9 posts tagged “fiction”
I have friends in town at the moment, so not much time for reading really. Or for updating this thing. Happy happy times though, hanging with my NZ homies.
Re-reading Harry Potter 6 in preparation for FRIDAY!
I never thought that I, the commited
agnostic (hee, is that an oxymoron? it feels like it) would be posting
about how much I liked this very Christian book.
OK so Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, is written from the POV of an elderly father writing to his young son. It's set in the 50s. The father is a Congregationalist minister living in the town of Gilead, Iowa (note that in the Bible Gilead means site of witness or testimony), who has married for the second time, late in life, to a much younger woman. They have a 7 year old son, and the father is basically thinking of all the stuff that he won't be able to tell his son, because he's dying.
Sounds a bit boring and/or depressing, huh? But it isn't! It's a lovely book. It meanders back and forth as the narrator tells stories about how he and his wife met, stories about his family (particularly his grandfather's role in the abolitionist movement) and the family of this best friend, who is a Presbytarian minister in the same town. Along with that, there's narrative on what's happening at the time: his best friend's son (who is his godson) has showed up unexpectedly in town, a happening that history has taught does not bode well; as well as the daily goings on in their household.
But the thing I liked about the novel the most isn't the plot or the stories. Interspersed with that is the narrator's musings on his life, pacifism, Christianity, and a lot on the concepts of grace and forgiveness. I found myself reading many paragraphs again and again because they were so beautifully written as well as being incredibly thoughtful.
It's a lovely story, a slow story, one that you want to read in a quiet place. I recommend.
OK so Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, is written from the POV of an elderly father writing to his young son. It's set in the 50s. The father is a Congregationalist minister living in the town of Gilead, Iowa (note that in the Bible Gilead means site of witness or testimony), who has married for the second time, late in life, to a much younger woman. They have a 7 year old son, and the father is basically thinking of all the stuff that he won't be able to tell his son, because he's dying.
Sounds a bit boring and/or depressing, huh? But it isn't! It's a lovely book. It meanders back and forth as the narrator tells stories about how he and his wife met, stories about his family (particularly his grandfather's role in the abolitionist movement) and the family of this best friend, who is a Presbytarian minister in the same town. Along with that, there's narrative on what's happening at the time: his best friend's son (who is his godson) has showed up unexpectedly in town, a happening that history has taught does not bode well; as well as the daily goings on in their household.
But the thing I liked about the novel the most isn't the plot or the stories. Interspersed with that is the narrator's musings on his life, pacifism, Christianity, and a lot on the concepts of grace and forgiveness. I found myself reading many paragraphs again and again because they were so beautifully written as well as being incredibly thoughtful.
It's a lovely story, a slow story, one that you want to read in a quiet place. I recommend.
As well as The Economist (yay! got a subscription for Christmas) and catching up with the last few months of National Geographic.
I have to say: not a fan of Dave Eggers. I've tried twice now (this one, and You Shall Know our Velocity!) and there is just something that doesn't click with me. I don't think he writes with heart. Something like that. It's tough to say just why. I'm normally a very forgiving reader - there's little that I won't read. In fiction, all I require is a cast of characters for whom I can find some shred of empathy. (Oh, and maybe an author who doesn't use the word 'visceral' 3 times in two pages, I'm looking at you Stephen R. Donaldson whose writing in the Gap Series was a major distraction for me, the big SF/ Fantasy nerd.) But Dave Eggers and I are over, I think. He and TC Boyle can go hang out somewhere in the "gaspode is ignoring you" section of the library.
