Quietly powerful and] moving." O, The Oprah Magazine (recommended reading)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, GILEAD is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.

Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250784018
• ISBN13: 9781250784018
• Release Date: August 2020
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Gilead

The author of this book is brilliant. Book has to be read slowly and have your full concentration. We are using this book in a church study group. It is amazing what other people may pick up on and you do not AND ALSO what you remember as compared to the others. This is a great way to read this book. Otherwise, I think you would miss out on a lot - unless, of course, you are as brilliant as the author. Would recommend and give it a five star rating.

"I will tell you some more old stories."

Gilead could be a hard book to read if you are someone nursed on the fast-moving prose of writers like Jonathan Safran Foer or Glen David Gold. Gilead is a generational story that moves at its own relentless pace, but the relentlessness is more about the inevitable passage of time than it is about speed of any kind. Four generation of men and their relationships with God, their father and their sons is the thread at the heart of this lovely little book. Written as a letter from Reverend John Ames to the son of his old age, Gilead treats on subjects as diverse as sectarian difference, the abolitionist movement, heresy and small town Iowa (where the book is set). As befitting the subject, the prose is plain and well-paced. It takes real skill to bring most of this book's busy readers down to the pace of the novel. I read Housekeeping long ago, but I intend to revisit it now again, after having read Gilead. I have some small concerns about the book. Not the least of which is the dissonance with my own small town experience. Not for nothing has Robinson set this a generation or two earlier than most readers. Still, it is hauntingly beautiful in places, and a book that I kept thinking about long after I closed the cover and put it away.

Beautiful...

GILEAD is a book that has left me in a bit of a quandary. While I loved the book, I would be hesitant to recommend it to some since it does not conform to today's modern style of writing. This book is written without chapters, in a slowly paced style that requires readers to put themselves in the mindset of John Ames, a preacher in his mid-seventies who is nearing the end of his life. It is a journal of thoughts and memories that is being written to his son. There is no storyline, no plot to follow. It is purely an expression of love from a father to his son. If you are looking for suspenseful plot twists, wacky best friends or humorous scenarios, this is not the book for you. If you simply want to read a stunning work of art, I highly recommend it.

Exquisitely written

I considered Marilynne Robinson's first novel, "Housekeeping" to be one of the most beautifully written books I ever read and had hoped she would write another novel. However, when I learned that her new book was about the minister living in the middle of Iowa in the 1950's, I felt let down. I could not think of a setting in which I would have less interest. Nonetheless, I gave "Gilead" a try. I'm so glad I did. It is another example of what the English language is capable of. The prose is spare, as the subject demands. But it quickly becomes a meditation on how even the simplest life can be touched by grace and wonder. I am not a Christian. In fact, I am an atheist. But this book communicated to me the nurture that can be derived from heartfelt, clear minded, prosaic Christianity. Indeed I can't imagine a more spiritual text. I am not as young as I was when I read "Housekeeping" so I am not "swept away" by literature as I once was. But this lyrical book is on some subtle level, transforming. I understand why Ms. Robinson's quiet prose might not appeal to everyone. But this is truly a first rate work of fiction. I am a harsh critic, but I have no trouble giving this book five stars.