Having just finished Gilead I want to ruminate on it a bit. It was a well written, enjoyable, slow read but I feel as though I’m missing something and I want to think on it.

The book is itself one long rumination written by a 77 year old preacher (John Ames) ostensibly to his 7 year old son about himself and his relationships: to God, to his grandfather, his father, his friend, his friend’s son who is his namesake, his dead daughter, his wife, his son, and himself. All the old guys are preachers. His grandfather was a firebrand; his father a pacifist. He seems just a well considered man; a man doing his best to walk out the morality of which his intellect informs him. His friend, Broughten, seems a cypher, an alternative universe version of John Ames, the same preacher but with a family, without the loss and loneliness. Young Broughten, young John Ames Broughten, who is not young but early middle aged, seems also an alternative universe version of John Ames — who he is without the foundation of his believing, who the old John Ames is with the love he didn’t have but always felt anyway. The young John Ames is where the old John Ames can see his worse self reflected, and where he misses seeing his better self reflected.

Then there are the two wives of the two John Ames — both of them scandalous, the old one oblivious to the scandal that was surely there; the young one all too aware and thwarted by the scandal. There are the two young sons who will both in very real ways grow up with and without their fathers.

I suppose I’m always drawn whenever I see a character attempting honesty with himself. His reflections on love are particularly profound, and hopeful. His reflections on why it is so often the prodigal who is most loved almost make that phenomenon understandable. I do think he sees the grace in life, and that it isn’t his religion that reveals it but his willingness to experience it. I hope he got to see his son grow many more years, and bury his friend in peace. And I hope he learns more of his wife’s real story which I think he knows as little of as he knew of the young John Ames before their final talk.

I found this book emotionally moving and thought-provoking. I liked how John reflected on his relationship with his father and his father’s relationship with his father.

This book leaves me a bit speechless. Beautiful. I never re-read books but if I ever start, this is the one I’ll pick up first.

I was surprised some at how much I enjoyed this book. Because it is an epistolary novel consisting of only one, long letter from a 77 year old minister to his seven year old son, I thought it would be boring. It was certainly different from any contemporary books I’ve read, but it wasn’t boring at all.

In his letter, the father writes about his own youth and his relationship with his father, his scallywag of a grandfather, his best friend and that man’s ne’er-do-well son, the history of his Iowa town as a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, and his two marriages. Throughout, he ties in the themes of grace, forgiveness, and man’s fallibility.

I was particularly struck by the narrator’s discussions on how much he enjoyed his life. He writes the letter to his son knowing that he will not be around when his son is an adult. But, although he is approaching death and anticipating his heavenly afterlife, he makes it clear that he appreciated the temporal pleasures of his life — the beauty of the prairie, his books and education, falling in love, baseball, and his town.

It was wonderful.

A variation of this review is posted on Rose City Reader.

This book wasn’t my thing. It’s apparently a Pulitzer prize winning book, but I found it a long read. It is told from the point of view of an old minister writing a letter to his young son about his life, with long periods of tangent. It’s nicely written and has some interesting characters, but nothing happens and it progresses quite slowly.

I found this to be a very quiet, truthful novel. It’s a story about a father and a son, or perhaps a father and his father and a son, or perhaps the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. But it’s also about love.

The book is written as a letter, or a series of letters left behind by a reverand reaching eighty for his seven-year old son. There are many times when he seems to be quietly apologetic for ‘just not expecting’ him. There are so many things he wishes he could grow up with him and show him, so many quiet beauties in the world he wants his son to share. The way water shakes off leaves or dresses, the way afternoon light settles gently on tables…

And it is also a story about forgiveness. This novel came quite unexpectedly to me as an airport book (an instinct I always trust; I am convinced that any book I pick up in an airport will be worth reading). I gave a copy to my own father, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is sweet like a the kiss of a child.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautiful book. I definitely understand how it won the Pulitzer. However, it’s a tedious read. It’s very stream of consciousness; it isn’t divided into chapters, which I found frustrating. Religion plays a very heavy part in it, which is why it really wasn’t my cup of tea.