Marilynne
Robinson
I
read the first page or so of this, just for the flavour, several
years ago, when Lynne gave it to me as a birthday gift; i wasn't
impressed. Today i'm happy to report that
i was incorrect in that very quick assessment, as i have greatly
enjoyed reading this novel. It is very simple, in some ways, and yet
lovely and complex in its entirety. The text is a letter written by
the narrator, minister in a Congregational church in a small Iowa
town, to his young son, explaining things he wants his son to know
that he knows he will never have the chance to tell him, as he is a
very old father, having been sixtyfive or so when his son was born.
The letter is written in about 1957, and the story it tells ranges
from roughly the American Civil War until its present; the key
characters are the narrator, his father and grandfather, his lifelong
friend, and that friend's son, named after the narrator himself. All
woven together it is the story of families falling apart, struggling
to survive the tensions within them, the sorrow that parents both
give and are given, and, this being America, race relations.
Peter
Robinson
The
second Robinson i have read (and, funnily enough, the second finished
in the same day by someone called Robinson; coincidence is bizarre
stuff), and i enjoyed this
one at least as much as the previous. Peter Robinson's books are
very much a part of a series, and i was feeling, as i read, that i
really needed to read others ~ perhaps all others ~ in the series to
fully understand the characters, who is who, and the relationships
between them. Of course, i do recognise that this is partially a
function of or attributable to a certain amount of my necessity for
order and understanding, and that in fact i am perfectly capable of
enjoying any of the series (if they're well written) without having
to relate them to any others ~ just as it is possible to read, say,
Lieutenant Hornblower
without having to follow all the rest of the novels. Because
something is possible, though, does not necessarily make it
desirable. So, all in all, despite this wandering review, i enjoyed
this novel, which kept me reading later than intended, and hooked me
into trying to solve and work it out.
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