This is the fourth of five reviews on Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Gilead. Here are the first, second and third reviews. Be sure to check out Amanda’s and Laura’s reviews as well.
*****
In this section of the novel, John Ames continues to weaken and yet poignantly holds on to life — and this late in the novel, he isn’t so concerned with the beauty of life that surrounds him but with the loneliness and sadness that is too a part of the life he will be sad to see go. Ames himself realises how much his own narrative strays from his intended purpose to show the best part of himself to his son, whom Ames will not live to see grow up, a son with whom he can’t wait to relate to in heaven as brothers, neither of them old men, but full of strength and vigour — only multiplied by at least two as Ames’ Presbyterian minister friend imagines. The narrative principally concerns itself with the present and the presence of Jack Boughton coming back to Gilead.
This section also more deeply concerns itself with Jack Boughton, John Ames’ namesake and the underlying causes of disquietitude on Ames’ part and the sly pranksterness (I’ve made up a word) of Jack. What partly pains Ames is the liveliness of Jack (in contrast to Ames’ own age) and his friendliness with Ames’ young wife; but Ames only allows himself moments of jealousy and above all sees the loneliness in Jack’s childhood and his present middle-age. This section traces the many ways in which Jack has messed up — stealing a car, blowing up Ames’ mailbox, swiping momentos from Ames, getting a girl pregnant and refusing to alleviate or to own up to the situation. Through Jack and Ames’ history together, they finally have a talk in Ames’ church, where Jack confesses he’s never believed the words of his father (Boughton, Ame’s friend and a Presbyterian minister) and then proceeds to harp on the intellectual impediments to belief, asking how it could be right if ‘capital-T Truth [can]not be communicable?’ and that ‘there should be no common language between us’ (194).
Ames is pained at the impasse their conversation results in, where Ames ends up crying; when reflecting to his son he writes,
‘And I felt, as I have often felt, that my failing the truth could have no bearing at all on the Truth itself, which could never conceivably be in any sense dependent on me or on anyone’ (197).
He realises that when the church ‘is full of silence and prayer’ that is more profound than intellectual argument; that is, where worship is found there is the Church. Ames then gives his reflective advice to his son:
‘don’t look for proofs [for the faith]. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little imperinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. [...] “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment’ (204)
.
All good fiction teaches us something; as Horace said the purpose of literature is both to instruct and to delight. Ames, on the whole, has lived a life filled with grace and his reflection on Jack has both (although perhaps only marginally) taught Jack he is safe (even to the point of riducule) and his response also has something to teach us. John Ames is in part a presuppositionalist. Arguments and evidence are never going to win people to Christ — only the Holy Spirit can. This isn’t to say we don’t have an informed faith, nor that we don’t doubt or question, but ultimately graphs, charts, and numbers about the Bible and Christianity aren’t going to convince anyone, especially ourselves. It is a changed life that most models grace to the Jacks of the world. But the passage is more than just didactic, although teaching his son, of course, is its intended purpose. The final sentence is wonderful. It is conversational and seems real, like we’re talking with Ames. What make it delightful is not just its mimetic quality — that it resembles real life — but also the way in which it is said, particularly the metaphor that questions become ‘mustaches’ and ‘walking sticks’; that they become fashionable, mere appendages that change with time and are easily shaved off or discarded as they lose their flavour.
Gilead is a superb novel full of quiet truths and well-wrought sentences that seamlessly flows in and out of past and present to create a type of memoir cum instruction book; it’s sort of like the book of Proverbs with the narrative quality of 1 or 2 Samuel and a syntactical style similar to Paul in many ways. I do wonder how a book so obviously Christian won the Pultizer Prize. However, it is my guess that what is usually considered “Christian art” is not quite art at all while Robinson’s book most certainly is; she won the Prize for the novel’s capacity to delight. For Christians, there is something to teach us as well.