Gilead (novel)

Gilead

Cover of the first edition
Author	Marilynne Robinson
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date	November 4, 2004
Publication place	United States
Media type	Hardcover, Paperback, Audio book
Pages	256 pp
ISBN	0374153892
OCLC	54881929
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 22
LC Class	PS3568.O3125 G55 2004

MODERATOR: CHECK NOTE AT BEGINNING OF 'SHORTCOMINGS' HEADING. Gilead is a novel written by Marilynne Robinson and published in 2004. It won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel is the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly congregationalist pastor in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa who knows that he is dying of a heart condition. At the beginning of the book, the date is established as 1957, and Ames explains that he is writing an account of his life for his seven-year-old son, who will have few memories of him.

Plot

The book is an account of the memories and legacy of John Ames as he remembers his experiences of his father and grandfather to share with his son. All three men share a vocational lifestyle and profession as Congregationalist ministers in Gilead, Iowa. Ames' father was a Christian pacifist, but his grandfather was a radical abolitionist who carried out guerrilla actions with John Brown before the American Civil War, served as a chaplain with the Union forces in that war, and incited his congregation to join up and serve in it; as Ames remarks, "He preached this town into the war." The grandfather returned from the war maimed with the loss of his right eye. Thereafter he was given the distinction that his right side was holy or sacred in some way, that it was his link to commune with God, and he was notorious for a piercing stare with the one eye he had left.

The grandfather's other eccentricities are recalled in his youth: the practice of giving all and any of the family's possessions to others and preaching with a gun in a bloodied shirt. The true character and intimate details of the father are revealed in context with anecdotes regarding the grandfather, and mainly in the search for the grave of the grandfather. One event that is prevalent in the narrator's orations is the memory of receiving 'communion' from his father at the remains of a Baptist church, burned by lightning (Ames recalls this as an invented memory adapted from his father breaking and sharing an ashy biscuit for lunch). In the course of the novel, it quickly emerges that Ames's first wife, Louisa, died while giving birth to their daughter, Rebecca (a.k.a. Angeline) who also died soon after. Ames reflects on the death of his family as the source of great sorrow for many years, in contrast and with special reference to the growing family of the Rev. Robert Boughton, local Presbyterian minister and Ames' dear and lifelong friend.

Many years later Ames meets his second wife, Lila, a less-educated woman who appears in church one Pentecost Sunday. Eventually Ames baptizes Lila and their relationship develops, culminating in her proposal to him. As Ames writes his memoirs, Boughton's son, John Ames Boughton (Jack), reappears in the town after leaving it in disgrace twenty years earlier, following his seduction and abandonment of a girl from a poverty-stricken family near his university. The daughter of this relationship died poor and uncared-for at the age of three, despite the Boughton family's well-intended but unwelcome efforts to look after the child. Young Boughton, the apple of his parents' eye but deeply disliked by Ames, seeks Ames out; much of the tension in the novel results from Ames's mistrust of Jack Boughton and particularly of his relationship with Lila and their son. In the dénouement, however, it turns out that Jack Boughton is himself suffering from his forced separation from his own common-law wife, an African American from Tennessee, and their son; the family are not allowed to live together because of segregationist laws, and her family utterly rejects Jack Boughton. It is implied that Jack's understanding with Lila lies in their common sense of tragedy as she prepares for the death of Ames, who has given her a security and stability she has never known before.

Although there is action in the story, its mainspring lies in Ames' theological struggles on a whole series of fronts: with his grandfather's engagement in the Civil War, with his own loneliness through much of his life, with his brother's clear and his father's apparent loss of belief, with his father's desertion of the town, with the hardships of people's lives, and above all with his feelings of hostility and jealousy towards young Boughton, whom he knows at some level he has to forgive. Ames' struggles are illustrated by numerous quotations from the Bible, from theologians (especially Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion) and from philosophers, especially the atheist Feuerbach, whom Ames greatly respects.

It is unusual that a book with so much openly religious and theological content should be so widely recognized as a successful novel and should achieve such acclaim from a secular audience. However the abstract and theological content is made meaningful because it is seen through the eyes of Ames, who is presented in a deeply sympathetic manner and who writes his memoir from a position of serenity, despite his suffering and a knowledge of his own limitations and failings. Throughout the novel, Ames details a reverential awe for the transcendental pathos in the small personal moments of happiness and peace with his wife and son and the town of Gilead, despite the lonliness and sorrow he feels for leaving the world with things undone and unsolved. In the closing pages of the book, Ames learns of Jack Boughton's true situation and is able to offer him the genuine affection and forgiveness he has never before been able to feel for him.

Influences

According to Robinson, the fictional town of Gilead (Gilead means 'hill of testimony' in the Bible - Genesis 31:21) is based on the real town of Tabor, Iowa, located in the southwest corner of the state and well-known for its importance in the abolition movement. Likewise, the character of the narrator's grandfather is loosely based on the real life story of the Rev. John Todd, a congregationalist minister from Tabor who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and who stored weapons, supplies and ammunition used by abolitionist John Brown in his "invasion" of Missouri in 1857 to free a group of slaves, and later—without Todd’s knowledge or involvement—in his 1859 raid on the U.S. military arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Shortcomings

(THIS ARTICLE AT THE VERY LEAST NEEDS ONE OF THOSE WARNINGS (I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT). JUST READ THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THIS SECTION): Although unstinting praise for this excellent novel is not unwarranted, the description so far does not reveal the mysteries and unexplained inconsistencies in the narrative. The singular inconsistency is Ames' inaction in response to Jack Boughton's plea for help in his current situation. In spite of Jack's unassailable high ground in wanting to reunite his miscegenist, "lewd" family in Gilead, Ames fails him utterly, seeks to assuage his own moral bankruptcy by offering him a meager $20, fails to inform Jack's father (as requested) or his sister Glory of Jack's situation (both of whom could have recruited Boughton's large family to offer succor to Jack), and finally offers Jack a little tract of moralistic Christianity, and a final blessing that echoe's Ames' own received blessing and is in Fact a redeemed baptism that Ames had failed to sanctify internally at the font many years earlier. while the suggestion that Jack willingly accepts this blessing wholeheartedly ennobles the act to a degree, it still does not offset the venality of the act as Ames' own effort to lessen his own guilt for distrusting Jack's motive for so many years. while it is satisfying to see Ames' moral redemption before his death, this transfiguration on a spiritual plane does little to offset the failure to offer his complete support for Jack's acts when Jack has continued the passion and rugged spirituality of Ames' grandfather. so the book ends with an unsettling ambiguity about the relevance of spirituality in humane service.

Societal Impact

Current United States President Barack Obama lists Robinson's book as one of his favorites on his official Facebook profile.

External links

• Novel description at publisher's site
• Now, a Masterpiece, a review of Gilead, by Jeffrey Hart, from National Review, March 28, 2005
• New York Times Book Review of Gilead
• Review of Gilead by Ted Gioia (The New Canon)
• Photos of the first edition of Gilead