Gilead

Gilead

By Marilynne Robinson

In the Bible "Gilead" means the hill of testimony or witness. In Marilynne Robinson's 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead is a fictional town in Iowa circa 1957. While I am not versed in the geography and topography of the state of Iowa, I have been led to believe that there are very few hills or mounds therefore one must presume at the onset of the book that Robinson is focused on the theme of testimony and witness rather than vertical geological formations. This isn't a particularly important observation, but it will help you get settled into the narrative.

The novel is essentially an extended letter from John Ames, an aging third-generation Congregationalist preacher, to his infant son. Ames, who married and had children rather late in life has been diagnosed with an unnamed heart condition and he feels the need to put pen to paper in order that his young son can shed some light on the history of the frontier town of Gilead and how it was intertwined in the relationship between his visionary (and often militant) abolitionist grandfather and his ardently pacifist father during the time of the Civil War. While the letter is clearly addressed to his son, one cannot help but pity Ames as he struggles to reconcile his love for both his father and grandfather despite their irreconcilable differences.

As Ames's writes the letter (over the course of several weeks, one presumes), events in his own life become more interesting when Jack Boughton the son of a close family friend returns after many years away. Ames's reticence prevents him from writing why this return is of such import, but it's plainly apparent that Boughton's reappearance has raised serious philosophical questions. After a prolonged theological debate with himself, Ames finally reveals the long sordid history of Jack Boughton and the events that have lead him back to town.

Robinson sets a slow, easy pace and a austere prairie town tone and maintains it for the duration of the novel. It's a pot of stew simmering on a country kitchen. The action in the novel is subtle, without the usual dramatics (not even a thunderstorm on the horizon). Gilead strolls along an an even pace, stopping often to smell the flowers or admire the pitching arm of a local boy. If a neighbor happens to invite this novel in for tea, it wouldn't object and the visit would be pleasant enough. But there is much laying under that thick layer of contentment. It is a testament to Robinson's restraint as an author that she allows them to resolve themselves in a series of stoic meditations.

Gilead is so many things at once. It's a deeply personal letter between an elderly father and an infant son. For Ames, who seems to value heritage, the letter functions as a generational bridge that would have otherwise become a chasm once the infirm Ames passes on, leaving his son with no understanding of where he came from. Despite his love for his wife, there is a profound guilt hardwired into the preacher's frontier Protestantism and seems bound by his duty to ensure his son knows and understands his father when they day arises that he should ask.

It  is also a confession of sorts for Ames himself as he recounts his own failings and tries to reconcile the actions of his hardline father and grandfather. In that sense, Ames seems to be the milquetoast of his family line, tending toward compromise and understanding. Ames, far more intellectually and metaphysically inclined preacher than his father and grandfather feels inadequate in relation to their convictions. Jack Boughton puts the preacher's convictions on trial when he seeks spiritual guidance from the man who has yet found the courage to forgive him his past transgressions.

Finally, Gilead is a theological treatise on the nature of love, death, forgiveness and faith. While Ames seems to love his own son unconditionally, there is another: John Ames (Jack) Boughton, the proverbial prodigal son returned. In the letter Ames wrestles with his own nature and meditates on his own relationship with Jack. In an effort to be honest with his son, Ames is forced to honest with himself about his relationship with his godson. Furthermore, Ames struggles with the notion of faith:

"Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?"

Incisive stuff.

Gilead is an exquisitely written examination of the self. It is written in the stark, language of turn-of-the-century mid-western Protestantism, the plain language of intrepid frontiersmen looking to forge a home on the desolate Iowan plain. It's about heroic love in the face of fallibility and the monumental task of achieving that sort of forgiveness. But don't go expecting a shootout and a car chase. This is the sort of novel that savors its themes, chews them slowly and ponders quietly. Worthy of the Pulitzer.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

By Michael Chabon

It took me an eternity to get around to this book. I read Michael Chabon's book The Yiddish Policemen's Union last year and enjoyed it, but not enough to go rushing out and read another of his books, especially one that is over 600 pages long. But I kept hearing these things about this book. People kept telling me how it was one of the best books of the past ten years and totally deserving of the Pulitzer Prize. It simply weighed my bookcase down for far too long and I had to pick it up.

Glad I did.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is exactly what books and literature is all about. It's good writing and a great story about well-formed characters that deserve and gain the respect and empathy of their readers. It is well researched, impossible to predict and, as everyone seemed to tell me prior to reading, entirely deserving of the accolades it has garnered. OK, so I just sort of started vomiting attributes. Let me slow it down and explain.

