Crunchy Con (Free subscription) | 30/06/2008
I was re-reading Marilynne Robinson's luminous 2004 novel "Gilead" on the plane the other day, and ran across a passage that made me wonder about something. The novel is written in the form of a book-length letter from an aged...
BookClubClassics.com (Free subscription) | 06/06/2008
Friday again and time for another state in our literary journey through the U.S. So, here’s my dilemma. Last week I chose John Grisham to represent Virginia, but struggled to choose a particular novel. As one astute commenter noted, Grisham’s novels tend to be set in Mississippi or elsewhere, but not actually in Virginia. So, my question is: [...]
Heraclitean Fire (Free subscription) | 27/05/2008
Like Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, I bought this on the basis of a Bryan Appleyard article where he mentioned Hazzard as one of his contenders for greatest living novelist; in fact, he entertained the possibility that The Transit of Venus was ‘the most perfect novel written in the past 100 years'. I was less taken by this one [...]
Chinalyst - China blogs in English (Free subscription) | 16/05/2008
I just finished reading “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson. It's not available for sale here in Qingdao, few English titles are, so my copy came in a care package. I don't remember whether it was my mom or our friends Will and Gena who sent it, but I want to thank whomever it was. This book is beautiful. I loved every page. Now that I have finished the book, I want Josh to read it so that he can enjoy...
Per Crucem ad Lucem (Free subscription) | 13/05/2008
Having thoroughly enjoyed Marilynne Robinson's Gilead some time ago, I’ve finally gotten around to ordering a copy of her Housekeeping. What spurred this huge plunge of a couple of pounds (33p +p/h) was this fan letter to Robinson posted in Sunday's New York Times. Here’s a snippert: There is something so familiar (and familial) in your [...]
Out of the Woods Now (Free subscription) | 06/03/2008
The 92nd Street Y blog has a video clip of Robert Alter and Marilynne Robinson discussing the former's recent translation of The Book of Psalms (the viewing of which immediately improved the quality of my day): Aside from the interesting discussion of translation and the structure of Hebrew poetry, I was captivated by what Robinson had to say about the writers of the Bible: They feel weakness and you...
92Y Blog (Free subscription) | 26/02/2008
Biblical scholar and Hebrew Studies professor Robert Alter, who has received considerable praise from The New Yorker , appeared at the Y in December 2007 for a reading and conversation on “The Psalms” ( previously reviewed here ) with Marilynne Robinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead . In the video clip above, Alter describes how the English language fails to reproduce the sound of Biblical...
Heraclitean Fire (Free subscription) | 20/02/2008
I bought Housekeeping because of an article at the end of last year where Bryan Appleyard made some suggestions of great artists working today. One of his two greatest living novelists was Marilynne Robinson; I don't always find myself in sympathy with Appleyard, but with a recommendation like that it seemed worth a punt. It is [...]
Conversational Reading (Free subscription) | 17/12/2007
Over at Open Letters Monthly, Sam Sacks gives us an excellent fresh look at Marilynne Robinson: An entire novel of impressionistic metaphors, no matter how beautiful, would be difficult to read – would, in all likelihood, vanish from memory like a dream upon waking. But two things give Housekeeping the ballast to, if not ground it, suspend it in a graceful levitation. For one thing, perhaps at some...
