Gilead

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, 2004. I finished this about two weeks ago and needed some time to digest this novel. I almost gave up on it several times but soldiered on. I had heard a lot about the 2005 Pulitzer Prize author over the past few years and had wanted to read her novels about a historical family in the rural Midwest. I had no idea that she was also a Calvinist minister in addition to her career as an English professor at the University of Iowa.

So the novel was a serious reflection of her Calvinists faith and the story is about a family of Calvinists preachers. Everything was about faith in God. Every incident, every conversation, every everything circled back to their godie faith. I got really tired of it.

She is a wonderful writer. No doubt. Unfortunately in my view her storyline was a one trick pony about the spiritual battles of the male members of the family. Now that being said there were some fascinating aspects of this novel like the way the narrator is facing inevitable death using the letters to his young son as the vehicle. I also liked some of the historical aspects of the town and the Civil War. Unfortunately one had to get overwhelming deluge of religion. Now I understand that this is what some people in the rural Midwest were like at the time and it may reflect on that faith culture but it's something that I am interested in whatsoever. I will avoid her other books in the Gilead series like the plague.

Coincidentally Becky watched a movie the other night titles Homecoming based on the Robinson novel of the same name she wrote in 1980. The movie was released in 1987. I watched a little bit here and there but I couldn't get involved with the grim story of a couple  abandoned young girls and the struggles of their life in rural Idaho.