First and foremost, Michael Chabon is a fantastic writer. I don't mean "fantastic" in the way we over use the word but rather in its more traditional usage as fanciful. But I knew this to be true when I read The Yiddish Policemen's Union  Of all the things I didn't like about that book (and there were a few things), Chabon's abilities as a writer were never questioned. He has an undeniable ability with tone, pace and, most of all, setting. I could practically smell 1940s Manhattan throughout this novel in the same way I could the Sitka Settlement in The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

As an aspiring writer myself, I find Chabon an intimidating novelist to read and appreciate. Reading a single paragraph is liable to send me to my bedroom a blubbering puddle of delicate emotions wrapped in a flimsy eggshell of a man not to be heard from for the remainder of the weekend. I mean how does he write that eloquently? Damn him! (And when I say "damn him," I mean he's fantastic (And when I say he's fantastic," I me... oh never mind)).

You can be a fantastic writer but if the story doesn't jive with readers, all those pretty paragraphs and succinct sentences (and all that alluring alliteration, I might add) are for naught. This was my fundamental problem with The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Great writing. Excellent characters. Wonderful tone. Good pacing. Boring-assed story. Not so with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I especially loved the fact that each character has their own story to go along with the common story of the novel. As in, each of the characters in the novel has their own problems and tribulations to deal with outside the bubble of the central story. And whereas some authors (coughcathylambcough) tend to spread the issues and drama on thick, Chabon knows exactly how much drama and stress to foist onto his characters shoulders without inducing reading induced epileptic seizures brought on by repeated eye rolling.

I genuinely cared for every single character in this novel (Yes, even Sheldon Anapol). They were rendered in such three dimensional detail that they seemed to have genuine texture and depth. I really felt like these guys existed in the annals of comic book lore. Surrounding him with real life comic book names such as Stan Lee and Bob Kane only augmented the illusion of reality. A very definite blur was put into effect.

And that's something else that deserves mention. Michael Chabon quite obviously researched the hell out of the comic book industry in the 1940s (and the Second World War as fought on the continent of Antarctica as well). As a fan of historical fiction I appreciate the attention to detail. But I also appreciate Chabon's determination to make shit up whenever it pleased him. I like Chabon's attitude toward history: Render it as close as possible to the truth whenever possible but throw it out the window when it doesn't fit the story he's trying to tell. Excellent lesson for any writer.

Speaking of the story, it is not only riveting (as I mentioned earlier) but it is also unpredictable. At no point during this narrative did I have a single clue where Chabon was taking me. There's nothing wrong with predictable story lines, good writers can take you down familiar roads and show you different sights along the way, but it's always nice to have someone show you an entirely different path. I, at no point in the reading of this novel, knew where Chabon was taking me. Furthermore, there were episodes in this novel that I could not have predicted in a thousand years of predictions.

So it won the Pulitzer Prize. Did it deserve it? Of course, I don't know. I haven't yet read everything published from 2000. But it couldn't have been the worst option. As I said off the top, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is everything that a reader should expect from literature. Good writing, strong characters and a romping good story.

I mean, seriously, in literature, what else matters?

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible

By Barbara Kingsolver

Disclaimer: Mild spoilers ahead.

I had never heard of Barbara Kingsolver nor the Poisonwood Bible before last week. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won several other awards and was on the Oprah Book Club list at one point but somehow skipped past my radar. Now I'm more than slightly embarrassed that I hadn't read it. Written in 1999, The Poisonwood Bible is the sort of novel that ends up on people's "best of" lists pretty quickly, which is how I found it (full disclosure). This excellent, if sometimes heavy-handed, novel simultaneously traces the history of The Belgian Congo/Republic of Congo/Zaire/Republic of Congo and the disintegration of an evangelical Baptist family from the American south. What's not to love?

I really enjoy novels that weave narratives around actual historical events, especially when A) the events factor heavily into the narrative (but not so much that the historical figures become characters themselves) and B) when the historical events are unfamiliar to me. In this case, I got both.

Yes!

I am vaguely aware of Mobutu Sese Seko and the tumultuous history of The Democratic Republic of Congo/Zaire, but when I say "vague" I mean, "I've heard of Mobutu and I can extrapolate from what I know about African politics in general to hypothesize that his leadership didn't turn out particularly well for anyone except him." Throw in the Rumble in the Jungle and the Ebola virus and you have the totality of my knowledge on Congolese history. The Poisonwood Bible fleshed out my understanding of central African politics in a way a history book might not have been capable. And, to say that Mobutu was a bad leader is perhaps the single greatest understatement since "Genghis Khan may have killed a couple of people." So it was interesting to witness history unfold behind Kingsolver's narrative.

And what a narrative! If there is another literary motif that I enjoy, it is when bad guys (and particularly those of the Christian fundamentalist variety) get their comeuppance. While Kingsolver seems to love her five narrators (the four daughters and the mother) and develops their voices with tenderness and care from their childhood through middle age, she seems to have very little love loss for Nathan Price, the tragically misguided evangelical Baptist determined to "save" an entire nation. After a series of disasters that culminates in the death of one of the daughters, the remaining women in the family proceed to march off into the jungle and disperse.

Nathan Price is the worst kind of character. Partly because he is so plainly out of his element but also because he is so germane. Nathan Price is the sort of very real evil that exists in today's world and infects it in such unholy ways. He truly believes that he is doing God's work but, in reality is doing nothing but irreparable damage to himself, his family and the people he is determined to "save." There is no need for a suspension of disbelief to accept his brand of malevolence.

And while we are at it, what better metaphor for the relationship between Africa and America since the first European colonies gained independence than a Christian missionary in the jungle. The white man's burden. The noble savage revisited. All those heathen souls to be saved. And while we preach salvation in the eyes of our God, we'll take some of that cobalt and some of those diamonds along with us. Convert and corrupt. America's legacy in Africa, no doubt. I mean, who helped a monster such as Mobutu gain political power and supported one of the most corrupt regimes in the history of the world for over three decades? Nathan Price embodies all the swagger and arrogance of American policy in Africa. It's such a pleasure to watch his downfall. It's a shame it's only fiction.

So if Nathan Price represents America in this novel, who represents Africa, you ask? Well, this is where Kingsolver shines as an author. Much like Detroit in Jeffrey Eugenides stellar novel Middlesex, Kingsolver has a way of adding mass to her setting. So much so that Africa becomes a character in itself. No need for representative characters. The Africa in The Poisonwood Bible is s real it practically pulses out of the pages. Part of the reason Kingsolver is so successful is her use of history, as mentioned above. Her characters become involved in the very real (and often desperate) politics of the Congo. Much of those politics revolve around such basic ideas: food, clean water, medicine and transportation. It's hard for anyone, anywhere not to get politically active when a land's primary needs are so primal.

But Kingsolver's setting is more than that. Africa (and here I mean the Congo in specific, but also the continent in general) seeps into the pores of each member of the family (in different ways) and infects them (literally and metaphorically) for the rest of their lives. For me, as an expatriate living and working in Asia for the past decade, Kingsolver expresses the way a land can inhabit a soul, in a way that I could never. I relate to her characters completely (albeit with far less tragedy and malaria). Asia has infected my both literally and metaphorically to the point that my home country looks and feels more alien each time I return.

But I digress.

There are so many reasons to read this book, almost none of which I have described here. Although I did mention the novel was a tad heavy-handed at points... especially during Leah's narration, The Poisonwood Bible is worthy of the praise that has been heaped on it since it was published in 1999. I'm really glad I stumbled upon this gem of a novel and my only regret is that I didn't find it sooner. Of course, given my similarities to the character's relationship with their adopted home, one might argue that it found me at just the right time.

Recommendation: Read at your earliest possible convenience.

Post-Script: The downside of the Kindle (besides the fact that you can't smell the book) is that you never get to see the cover of the book. This is the first time I have seen the cover of The Poisonwood Bible and it's gorgeous. Now I'll need to find a print copy of it.

The Stone Diaries

The Stone Diaries

By Carol Shields

We were supposed to read this book in grade 11 English, but I recall that my English teacher that year, Ms. White, had disliked the book so much that we opted for Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, a book I thoroughly did not enjoy. I have no idea why I would recall such a trivial bit of educational history (and still produce grades in the low 30s in math) but there you have it.

Since then I have, for one reason or another, managed to avoid this book. Apparently Ms. White's opinion of the book carried a lot of weight with me because at certain points in my reading career I have actually gone out of my way to NOT read this book. The fact that it won the Governor General's Award, the Pulitzer Prize and was short-listed for the Booker Prize meant (and still means) nothing to me. But obviously someone, somewhere thought this book was pretty swell. Just not Ms. White and, by extention, me.

This got me to thinking about Ms. White. Why would one woman's opinion about a book keep me from reading it for 20 years? I recall that she was (at the time) in her mid to late twenties and a lot of other male students in my high school thought she was the bee's knees. She was partial to calf length floral print skirts and librarian sweaters, which was pretty risque attire for a teachr in those days. But my teacher crush was Ms. Thompson (blue jeans and sweaters!). There was no mistaking that.

My only vivid memory of Ms White was her running down a corridor because she was late for her class. At the same time, a student exiting a classroom in said corridor opened the door outwards and she ran face-first into the door. Then she fell down.The only thing I remember about her class was sitting in front of the school narc. But for some reason her opinion about the Stone....

Wait.... This entire anecdote was about The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. That was the book Ms. White hated so much.....

Anyway, The Stone Diaries reminded me of my grandmother.