LitPicks - October '08

Quiet Intimacy: some books speak to us softly. They peer into the smaller corners of our lives and the private matters of heart and soul. Moving slowly but gracefully, plot becomes secondary to characters and relationships. These works are quiet but remarkable.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works      




Gilead
Marilyn Robinson, 2004
247 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
A treasure of a book. While based upon Biblical scripture, it's illuminating for every religious or non-religious faith. It is about the requirement of living up to the best parts of ourselves—and about the blessing and awe and mystery of all existence. It's a lot packed into a fairly small book.

The Reverend John Ames, 76 when the book opens, takes it upon himself to write a series of letters in the hope that when death over takes him—sooner rather than later—his very young son will have a personal record of his father and the faith that has informed his life and work.

Robinson shows us Christianity writ large, an expansive but difficult faith, which calls upon us to put aside petty anger and accept a divine requirement to love our enemy—in this case John Ames's godson and namesake, the prodigal son of his dearest friend. Oh, but this is hard work, even for a man as devoted, loving and studied as Ames himself.

I've listed this book as a "Lighter Touch"—not because of its subject matter but because of its accessibility, particularly on a topic often found in the weighty realm of theology. With little plot and some overly drawn-out areas, Gilead is still a beautiful, intimate book about the power of love, human and divine. Read with a pencil and be prepared to make a note of passage after passage.

Check out our Reading Guide for Gilead.


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Matrimony
Joshua Henkin, 2007
291 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
My friend Eddie once said (we were on the cusp of middle age) that we run from our roots while young, only to run back to them as we mature. I think that's a lot of what this very fine book explores.

The story's main characters meet in college—all three determined to put family influences behind them, create their own identities, and set their own life paths. Over the next 15 years, they marry, pursue their careers and lives together with varying success, and eventually come to terms with their beginnings and with one another.

Henkin writes wonderful dialogue: it's crisp and funny, especially in the beginning. It's also glib, which I came to see as the degree of his characters' self-absorbtion—the way in which they refuse to share their deep store of emotions. Thus, they neither completely understand nor commit to each other—until the book's end.

Much of the book concerns Julian Wainwright's struggle to finish his first novel. He can't seem to follow his mentor's dictum —"you should write what you know about what you don't know ... or what you don't know about what you know." (Okay, read that twice.) His writing block mirrors his living block: Julian can proceed in neither because he has yet to learn what he knows or doesn't know.

Don't look for heavy plot or "muscular prose"; as Julian says of his own writing: it's quiet with a regard for character—which makes Matrimony a work to relish. Certainly, book clubs will find a rich vein for discussion—family, parents, happiness, loyalty, forgiveness, and the struggle for self-knowledge.

See our Reading Group Guide for Matrimony.

Also, read my 3 LitBlog posts on Josh Henkin's superb essay on book clubs—excellent points for discussion by themselves:

1. Book Clubs—smarter than critics?
2. So ... where are the guys?
3. I Laughed! I Cried! — how do we talk about books?
4. Echo Chambers—are we all reading the same books?
   

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To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf, 1927
309 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Family and guests gather at a rambling seaside cottage, time passes and, 10 years later, father, son and daughter take a boat trip out to a light house. There you have the sum total of plot in Virginia Woolf's famed novel.

Characters and their individual perception are what intrigue Woolf, not plot— and in Lighthouse she gives full rein to her modernist ideas: reality is subjective, life is transient, truth and certainty are unattainable. It is only art that offers an antidote to an ever changing, death-threatening world.

The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Mrs. Ramsay, the central figure, attempts to unify the household, to accomodate the separate desires of her family and guests. The short second section denotes the passage of time —war, death, and time's ever encroachment on the deserted seaside house. The third section sees the return of Mr. Ramsay and two of his children as they attempt to reach the lighthouse.

What's the significance of the lighthouse? Good question. Obviously, a symbol, but one that's suggestive—not definitive—of illumination, solidity, certainty, permanence. When son James finally sees the lighthouse of his boyhood longing, it is not as he imagined but different. Yet which vision is the correct one? Both, he concludes—no single vision contains the complete truth.

Heavy, yeah. But that's Woolf. . . the "who's afraid" part.

Try not to rush through this gorgeous work. Take your time and savor the writing—give Woolf leeway, allowing her to pull you in through her hypnotically luminous prose and imagery.

See our Readers' Guide for To the Lighthouse.

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