Home

by Marilynne Robinson

Two favourite authors were scheduled to appear together at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival. No need to worry about whether or not this interview would be broadcast live: it was scheduled to be an online-only event right from the start. Colm Toibín interviewed Marilynne Robinson, whose new novel, Jack, has recently been published.

I had the impression that Robinson’s work was new to her interviewer. He drew her out as far as he was able – she seems to be a very private person, and not the most entertaining interviewee.

I had been unaware that there is another novel, Lila, published after Gilead but before Jack – though the timeframe of each of the novels seems to be more or less parallel – and finding this considerably cheaper to download or buy than the latest one, I duly downloaded it.

Robinson never amends her writing. Her first draft is also her final draft. I am not sure whether this makes me admire her or not. It seems to betray a certain arrogance. But then again, her writing is so good, and in some way it is also a stream of consciousness – so perhaps revising it would make it lose its magic.

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24 November 2020

Well, it has taken me a month to read this, but in the meantime I have read a few other things (I have, really).  I pick up and put down this book, and yet it is really something that warrants reading in longer chunks.  The last third of the book I managed to read over a couple of days.  You get into the flow of the writing, and most importantly, you feel caught up in the characters and their relationships.

For although the setting – the small town of Gilead, the old family house, its garden and outbuildings – are a constant backdrop, it is the characters and their relationships that are the centrepiece of Robinson’s writing.  In this novel, the central characters are the elder Boughton in his declining years, his youngest daughter Glory who has returned home in her late thirties to care for her father after being disappointed in love, and Jack, who returns as a kind of ‘prodigal son’ but who struggles to find forgiveness from his father, the old revered Ames, and most importantly, himself.

If the novel has a theme, it is forgiveness.  There is no real hint at salvation, although Robinson’s writing is imbued with her religious consciousness.  Perhaps it is also about grace.  The two elderly ministers – Ames and Boughton – are both still wrestling with matters of conscience.  Neither is properly reconciled to Jack or truly accepting of his troubled soul.  He wants to put his father’s mind at rest, knowing that it is unlikely that he will see him again in this life.  Ames appears to take a harsher position that Boughton towards Jack.  Jack’s inner goodness is apparent, both in the way he treats the older gentlemen and in his relationship with his sister Glory.  And yet, he is in despair.

The ending leaves little room for hope.  Glory is resigned to keeping the house on after her father’s death for the sake of her sibling who may occasionally visit, and will expect to find the place unchanged.  Jack is resigned to moving on, making of his life what he can on his own.  Though he has acknowledged his wife, he does not expect to be reconciled to her.  Will we learn more about Della and Jack in the next novel?  I very much hope so.

A device that I find intriguing, and which is undoubtedly deliberate, is the way the author does not introduce us to certain facts about Della until right at the end of the novel.  If I hadn’t already read Gilead, would I have guessed, and I did not (as Glory apparently does not), would it have changed the way I read Home?  I’ll never know – but I am determined to read some reviews of these novels now!

Mrs Hemingway

by Naomi Scott

This was one of the books I picked up from a neighbour’s stall at our village VE Day event, six months ago.  I had heard of this book, published in 2014, but it had not appealed to me greatly and I feared it was ‘chick lit’.  Which it is, to some extent – but I wanted to read something light just now.

The story is an imagination of the relationships between the writer Ernest Hemingway and each of his four wives, told from the perspective of the wives.  Each section is named after a wife: Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary.  Within each section there are chapters dealing with the early days of the relationship, and others showing its eventual breakup – the latter generally precipitated by the arrival on the scene of the next potential wife.

The author shows the wives communicating with each other, not only at the time of the relationships but long after one or both of them had left Hemingway’s life.  I can only assume that this is attested in correspondence between them that is still in the archive; button doubt it it embellished by the author’s imagination.

Although this was an easy read, it took me a while to get through this book – perhaps because it never really ‘grabbed’ me.  It did prompt me to read up a bit about Hemingway’s life: particularly its end, which his wife initially suggested was an accident with a gun, but later admitted was suicide.

The novel is satisfying because it sheds light on the wives as well as Hemingway himself.  The settings (and clearly the author has visited the Hemingway houses in Cuba and Key West – well, who wouldn’t?) come across as authentic.  The constant drinking is mentioned without being either over- or under-emphasised.  All in all, a satisfying and readable book.