Lila

by Marilynne Robinson

First Edition, 261 pages

English language

Published Oct. 7, 2014 by Farrar Straus and Giroux.

ISBN:: 978-0-374-18761-3
OCLC Number:: 1023816618

(9 reviews)

Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church—the only available shelter from the rain—and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the life that preceded her newfound security.

Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand to mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. Despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award National Book Award Finalist

2 editions

gimley reviewed Lila by Marilynne Robinson (Gilead, #3)

Review of 'Lila (Gilead, #3)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I'd like to give it 5 stars but I'm not smart enough. Or maybe I should not expect to understand. Maybe the whole point is to know how much is just not understandable.

It used to be (and some places it still is) that marriages would be arranged, but there may once have been a time when those doing the arranging knew what they were doing. Now people get married and think they know what they're doing, often finding out much later that they had no idea.

So did Lila & Ames know what they were doing? I couldn't figure it out for quite a while. I didn't know what they were doing, but I also know that much knowledge is the illusion of it. We live in a time where there's so much of this knowledge and its illusions. Back then there was less of it.

The most mysterious thing is people and their relationships, so strange that people try and make themselves predictable so they don't scare themselves and each other. Lila and Ames are continually believing they don't trust each other when they probably did more than others who lived under the illusions of trust. Their connection was outside of history and the past was only stuff that could get in the way. Their souls connected while their actual selves just looked on in amazement and tried not to screw it up. What was the difference between worrying and praying again?

Having read Gilead and Home, I expected to understand better than I did. Instead my understanding of those books is called into question. Some day I'll read them again because all 3 books are the kind that aren't really about the plot at all. The plot, like the bible, perhaps, are just there to give it all some kind of order, even as the time sequences are presented out of order.

And there's a beauty in the openness of moments that can go anywhere in any way with only God to keep it from all unraveling, at least so far. And maybe faith is understanding that the "so far" will continue, or if it doesn't, then that's they way it ought to be going, even if it hurts. And each new person born into the world is just the next chapter, not in a plot driven way but all about character.