⋙ PDF Lila A Novel edition by Marilynne Robinson Literature Fiction eBooks

Lila A Novel edition by Marilynne Robinson Literature Fiction eBooks

Download As PDF : Lila A Novel edition by Marilynne Robinson Literature Fiction eBooks

Lila A Novel edition by Marilynne Robinson Literature Fiction eBooks

Gilead is a much better book than Lila. It is probably unfair to compare, since
it may be my personal choice. Both books are good. Robinson is an exceptional writer.
The author writes with great skill and beauty. Lila Is kidnapped from an unloving home by
Doll who is a drifter. She takes pity on the miserable and sick 3 year old and saves her.
Lila and Doll live a hard life but they love each other. They run from Lila's family and
from starvation. When Lila is left alone the story brings us The Reverend, who is the best
character in the book and also the sweetest man who ever lived. Robinson has done a great
job of portraying a gentle and loving old man. I will not be a spoiler and tell you what
his relationship is to Lila. Why have I given this book only 3 stars? I bogged down about
1/2 way through. I worked hard to maintain my interest and while never bored I was close. I
found Lila to be hard and Doll to be scary. Actually they had to be hard to survive . Lila was
very introspective, maybe this fact caused the book not to flow smoothly. The book took place
in the now---but Lila lived in the past. I recommend that you read this interesting book and decide
what you think.


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Lila A Novel edition by Marilynne Robinson Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews

It takes no more than a sentence or two of Marilynne Robinson's most recent novel for the hard truth to set in that Lila - the eponymous heroine - will lead a life that is anything but ordinary. Born into a family in which the only viable alternative to abuse is neglect, the probability of Lila surviving childhood seems remote at best. And then, at the end of another day of horrifying routine after "the people inside fought themselves quiet", the child is snatched away by a woman known to her only as Doll. It is the middle of the night as Doll steals away from the porch asking no one who can answer "Where we gonna go?"

Set in the 1930s against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, "Lila" - novel and protagonist - is filled with the characters who display the resolve, desperation, and spirit that have come to mark that period in popular consciousness. But Marilynne Robinson is too intelligent, too aware, and too gifted to resort to a plot driven by hard luck cliché. Instead, she gives us Lila, the child becoming the woman, and her encounter with the world, viewing it through the prism of the migrant poor - those who, like her, were perhaps also unaware "that there were other names for seasons than planting and haying. Walk south ahead of the weather, walk north in time for the crops."

Destitute, hungry, and reconciled to the brutality and brevity of her existence, the girl trusts no one beyond Doll, expects nothing beyond crushing need. And it is here, when that need grows most desperate, that Marilynne Robinson's sublime literary creation - the homely township of Gilead - reappears to see us through the story of Lila.

Here, in Gilead, the young woman whose "whole life is written on her face" is met by the Reverend Ames, and it is with this introduction that Robinson's earlier, masterful novels "Gilead" and "Home" take on even greater depth. If you have not read those earlier works, "Lila" is nonetheless authentic, spirited storytelling which stands on its own. Taken as a trilogy, however, the lives of the residents of Gilead rightly claim their place in American literary history alongside those of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, Kennedy's Albany, and Bellow's Chicago.

As much as Lila is a story of neglect, injustice, and impoverishment, it is also one of hope and fulfillment. Lila in Gilead is a much needed confirmation that the best things in the world are as impossible to commodify as they are to rush. Anything worth having, anything that would last comes only with time, only after struggle. While this novel is certainly the most ardently "biblical" of Robinson's Gilead stories (perhaps it's a distinction without a difference, but "Gilead"'s frame was more `theological' than `biblical'), I don't see it as any real obstacle to fair-minded readers. This is just good storytelling which draws its kerygma from some brilliant, ancient poetry. (If we didn't know it was from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, we'd most likely think it was just some strange, obscure, and exhilarating old verse - the kind of thing Marilynne Robinson specializes in.)

Certainly the best description of what the book is about comes from the story itself. It is early on and Lila is considering the course that her life has taken, and she recalls a story the Reverend Ames told of how "...once when there was a storm a bird had flown into the house. He'd never seen one like it. The wind must have carried it in from some far-off place. He opened all the doors and windows, but it was so desperate to escape that for a while it couldn't find a way out. `It left a blessing in the house,' he said. `The wildness of it. Bringing the wind inside.'"

In classical Hebrew the word for wind and the word for spirit are the same word - ruakh. With "Lila" Marilynne Robinson has performed a literary trinitarian miracle of sorts; she's given us three books and in them shown us a father (Gilead), and then a son (Home), and finally Lila, a wild - and would be holy - spirit.

Mirabile visu.
Gilead and Home are two of my favorite novels, so I could not have been more excited when Lila arrived at my doorstep. The character of Lila (Reverend Ames' wife) remained somewhat of a mystery in both the earlier novels. She was the much younger, loving wife of the wonderful Reverend Ames, but she was a woman with a private past that even her much older husband knew little about. This book fills in the character of Lila and begins with her as a 5 year-old girl crying outside a house with no one there to help her. She gets saved by Doll, and they develop a sweet maternal relationship that shapes the rest of her life.

Ultimately, Robinson might be my favorite writer. I do not have a religious bone in my body, but I find myself returning to Gilead again and again just to read Reverend Ames' thoughts on the world. And Robinson is also such an understanding, empathetic writer. In Home, Jack Boughton's struggles with religion and predestination shape the novel, but she refuses to condemn him for his atheism. Lila is a third piece to that puzzle about a woman uneasy with religion but read to engage with the questions it raises.

So yeah...these three novels have deeply affected me. The prose in Lila is as beautiful as her three earlier novels, and at points, possibly even more beautiful. Lila's torment gives Robinson the chance to do things with languages few people in the history of writing have been able to do. I recommend it highly.
Gilead is a much better book than Lila. It is probably unfair to compare, since
it may be my personal choice. Both books are good. Robinson is an exceptional writer.
The author writes with great skill and beauty. Lila Is kidnapped from an unloving home by
Doll who is a drifter. She takes pity on the miserable and sick 3 year old and saves her.
Lila and Doll live a hard life but they love each other. They run from Lila's family and
from starvation. When Lila is left alone the story brings us The Reverend, who is the best
character in the book and also the sweetest man who ever lived. Robinson has done a great
job of portraying a gentle and loving old man. I will not be a spoiler and tell you what
his relationship is to Lila. Why have I given this book only 3 stars? I bogged down about
1/2 way through. I worked hard to maintain my interest and while never bored I was close. I
found Lila to be hard and Doll to be scary. Actually they had to be hard to survive . Lila was
very introspective, maybe this fact caused the book not to flow smoothly. The book took place
in the now---but Lila lived in the past. I recommend that you read this interesting book and decide
what you think.