As I Reread Gilead

From Gilead:

Looking back over what I have written, it seems to me I've described my grandfather in his old age as if he were simply an eccentric, and as if we tolerated him and were respectful of him and loved him and he loved us. And all that is true. But I believe we knew also that his eccentricities were thwarted passion, that he was full of anger, at us not least, and that the tremors of his old age were in some part the tremors of pent grief. And I believe my father on his side was angry, too, at the accusations he knew he could see in his father's unreposefulness, and also in his endless pillaging. In a spirit of Christian forgiveness very becoming to men of the cloth, and to father and son, they had buried their differences. It must be said, however, that they buried them not very deeply, and perhaps more as one would bank a fire than smother it.

They had a particular way of addressing each other when the old bitterness was about to flare up.

"Have I offended you in some way, Reverend?" my father would ask.

And his father would say, "No, Reverend, you have not offended me in any way at all. Not at all."

And my mother would say, "Now, don't you two get started."

After I wrote the post about Home, Marilynne Robinson's most recent novel, I went back to reread Gilead, an earlier novel. I see more and more what a gifted writer Robinson is. The grandfather in the family takes Jesus' instructions in the Gospel on giving much more literally than most of us, more than the rest of his family, who have very little, and don't agree with him to give away everything that they're not wearing. They want to keep a little as their own. Thus the anger between father and son, both the Reverends Ames. The son is a central character in Gilead and also appears in Home as an important, but not central character.

If you intend to read both books, it's best to read Gilead first, although both books work quite well standing alone.

Once I finish Gilead, I shall buy Housekeeping, an even earlier novel by Robinson, which comes highly recommended.