Lila: A Novel Hardcover – October 7, 2014 Author: Visit Amazon’s Marilynne Robinson Page | ISBN:
0374187614 Lila: A Novel – October 7, 2014
DownloadOct 15 2014 183 nbspGet To Know The Finalists For The 2014 National Book Award
- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (October 7, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374187614
- ISBN-13: 978-0374187613
- Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 1 x 8.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #38 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical
- #46 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary
- #86 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States
There are no chapters in this book. Is this a literary conceit, as in a writer playfully breaking rules, or is she making a point that what she has to say is so important that chapters might interfere with concentration? Since Robinson will never be accused of playfulness, and I don’t sense she’s dictatorial, I offer a third possibility: the lack of chapters (although there are section breaks) may be metaphoric. Because once you get into the story, you will become a wanderer, compelled to the journey, hungering for some bit of plot but only receiving as much as is necessary to give you enough energy to continue. You will be fed by stunningly compassionate depictions of the apparent worst in human behavior, and by contemplations of the divine, such that this will allow you to continue on through the sparse landscape that is Lila.
One of the high points for me, a reader who counts Gilead as one of her top five books of all time, was the return of the good Reverend Ames. This thoughtful, open-minded, generous man sees Lila as a gift, not only for her companionship but as a window into another dimension of human life and spirituality. Because while Lila is only a few degrees removed from feral, she is bright and curious, and her perspective is riveting if bleak. Indeed, her intellect causes her intense pain, hungering as she does for understanding about life on earth and her place in it – as don’t we all. In this, as with Ames’ tortured acceptance of his own mortality and that of his friend Boughton, the book touches universal chords.
This story primarily consists of internal monologue, and much of it is oblique, so if you are not drawn to that kind of writing, this may not be for you.
Lila voices that part of us that is fundamentally alone, and preternaturally outside the the bounds of society. I love this character. She is not the least cuddly in her wildness, and she knows only how to stand in the world she has learned. Marilynne Robinson has mastered that archetype of the loner ruled only by the internal truths of her ties to nature. Robinson has returned to Gilead, a poor town on the verge of collapsing to the surrounding wilderness, resisting only with the basic decency of its citizens. Robinson has woven a moral fiber which embraces the Bible as it is woven into the rules of empathy and natural order.
Lila was born into the ultimately neglectful family. She was found by Doll, alone on a porch and half dead at age of four. She and Doll wander the world in the days preceding the Dust Bowl. "Doll my have been the loneliest woman in the world, and she was the loneliest child." They were ruled by "Whatever happens, just be quiet, and it’ll pass, most likely." We find her years later, aged by the places she has seen, drawn to the world of Gilead. She has found a savior in the kind, old minister who has fallen in love with her. The courtship is the loveliest thing I have read in years. They come to value the comfort of the other standing by her shoulder. She has come to care for the kind old man and finds him beautiful. Their marriage is lyrical to me.
The ethical code in Robinson’s books is a rather lovely one. The old minister says, "Any judgment of the kind is a great presumption. And presumption is a very grave sin." Lila come to believe that the search for meaning is like knowing a song. "In a song a note follows the one before because it is that song and not another one.".
Lila: A Novel – October 7, 2014
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