Home: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson | The Balm for Failure: a Fugue

Home: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson | He Lives Evil, Eh?

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Home: A Novel

	Home: A Novel Marilynne Robinson Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Balm for Failure: a Fugue

Marilynne Robinson is a writer of great intellectual daring and great control. To have risked all she had won on Gilead by returning to the characters and places she already has used, and to place it all again on a bet that Christianity and traditional family structure will speak to us today: it is an act of moral courage. Readers of her very demanding essays will find here (as in Gilead) a light touch with language, but it is light - never light-weight - for a purpose, which is to both present and support her theme in ways that are intreernally consistent with her characters.

Much has been made in other reviews of the theme of the Prodigal Son. But both Gilead and Home deal with sons and fathers in many ways, moving back and forth in variations on the theme [father-son; grandfather-father; grandfather-grandson; stepfather-stepson; and now brother-sister and finally brother-brother, which always must be about the father, too]. Sometimes looking at the Prodigal Son, yes; but sometimes at Abraham and Isaac, searingly in Home at Hagar and Ishmael; implicitly to God the Father and God the Son. Back and forth go the theme, with intermittent episodes that tie them together, often through the words of the Bible. As another reviewer here has written: vertically (over time)in Gilead, horizontally (through characters here); first person and memoirist (is that memory tobe trusted?) in Gilead; third person omniscient (but not omniscient enough to save her brother) in Home. Surely it is the fugue structure, and done with the lightness and grace of the masters.

But what is the resolution? Ms. Robinson may not be done with us yet, of course, but I think she is pointing the way, much more clearly in Home than in Gilead. In her own words (from her eassay, "Family", in The Death of Adam:

"The antidote to fear, distrust, self-interest is always loyalty. The balm for failure or weakness, even for disloyalty, is always loyalty." [Picador, NY: p.89]

Or, as she says early on in Home [FSG, NY: p 45], Glory speaking of her father,

"If you forgive, he [the Rev. Robert Boughton] would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace."

So, consider again the Rev. John Ames giving Jack the Aaronic blessing at the end of Gilead- a scene not, of course, repeated here - and the final, luminous words of Home, raising the theme yet one more time through Jack's son, Robert:

"[H]e has answered his father's prayers.
"The Lord is wonderful."

Marilynne Robinson's writing, including her courage in having a point of view we see very little today, is a grace, too.

Mark J. Logsdon
Aptos, CA 95003

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He Lives Evil, Eh?

This novel succeeds admirably at several levels. First, it explores at least one basic theological question. Also, it illustrates that such questions are sometimes answered more successfully by lay persons than by clergy.

In addition, the novel portrays well the diminishing strength of an elderly parent and its differing effects on various members of the younger generation. And it provides fascinating insight into adult sibling relationships.

And, not at all least for this reader, it provides some moving nostalgia for a hymn-singing childhood. It is beside the point that such recollections are quite likely distorted and optimized memories of what for the older generation was a more disturbing time. As a matter of fact, perhaps that is one of the points.

The theological question which most intrigued this reader is finally put into words on page 225 of my edition: "Are there people who are simply born evil, live evil lives, and then go to hell?" As one might surmise upon seeing the question, the theories of John Calvin are treated occasionally in pursuing an elusive answer. To "live evil" would indeed provide an empirical and palindromic manifestation of Calvin's concept of man's total depravity.

It is unfortunate that author Robinson's skill and professionalism were not approached by those of her editors and her publisher. Annoying erroneous spellings survived, including one of the name of Larry Doby, the athlete who in 1947 became the first black baseball player in the American League, second only to Jackie Robinson in all of major-league baseball.

Also related to civil rights, one of the novel's undercurrent themes, is the attribution of Birmingham's infamous fire hoses to another Alabama city, Montgomery, which had managed to secure its own adverse reputation without resorting to those particular weapons. Birmingham's pleasure at not being remembered probably exceeds that of Larry "Dobie" for being remembered at all.

But compulsive nit-picking aside, "Home" is an important and significant work, and may well bring another major prize for Robinson.

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'Family' story.

This isn't a fast-paced story, but is geared toward the reader that likes 'family/drama' types of stories with well-developed characters. Marilynne Robinson is gifted in this particular genre and fleshes out true to life people with her detailed choice of words and description. Maggi Reed does a wonderful job with the voices, making it a pleasure to listen to. This is a dramatic, heart wrenching tale of a sister, Glory Boughton, who has not had things go well for her in her own life. She returns home to take care of her elderly father and finds herself reflecting on her childhood when her 'blacksheep' of a brother returns home, battered by life and his numerous poor choices. Can Glory help her brother and find a sense of peace for herself and her father who has taken on the burden of his son's wandering soul to the point the listener aches with the pain of it. Wonderful story, and I loved the ending.

Chrissy K. McVay - Author

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Rings very true to life

Everything in this novel rings true from the complex dynamic between a minister and his black sheep son right down to the last detail of life in a small town. I felt like I was there and knew this family. Certainly I have met such families for real in small town Iowa! Enjoyable read!

Where do you live?

Where do you live? On the road?
This review refers to the audio cd. Home: A Novel If you do, audio books are a great idea, right? While busy with our lives, commuting to work, out doing errands, we can enjoy a story. That's the idea, but in some cases it may not work out as well as hoped. This is a story about coming home...about what it means to the different characters in the story, and it depends on subtle, nuanced emotions, insights, and descriptions. None of this quite comes across in the audio cd.

The reader on this cd has a rather bland voice. The story read aloud loses the wonder of the language. It may not entirely be the fault of the reader. To regain the rhythms of the language, and the sensitivities and intimacy you would need to go to the actual novel, ponder phrases, let them percolate and sink in. The content of the story-unconditional love, pain, redemption through grace, the "mono-no-aware" sensibility (Japanese phrase meaning "beauty of falling cherry blossoms" referring to the temporal, painful joys of life) may not come across on a cd.
I recommend reading the actual book, to discover the fine nuances of Gilead, of the home that Glory and Jack return to as their father lies dying. The beauty of the characters-loving when everything insists that they will give up-the painful love of the father who loves as if "his child were dying in his arms"-the very delicate, brilliant insights deserve your time, if you love discovering the little secret corners of the human heart.

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