That’s a thing with pre-sale reviews: does oneread, or does one not? And that question arises especially when applied to a work long awaited, and, for me, that is the case with Marilynne Robinson’s Jack; her fourth novel in a series that started with Gilead in 2004, which is in stores, on shelves (or coming via one of those ubiquitous “distribution centres” or appearing on a screen out of thin air; named for a mythical tribe of female warriors, or for the tributaries of some mighty waters) next week.
Alas, the temptation can not be resisted, and all my resistance must be directed instead against undue influence. But I usually do this well enough.
Here, then, a selection from the last couple of days:
Jordan Kisner’s reading is the one with the most intellectual depth. It is clear she knows the place from where Robinson comes, metaphorically if not in a real sense. It may, or may not, be called “Gilead”, but I would guess it has the essence of nonetheless. An excellent essay, I think. Should I wonder that they – Kisner and Robinson – share a publisher? Well I could but I won’t – and her piece is certainly not uncritical, but it is written with admiration and serious intent. She really makes some quite profound observations, not the least her identification of “predestination” as a leitmotif in Robinson’s work:
…Robinson is a Calvinist, and over the course of these novels, Jack has stood out among her characters—troublesome, seductive, full of pathos—because he most represents a central theological question raised by the Calvinist doctrine of predestination: Can a person be damned to perdition? Or, to use non-Calvinist language: Can a person be irretrievably and miserably wrong, broken, no-good, unsalvageable? If he is, and he knows that he is, what is he then to do? Does he have anything he can hope for?
The Atlantic, October 2020 issue
A wonderful extension of this, is Kisner’s assertion that Robinson has “trapped Jack and Della in a kind of structural predestination….”. This can only really be understood having read the other novels of the Gilead series with their sometimes parallel and sometimes circular chronologies, being such that we do know how it ends for Jack and Della. (Though I could qualify that and say: well, up to a point – who knows!)
Now, Dwight Garner at the NYT approaches Robinson with a determinably non-religious attitude. Which is okay, because I did likewise (and in some ways still do). But her work – and I can’t imagine this new novel to be otherwise – can not be understood without reference to the inherent Calvinistic stance from which it comes. Don’t say it can’t be done – see James Wood’s 2004 NYT piece; and I shouldn’t have to tell anybody where Wood stands when it comes to religion! It is obvious Garner can’t see much beyond the obvious when it comes to Jack; a miscreant, a bum – slick, unsavoury. As true as the nouns may be, so the adjectives. It’s just that I would call him: the loneliest of men; a weary, tormented soul. And Della? Garner says: “…[she is] a fascinating character [who] should resonate far more than she does…”. How can she possibly fascinate if she does not resonate? He goes on to bemoan that neither character has an “independent life” because the author has placed them both in “halters” of her own making. All I can say here is – besides well, they are her (Robinson’s) characters after all – is that I will return to this after my own reading.
Am I wrong in thinking that Garner didn’t have much interest in reading this novel (he sort of admits as much, or at least his ambivelence!) let alone reviewing it? Did the NYT have nobody else doing books this week? Anything by Marilynne Robinson deserves more consideration than that granted in this review. Mr. Garner didn’t have to like it, but he could have accorded just a modicum of the effort granted by Ms. Kisner. (Should I be sounding peeved, may I say in my defence, I am a really fair in this regard. For example, earlier in the year Daniel Mendelsohn gave a rather unfavourable review of Hilary Mantel’s final Cromwell tome, a lot of which I was not in agreement, but it was so well written, original in thought, fair in criticism …and respectful! That’s important I think, and what I miss in Garner’s review.)
Sarah Perry at The Guardian, gives us an English perspective; reads it, as I surely will, as one long drawn by the originality and fearlessness of Robinson’s narrative voice, and coming back now for more – more of that humanity, grace, whatever it is that has the power to elevate and make it all worthwhile. She sees the many faceted depth of the characters created by Robinson; their loneliness, their torment, and their longing for something more. And she sees the characters placed in the complicated societal flux of the post-war American South, and its extreme racialism.
The Calvinist tradition takes a niche place in mainstream English protestantism, so I am interested that Perry seems to have a really good grasp of the theological concepts that really were a defining force in the evolving Christianity of the United States; from colonial times through to nationhood and into the present time. I know when I first started reading Gilead I had to madly google around about Calvinism and Puritanism (and more surprisingly, Atheism!). Maybe she did too! Anyway, in Sarah Perry quite obiously we have here a fan writing – not necessarily the best place to critique from…but, what can I say? I’m with her! And, of course, I will be reading Jack, and will surely have something of my own to add.