*Week of August 24 discuss 2005 winner: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
*Week of Sept. 28 discuss 2004 winner: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
*Week of Nov. 16 discuss Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
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Posted Aug 23, 4:37 PM Hide Post
From Reading Group Guides - here are their questions:


In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part.

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1. What was your perception of the narrator in the opening paragraphs? In what ways did your understanding of him change throughout the novel? Did John's own perception of his life seem to evolve as well?

2. Biblical references to Gilead (a region near the Jordan River) describe its plants as having healing properties. The African American spiritual, “There Is a Balm in Gilead” equates Jesus with this balm. According to some sources, the Hebrew origin of the word simply means “rocky area.” Do these facts make Gilead an ironic or symbolically accurate title for the novel?

3. The vision experienced by John's grandfather is a reminder that the Christ he loves identifies utterly with the oppressed and afflicted, whom he must therefore help to free. He is given his mission, like a biblical prophet. This kind of vision was reported by many abolitionists, and they acted upon it as he did. What guides John in discerning his own mission?

4. How does John seem to feel about his brother's atheism in retrospect? What accounts for Edward's departure from the church? What enabled John to retain his faith?

5. The rituals of communion and baptism provide many significant images throughout the novel. What varied meanings do John and his parishioners ascribe to them? What makes him courageous enough to see the sacred in every aspect of life?

6. One of the most complex questions for John to address is the notion of salvation—how it is defined, and how (or whether) God determines who receives it. How do the novel's characters convey assorted possibilities about this topic? What answers would you have given to the questions John faces regarding the fate of souls and the nature of pain in the world?

7. Marilynne Robinson included several quotations from Scripture and hymns; John expresses particular admiration for Isaac Watts, an eighteenth-century English minister whose hymns were widely adopted by various Protestant denominations. Do you believe that certain texts are divinely inspired? What is the role of metaphor in communicating about spiritual matters?

8. Discuss the literary devices used in this novel, such as its epistolary format, John's finely honed voice, and the absence of conventional chapter breaks (save for a long pause before Jack's marriage is revealed). How would you characterize Gilead's narrative structure?

9. What commentary does John offer about the differences between his two wives? Do you agree with Jack when he calls John's marriage unconventional?

10. John describes numerous denominations in his community, including Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, and Congregationalists. What can you infer from the presence of such variety? Or does the prevalence of Protestants mean that there is little religious variety in Gilead?

11. What might John think of current religious controversies in America? In what ways are his worries and joys relevant to twenty-first-century life?

12. John grapples mightily with his distrust of Jack. Do you believe John writes honestly about the nature of that distrust? What issues contribute to these struggles with his namesake?

13. Discuss the author's choice of setting for Gilead. Is there a difference between the way religion manifests itself in small towns versus urban locales? What did you discover about the history of Iowa's rural communities and about the strain of radicalism in Midwestern history? Did it surprise you?

14. Abolition drew John's grandfather to the Midwest, and the novel concludes at the dawn of the civil rights movement. In what ways does this evolution of race relations mirror the changes John has witnessed in society as a whole?

15. Is Gilead a microcosm for American society in general?

16.In his closing lines, John offers a sort of benediction to his son, praying that he will “grow up a brave man in a brave country” and “find a way to be useful.” Do you predict a future in which his hope came true? What do you imagine John experiences in his final sleep?

17. Robinson's beloved debut novel, Housekeeping, features a narrator with a voice just as distinctive as John's. Do the longings conveyed in Housekeeping and Gilead bear any resemblance to one another? How might John have counseled Ruth?

Posts: 2123 | Registered: October 02, 2007 Reply With Quote



Posted Jul 7, 6:23 PM Hide Post
http://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/2007/07/book-review-outline.html

Was it a good book?
Would you recommend it?
What did you like about it?
What did you dislike?
Tell us whatever you thought.

FICTION

1. Title, author, copyright date, and genre?
2. Summarize the book without giving away the ending.
3. What did you think of the main character?
4. Which character could you relate to best?
5. Were there any other especially interesting characters?
6. From whose point of view is the story told?
7. Were the characters and their problems believable?
8. How did the main character change during the novel?
9. What was the book's central question, and how was it answered?
10. Was location important to the story?
11. Was the time period important to the story?
12. What alternative title would you choose for this book?
13. Share a quote from the book.
14. Share a favorite scene from the book.
15. What did you like most about the book?
16. What did you like least?
17. Did you like the way the book ended?
18. What do you think will be your lasting impression of this book?
19. For banned books: Why was this book banned?
20. How would you rate this book?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Zorro,

Marilynne Robinson
From Wikipedia

Born 1943
Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S.
Occupation Novelist, essayist
Nationality American
Notable work(s)
Housekeeping (1980)
Gilead (2004)
Notable award(s)
Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (1981)
National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (2004)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2005)

Marilynne Robinson (born 1943)[1] is an American author. Her 1980 novel Housekeeping (see 1980 in literature) won a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, Gilead (see 2004 in literature), was acclaimed by critics and received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Biography

Robinson was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho, and did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former women's college at Brown University, receiving her B.A. in 1966. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977.

Robinson is also the author of Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989) and The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998). She has written articles and book reviews for Harper’s, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Book Review.

She has been writer-in-residence or visiting professor at numerous universities, including the University of Kent, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts' MFA Program for Poets & Writers. She teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and makes her home in Iowa City. Robinson took a sabbatical in fall 2007 to complete her third novel. Due to be published in September of 2008, Home is a companion piece to Gilead, focusing on the Boughton family during the same time period that Gilead covers.[2]

This book rates as one of my top 10 favorites. It's beautiful, introspective. I'm going to review it for details and be ready to discuss on the 24th.

BG, I have not read Houskeeping and back in the bio. I read that she is releasing an new book in September. BG have you read Housekeeping?

I don't do it much anymore because of books I read here with you all, but I like to read a bunch of books by an author that I like. That way it seems that I get to know that person as well as the characters in the books. I have done that with Geraldine Brooks, John Irving, John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, Faulkner (a little), Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison. I don't read series, but I do read authors.

How about you all? Anyone do this?

SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30 SPOILER p. 1-30

I doubt that this is really a spoiler but .... it seems that the book is a little slow at the beginning and I can see why BG had a hard time getting into it. I think that the pace of a book often has a reason. Maybe this is because this is an older, slower man relating stories of his life to his son - not much action here. What do you think?

How old is the preacher? I think the son is 7.

Read the whole interview at http://www.powells.com/authors/robinson.html

The Epistolary Marilynne Robinson
Jill Owens, Powells.com

Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, came out in 1980 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. It is widely regarded as a modern classic, and for good reason: its luminous prose and detailed descriptions of the physical and psychic landscape of a young girl's coming of age in Fingerbone, Idaho, feel more like a nineteenth-century novel than a contemporary one. Marilynne Robinson

Her next novel, Gilead, arrived twenty-four years later, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and by now, her talent and intellect have won her a devoted readership worldwide. Set in 1956, Gilead is a letter from the elderly Reverend John Ames to his much younger son. Ames has lived all of his life in Gilead, Iowa, and the novel delves deeply into the history of the area through the characters of Ames's father and grandfather, also ministers, but deeply divided on ideas such as pacifism, duty, and the abolitionist movement. And eventually, when John Ames Boughton (nicknamed Jack), Ames's namesake and godson, returns to Gilead, he brings up old tensions and sets events in motion that disturb Ames's formerly peaceful last days.

In between the two novels, Robinson has written nonfiction: Mother Country, which was banned for a time in England, and The Death of Adam, a deeply intelligent and provocative collection of essays on history, theology and American culture. The Death of Adam takes a hard look at essential texts from Darwin to Calvin, and examines subjects as diverse as nineteenth-century children's primers to our current obsessions with illness and anxiety.

Gilead garnered nearly unanimous praise from reviewers; Anna Godbersen of Esquire marveled, "[N]early every sentence demands to be savored....There has been much talk lately about a religious divide in this country. Gilead, then, may be the perfect book at the perfect time: a deeply empathetic and complex picture of a religious person that is also gorgeously written, and fascinating."

Hi BG! I have read "Housekeeping." For me it was a pageturner, great story, interesting characters, and wonderful writing. I read it awhile after reading "Gilead."

quote:

Originally posted by Book Girl:
Hey ya'll

Has anyone read Marilynne Robinson's other book Housekeeping? If so, what did you think of it?BG

Hi Zorro. When I find that I am amazed by an author, I do choose to read more of that author's books. I read other stuff in between, though. I also break up my reading between genres, sometimes, by reading different books.

quote:

Originally posted by Zorro:
How about you all? Anyone do this?

I wonder...Does it help to know or to ask, when starting a book "What's the point?" What is the purpose of writing this book? When we know this, do we have more understanding of the book and the author?

Hi BG! I liked Gilead more. There seemed to be more, as I read along, to think about with regard to my own life. The messages of the 2 books are very different, yet I think if we look we can find some comparisons.

quote:

Originally posted by Book Girl:
Hola LeeAnn

You thought Housekeeping was a page-turner. So the question is did you like Gilead (as much) also?

BG

Good question, Zorro. It helps me if I know that others have enjoyed the book. Then I approach the book with a good attitude.

For the question of "What's the point?" I think that the author definitely has a purpose, and knowing it ahead of time isn't a benefit. This can overshadow the journey of discovery, IMHO.

Sometimes, too, the book can be so personal for the reader that "what's the point" can be disputed, to some extent.

It is hard to hide the major points of many books though, especially those like Gilead. Even if we are unaware of the message the author wants to send to us as a result of finishing the book, we know that, in general, there is a type of message being sent, i.e. good vs. evil, life after death, self resolution.

Often I confuse the big broad purpose, the point, with the storyline used to get the point across. After I'm away from the book I can usually put it into a larger context though, and use it in thinking about things/issues around me.

quote:

Originally posted by Zorro:
I wonder...Does it help to know or to ask, when starting a book "What's the point?" What is the purpose of writing this book? When we know this, do we have more understanding of the book and the author?