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Gilead
A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson


7.2

based on 28 reviews
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based on 38 votes
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Official Publisher Site

Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and generated enormous acclaim for the author... in 1981. Now, 23 years later, comes her second work of fiction, which is set in 1956 and finds an aging Iowa preacher reflecting back upon his life and that of his father and grandfather.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pages
11/19/2004
$23.00

ISBN: 0374153892

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Historical Fiction

NOTES:
Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2004 National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction.

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Kirkus Reviews

Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering. [15 Aug 2004, p.772]

Publishers Weekly

Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense.

Booklist Donna Seaman

Millennia of philosophical musings and a century of American history are refracted through the prism of Robinson's exquisite and uplifting novel as she illuminates the heart of a mystic, poet, and humanist. [Aug 2004, p.1874]

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Those with biblical knowledge (of Hagar, Ishmael, and Gilead itself and the balm to be found there) may luxuriate in this modestly magnificent book as a psalm worthy of study, a sermon of the loveliest profundity. But truly, a concordance isn't necessary to read and reread Robinson's new novel for the literary miracle that it is.

New York Observer Ann Patchett

It's the stark unabashedness with which all forms of love are presented and praised - love of life, of family, of God and of country - that makes this quiet novel feel so radical.

Los Angeles Times Merle Rubin

Like all of Robinson's writing, Gilead is full of passages that beg to be read aloud, complex thoughts and emotions expressed with a felicity as engaging as it is illuminating. Most of all, in this book, through the wide-open eyes of her aging hero, Robinson manages to convey the miracle of existence itself.

Christian Science Monitor Ron Charles

For a country dazzled by literary and military pyrotechnics, this quiet new novel from Marilynne Robinson couldn't be less compatible with the times - or more essential...A quiet, deep celebration of life that you must not miss.

San Francisco Chronicle Olivia Boler

A refuge for readers longing for that increasingly rare work of fiction, one that explores big ideas while telling a good story.

Slate Ann Hulbert

Gilead is gripping. I will resort to a cliché with a suitably Christian echo to emphasize what even the most laudatory critics may well fail to convey: You will hang on every word.

The New York Times James Wood

It is religious, somewhat essayistic and fiercely calm. Gilead is a beautiful work -- demanding, grave and lucid.

Washington Post Michael Dirda

So serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it.

The Onion A.V. Club Donna Bowman

Moving, revealing, beautiful.

The Spectator Simon Baker

A masterly study of the dying of the light.

Daily Telegraph Lisa Carpenter

The achievement of this novel lies not just in the magnificence of its individual aspects, but in its complete portrayal of a man - flawed, like all men, but not necessarily beyond redemption; and, perhaps, deserving of blessing. Her Ames is true: Marilynne Robinson.

Daily Telegraph Jane Shilling

The narrative spell remains unbroken, and one wakes from the enchantment to find one's view of the world quietly but indelibly changed.

New York Review Of Books Joan Acocella

A similar scene -- two people caught, in a critical moment, between the setting sun and the rising moon -- occurs in Willa Cather's "My Ántonia." Here, as there, it takes your breath away.

The Independent Stevie Davies

A movingly beautiful work.

The Guardian Ali Smith

A book about the damaged heart of America, it is part vibrant and part timeworn, a slow burn of a read with its "crepuscular" narrator, its repetitions, its careful languidity.

The Economist

A surprisingly quiet, modest work after such a wait, and all the more pleasing for it.

Atlantic Monthly Mona Simpson

One senses none of the rub of greed informing the writing of the book - but because it lacks the mess of life poking up from the bottom, one is also left without the urgency of fiction.

Wall Street Journal Matt Murray

While the plot could be stronger, there is a lot of pleasure to be had in the novel's probing, thoughtful narrative voice -- in Ms. Robinson's precise depiction of a religious man's interior life.

Boston Globe Jane Vandenburgh

And though this book may not appeal to all readers, American culture is enriched by having the whole range of Marilynne Robinson's work. We need to remember John Ames's teaching: that grace is to be answered with gratitude.

Chicago Sun-Times Mary Houlihan

A meditative book, one that rings with honesty and a complicated vision of human idealism. By recounting the unremarkable life of a quietly remarkable man, she enlightens and enriches the puzzle and subtle joy of human existence in a world we may not entirely understand but we must nevertheless forgive and embrace.

Chicago Tribune Art Winslow

We are left, ultimately, with a kind of sermonizing in Gilead that is more reaffirmative than it is bleak.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Catherine Bush

Gilead , in its subtlety and intelligence, is a fearless novel, if frustrating in its mutedness, a book that arouses more respect in me than passionate embrace. [20 Nov 2004, p.D4]

The New Yorker

At first, there isn’t much urgency to the Reverend's task, and we're stuck Sunday-strolling through too many homiletic passages ("He was a good man"; "Well, that's the human condition, I suppose").

Village Voice Mark Holcomb

A one-sided epistolary novel that ought to have acolytes swooning over her preternaturally intimate prose once again—when they aren't scratching their heads over the book's languidly didactic assessment of Christian precepts in practice.

London Review Of Books Tessa Hadley

It’s impossible to know what to do with this surplus of characterisation. If Robinson’s purpose in Gilead is to represent the value of a religious apprehension of life which modernity, at its peril, has relegated to the parochial margin, she seems to undercut it at every turn.

The average user rating for this book is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 38 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tim G gave it a10:
Amazing novel. Warm and mellow yet it deals with heart-wrenching issues- death, abandonment, disaapointment. Beautiful. It's a slow crescendo- give it time. I loved it.

Keith S gave it a5:
Robinson has written a novel that only she knows how to write. Through the life of a pastor, we learn all about his life, his father's life, and his grandfather's life. The only importance this book has shown me is between a father and a son. Many like to call this a religious book, a book filled with philosophy and learning. I would call those people back to the classroom and discover what religion and philosophy really is. Honestly, I found her book boring and not creative. Any good writer could produce a work like she has, but some people do like these types of books. I simply do not. But please do not call Robinson a genius, go read a book like The Brothers K or The Prodigal Summer.

Elizabeth S. gave it a10:
One of the few books that I have read more than once; it is beautiful in its sincere sadness. This book expresses all of life perfectly: full of sacred moments, lonely periods, but love and grace that makes up for it. Remarkable.

Jeff T gave it a10:
Elegant, poignant, profound, and sure to be a classic, Gilead is the finest novel I've read in some time. It is a work of love from a father to his sons--both the one he knows he'll soon leave behind, and the one he discovers along the way.

Sally M gave it a0:
This book was about as boring as it can get!

Thaddeus S gave it a10:
An incredible, deeply moving book. Economical and beautifully written and imagined. A profound meditation on honor, dying, happiness, forgiveness and loss...and yes, religion as well. Far more subtle than some reviews here let on. Yes, it is paced slowly, but the worlds it paints, the questions it ask (questions that each of us should ask ourselves), and the truth of the emotional experience should be adventure enough. Very highly recommended.

sara s. gave it a0:
I lost interest of the book right from the beginning. I felt like the book did not tap into the reader's 5 senses therefore making it dull to read. It has such great reputation, i expected to be at least decent, which was something i did not find it. I would definately not recommend it to anyone.

Gilead A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead
A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson