The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending is narrated by Tony Webster, a man who has been more or less successful: a steady career, an easy retirement, a friendly marriage followed by a friendlier divorce, an unproblematic daughter. In other words, life is not bothersome for Tony until he receives a letter from a solicitor stating that Adrian Finn, a friend from 40 years ago, left him a diary through the will of Sarah, the mother of her ex-girlfriend from 40 years ago, Veronica. This letter makes Tony start scrutinizing what he thinks his past is and discovering what his life really is.

The novel begins with a list of things that Tony remembers, and after going through each item, he cautiously says, as if to defend himself from his flawed remembrance, which is something that is often presented, that what you end up remembering is not always what you have seen. Memories, in this novel, cannot be trusted. Memories are either willfully forgotten or confused between imagination and reality. They deviate from what really happened and they can even be totally opposite from the truth. The veracity of Tony’s memories is often challenged that the reader, at some point, will begin to see this novel as a giant puzzle where the pieces hardly fit each other.

Tony is at great unrest, like his classmate’s description of Henry VIII’s reign and like the way his story ends. Why muddle through all these if he’s at ease, if he found closure with things past? And why make a conscious selection of memories in the first place? After reading the book in one sitting as the dust jacket demanded and after rereading it a couple of times, I feel that I share his memories, owing to the novel’s first-person point of view. Reading the novel is like having a friend sleep over at your place, lying on the bed in the dark, telling random stories and confessions, and you, as the reader, urging the other to keep going and to reexamine things in retrospect.

How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but–mainly–to ourselves.

[Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also--if this isn't too grand a word--our tragedy.]

Because this book deals heavily with the unreliability and faulty nature of memory, it is filled with corroboration, as if this were enough to come up with an ideal version of truth. We only have Tony’s story to read, but the small versions from Adrian, Veronica, and other characters provided to us put Tony’s narration in a state of doubt. The story sounds sincere enough but the parts that would make it credible are forgotten and left out by Tony, therefore making a puzzle out of himself.

Aside from memory, it also deals with meditations on history and its nuisances, on growing old, on sinking into an ordinary life, on regretting the things you did that you forgot you did, on the unwavering force of things left undone, of man’s instinct for self-preservation. Perhaps the last item is the point of all the forgetting, but is it also the point of living at least two-thirds of your life?

[I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.]

Tony has accused others as damaged people, but isn’t he just as damaged as the others? He fears these damaged people who, according to him, avoid inflicting further damage to themselves, and yet, he has become a perfect replica of them. He thinks he is being in touch with his senses when the fact is he has become another insensitive man who has lashed at people who were once close to him with his vitriolic words. He would not realize this because he can only figure out the picture that he has created inside his head and he would not get out of it.

The novel has been praised, or criticized, for its readability. It is true that one can effortlessly breeze through the text. It appears to be a simplistic two-part memoir: the first part concerned with Tony’s schooling where he met Adrian and Veronica, and the second part concerned with shifting narratives that weave back and forth to the present and the past. One may pick any page at random and mostly likely find something that is worth quoting.

[History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.]

But reading isn’t only concerned with the text. Digging deeper is another factor. A book that can be finished in one sitting without really getting it is not a readable book. One is even tempted to start all over after reading the last sentence of this book. Readers may gather and discuss what really happened, but they will never be able to pin things down. They will agree, but the possibility of disagreement is higher. This irresolvability adds another constraint to the understanding of the book, and perhaps its readability is the greatest irony that it has to present.

So what is the sense of an ending? It is how the novel ended. It is what we have when we cannot undo certain things. We only have a sense of an ending when something in our lives has been buried too deep that we are fooled to believe that it really has ended.

Dates Read: November 13, 2011

No. of Pages: 150

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The Classics Club

I’m joining the Classics Spin #2 because I feel like I have to rely on this to make me go back and focus on my classics reading. Check out the link for more rules. This time, I am going to recycle the books from the first spin but of course, I’m going to cross out the books that I have already read. And I’ll be changing some of the categories. Well, I’m not exactly changing them; I’m just going to reword them to make them match my feelings for them.

So here are the categories:

• five books you are dreading/hesitant to read (1-5)
• five books you feel have the best reputation (6-10)
• five books you plan to read within this year (11-15)
• five free choices (16-20)

I hope the number is from the third category. I hope it’s 11. Well, I’m going to read it soon anyway, but let’s just see if it will be picked.

Hunted and Delivered

Every responsible citizen is at his or her designated election precinct and here I am stuck at the house with nothing to do. If you’re wondering why, I wasn’t able to register because the voting registration dates escaped me because I was oblivious to everything that was uhm, newsworthy. Instead of wondering how the national election would turn out, I thought of busying myself by posting my recent book hauls.

[Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?: USD 17.94, May 2, Better World Books]

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? is Carver’s first collection. It is the last book that I have in my Carver list and, oddly, completes my Carver craving. I am a happy camping completist!

“Filled with glass-sharp details, images and conversations …. Carver has a wicked, ironic imagination. With painful, funny acuteness, he captures the electric currents that shoot through people’s lives and single them indelibly.” – Newsweek

[Emma: Php 97.00, May 6, Book Sale - Makati Square]

Emma is the second Jane Austen that I intend to read mostly because it is the second Austen novel included on the Novel 100 list. Placed at Top 11, it is even ranked higher than Pride and Prejudice (Top 41). Looks promising because I am not crazy about P&P. I hope to love Emma and affirm the statement below.

“Everyone loves Emma.’ – Guardian

[The Year of Magical Thinking: Php 75.00, May 6, Book Sale - Makati Square]

I was having second thoughts about The Year of Magical Thinking. I even remember a discouraging rant from a friend but what the hell, Play It As It Lays is my 2012 novel of the year so I might as well dabble in Didion’s essays. And yeah, I also regret passing on Slouching Towards Bethlehem (I was on a book hoarding ban then). And oops, this got me:

“I can’t think of a book we need more than hers …. I can’t imagine dying without this book.” – John Leonard, The New York Review of Books

[The History of Love: USD 14.20, May 10, The Book Depository]

I ordered The History of Love for three reasons: 1.) I felt that it might be selected as our book of the month (which did not happen), 2.) this is a prize for Monique in my bloggy birthday giveaway (very late, I know, and thanks for the consideration!), and 3.) Maria loves it (and I think it’s time that I pick something that she praises right to my face). The title is a bit misleading (some people think that it is nonfiction) but I am actually excited to read this despite the glaring error at the back cover. I don’t mean to be a Nazi, but look!

“Krauss writers [sic] like an angel.” – Guardian (UK)

[Don Quixote: Php 180.00, May 11, Book Sale - SM Mall of Asia]

Don Quixote is Top 1 at the Novel 100 list. Yes, it is not Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky (although all four are in the Top 5), but Miguel de Cervantes who has the bragging rights. I found a nice edition with a little crease at the back cover, but that’s okay because the French flaps and deckle edges make up for it. And this translation by Edith Grossman (with an introduction by Harold Bloom) looks like a winner!

“The Grossman translation blows the dust off Cervantes, leaving his light-footed prose and his sly, gentle mockeries.” – Dallas Morning News

[Man in the Dark: Php 115.00, May 11, Book Sale - SM Mall of Asia]

Because Man in the Dark is Bennard‘s favorite book of 2012 and because Slaughterhouse Five is mentioned in one of the blurbs, I picked this super nice crisp copy. This is going to be my first Auster, unless I fluctuate to go out and read his other works.

“Works beautifully … this is perhaps Auster’s best book. Like Vonnegut’s classic antiwar novel [Slaughterhouse Five], Auster’s book leaves one with a depth of feeling much larger than might be expected from such a small and concise work of art.” – San Francisco Chronicle

[Pan: Php 75.00, May 11, Book Sale - SM Mall of Asia]

Knut Hamsun! Pan! Enough said. I didn’t even bother checking whether or not the copy is clean (slightly yellowed pages, which I don’t mind). And look at what Nobel laureate Singer said about it:

“The story [Pan] tells is as gripping as ever, and its descriptions of nature remain original. The work contains a harmony found only in the highest types of poetry; it is actually poetry set in prose, and boasts the best traits of each.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer

[The Way of All Flesh: Php 37.00, May 11, Book Sale - SM Mall of Asia]

I was already marching towards the counter when The Way of All Flesh beckoned to me. It’s cheap and it’s a Modern Library selection, so why not? Besides, I’ve been stalling in completing my required classics reading list, so yeah. And really, I don’t know what other interesting thing there is in this novel. Maybe the title? Oh well, I’m going to end this now. I don’t know what it’s about.

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

I am looking at my previous and current monthly reading plans and I realize two things. One, I haven’t even touched Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, which was the Classics Club book on the April list. Two, I have only one classic book in line for this month, which is Dom Casmurro by Machado De Assis. I only borrowed this from a book club friend after listening to another book club friend’s raves on it. I don’t even have it on my Classics Club list, but it sure does qualify.

When the lender of the book handed it to me (the book cased in a zip lock), she told me that I will be in the presence of great literature. I don’t even know who the author is and I would never have heard of him had I not lunched out with the other book club friend. I think I am going to read Dom Casmurro after finishing my first John Green book, Paper Towns, which I will read right after I finish my current read, A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe.

I love the book picks of these two friends and I am always persuaded by their opinions. I feel that they are very adventurous readers who wouldn’t mind reading books that are mostly unknown by most readers. They are also very keen in making their book selections. It’s too bad that they don’t have blogs, and if they do, they must be secret blogs unindexed by Google.

Okay, I am not supposed to talk about them. Other books for the Classics Club that are under my radar are, yes, Swann’s Way (I am just stalling it), Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (it was going to make it on my May list had I not changed my book picking process), and … Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I have to get back to it after this restlessness blows over.

Gifts, Prizes, and Whatnot

Because nobody won my birthday giveaway due to technicalities. Anyway, let’s discuss the entries for a bit:

• swright9 – suggested The Intrepid Islander but doesn’t have a reason. Thanks for the greeting! :)
• thepagewalker – no entry but thanks so much for the greeting, Mommy Louize! :)
• Monique - suggested Fragments but also doesn’t have a reason and posted beyond the deadline (submitted on 2013/04/26 at 2:01 PM). Sorry Buddy, but rules are rules. Thank you, Monique! :)
• isaw08 – suggested The Sense of Being Angus. Same reasons with Monique (submitted on 2013/04/27 at 11:17 AM). Thank you, Tricia! :)

Seems to me like an epic fail (please remind me not to use that phrase again), or probably I have such stringent rules? Anyway, let me now post my recent book hoards and bookish birthday gifts.

[The Graveyard Book: from Mommy Louize, March 23]

This is really swapped with my copy of Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro through an exchange gifting scheme called The White Elephant swap. I wouldn’t even bother explaining the mechanics of it but if you are so inclined, there’s a Wikipedia entry for it. And yeah, I really targeted The Graveyard Book right from the start. I think I must read at least one Gaiman book. And look at the blurb: I was also one a child.

“Wistful, witty, wise–and creepy. This needs to be read by anyone who is or has ever been a child.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[A Bell for Adano: Php 115.00, March 25, Book Sale - Cityland]

It’s been a while since I found a Pulitzer Prize winner. A Bell for Adano is an oldie. I’ve heard good things about John Hersey but not anything from this novel. However, the “dogmatically recommended” part of the blurb raises my eyebrows. I am not really sure what it is trying to say, but yeah, I should prepare myself for something dogmatic. It has something to do about a church bell, right?

”A well-written, funny, and, at times, serious and deeply disturbing story … dogmatically recommended.” – The New Yorker

[Short Cuts: USD 17.31, April 15, Better World Books]

I had a little trouble getting my copy of Short Cuts because 1.) I had to order it from an online book store, and 2.) it was inspected by the local customs officials. I had to pay a fee amounting to something that could give me cheap lunch but I didn’t really mind. What I did mind was the hot weather when I walked from our office to the post office. And yeah, I didn’t know that Short Cuts has a movie counterpart until last weekend. No, it’s more like I didn’t believe that there was one until one of my bookish friends explained that it’s like a collection of short films. Makes sense.

“Possibly no movie has ever made such a strong synthesis between a major American writer and a major American filmmaker. In Altman’s innovative structure, the stories interweave like themes in a jazz symphony.” – Newsweek

[The Death of Adam: Php 115.00, April 19, Book Sale - Robinson's Ermita]

I’ve been hoping to find Robinson’s nonfictional works and voila! THE DEATH OF ADAM presented itself to me when I made a quick trip to the nearest book store that I could find before meeting my friends for dinner. The copy is not new and I was insulted for seeing shoe marks on the first page of the book. Why would anyone step on this book? I erased the whole thing using a pencil eraser. Thank goodness that dirt is gone. And look at what Doris Lessing has to say about it:

“A useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit” – Doris Lessing

[Infinite Jest: Php 755.00, April 22, National Book Store - Glorietta 1]

I’ve seen a wonderful animated interview of David Foster Wallace and I was mesmerized by his voice. If there were a book store right across our office, I would have gone out as soon as the video interview ended. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that simply because there is no nearby book store. Infinite Jest will need to wait after work hours are over. Talk about compulsive buying, huh? But this book has been under my radar for quite a while, and I’m glad that I finally bought it because my wallet was picked a few minutes later. It’s the last thing that I bought with money from that wallet. Oh well. Should I take that as sign of something? The blurb below says “think Pynchon.” I don’t like Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Heh.

“The next step in fiction …. Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty …. Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think.” – Sven Birkerts, Atlantic Monthly

[Paper Towns: from Maria, April 24]

I have a suspicion: my book club friends are secretly conniving to turn me into a John Green fan. Of course they deny it, saying that they only wish for me to read at least one of his works. So Paper Towns will be one of them because there’s one more Green book below. There’s no blurb in this edition, and I really don’t know what to expect from this.

[Breakfast at Tiffany's: from Jonathan, April 25]

I asked my friend why he gave me a copy of this. He said that he was watching his interviews the night before and that we should support our own, meaning the gay writers. I liked In Cold Blood, but I feel that Breakfast at Tiffany’s will be very different. I am not sure if I should trust Norman Mailer because I haven’t even read him, and I don’t like his feisty reputation.

”Truman Capote is the most perfect writer of my generation. He writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm.” – Norman Mailer

[The Reader: from Jonathan, April 25]

The Reader almost turned out to be a disastrous gift because I already have a copy of this, also a gift from another bookish friend. Good thing that it’s a different edition (my first copy is the movie tie-in edition and it’s not a new copy). And I like the reason my friend gave me for picking this book. Clue: it has something to do with the title.

“[Schlink] examines the nature of understanding and tests the limits of forgiveness. He does these things with honesty , restraint and a moral precision both unsettling and rare. The result is as compelling as any thriller.” – The Times

[The Fault in Our Stars: from Aaron, Beejay, JL, and Tina, April 27]

Since The Fault in Our Stars made it to the finals of the 2013 Tournament of Books, I got curious. It’s not too often that young adult novels are celebrated in such events so I asked around for a copy that I could borrow. My friends got a little excited so they decided to give me a copy as a gift. Okay fine, they are not conniving because I am sincerely interested in reading this book.

“Genius …. Simply devastating …. Fearless in the face of powerful, uncomplicated, unironized emotion.” – Time

[Happy Moscow: from Monique, April 27]

Happy Moscow is supposed to jumpstart my NYRB Classics collection. Actually, I haven’t really decided which of these books should I purchase. I am not too keen in collecting every single NYRB Classic because they are so many, so obscure, and so hard to find. And I resent the fact that they have so many Georges Simenon books. I’m like, who’s this writer?

“Andrey Platonov is the most exciting Russian writer to be rediscovered since the end of the Soviet Union. Happy Moscow shows Platonov as a master of language, waving out of official names, political speeches, ideological exhortations and popular philosophical hopes a reality equal to the gut feel of Soviet life in the 1930s …. This is just what it felt like to be swept away by the Soviet ideal of a new humanity.” – The Independent

[Red Sorghum: from Monique, April 27]

I’ve been eyeing this since Mo Yan won the Nobel last year. Red Sorghum is supposed to be his masterpiece. I was going to buy it until I read somewhere that the writer is a promoter of censorship. That was a rather dispiriting news. I didn’t even bother finishing the article so I didn’t get to know the reasons behind it. But Amy Tan’s comparison of Yan to Kundera and Garcia Marquez is a little uplifting.

“Mo Yan’s voice will find it’s way into the heart of the American reader, just as Kundera and Garcia Marquez have.” – Amy Tan

[Smaller and Smaller Circles: from Miss Louize, April 27]

I won a copy of Smaller and Smaller Circles at our recent book club discussion. It was raffled out, and yes, it was my first time to win a raffle. Wait. No, I just lied. That was my second time because I already won a raffle at a local writer’s blog last year. Haha.

[The Dark Half: from Jason, April 29]

This is the last item. I really didn’t expect to receive a book from an office mate because if you really want to know, I barely exist. I am the least friendly person in the workplace, and I am very obnoxious. Perhaps I should take a cue from the title? I don’t know what to expect from The Dark Half because my copy is just plain black with barely anything on it.

I think I talked too much for today?

Books to Read: May 2013

April is the cruellest month because it’s so hot. The heat has and is still making me restless, hence, my inability to finish the books that I planned to read last month. I only finished two. Heh.

• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – 5 out of 5 stars.
• Ulverton by Adam Thorpe – 4 out of 5 stars.

Aside from the heat, another excuse that I have is the number of activities that I attended for the book club. These were all scheduled during the weekends, and it is mostly on these days that I get a lot of reading done. Last excuse is that my social life went to a full bloom owing to the birthday dinners and hangouts that my friends organized. Yay!

Enough of excuses. I am plain restless, that’s all. So I decided to shake things up a bit. I am going to change the selection process for the monthly reading plans. I will no longer categorize the books; I realize that it’s a constricting habit that could only worsen my lack of focus. Currently, I just pick whatever that I immediately want to read, so I’m going to base my possible reads for the month from a stack of eight or so books that I feel like reading.

I say possible reads because I might change my mind again. You know how feelings are: one couldn’t really trust them because they could change so fast. That’s why I am giving myself some flexibility. Perhaps a reading stack would be quite helpful?

The Left Stack has the books that I haven’t started yet but which I am set on reading soon while the Right Stack has the books that I have already started and books that I am stuck with (Les Miserables, hello). So here they are:

• Dom Casmurro by Machado De Assis – borrowed from Veronica.
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski – I’ve been dying to read this.
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – and this one as well.
• A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes – borrowed from Monique.
• Paper Town by John Green – gift from Maria.
• Smaller and Smaller Circles by F. H. Batacan – our book of the month.

• Cathedral by Raymond Carver – on page 91.
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo – on page 359. Yes, it was untouched last month.
• A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe – on page 26. A spillover from last month.

Okay, so what do you think? You think I can stick with this scheme or do you think I will change my mind again?

Robby and Tobias

Gilead Face to Face Book Discussion Details:

• Date: April 27, 2013
• Place: Hidden Garden Resort, Las Pinas City
• Time: 3 PM to 11 PM
• Discussion Leader: Louize (and daughter)
• Attendees: Me, Aaron, Aenna (late), Alona, Beejay,  Bennard, Celina (and son), Chika, Ella, JL, Mae, Maria (and husband and son), Marian (newbie), Monique, Patrick, Ranee, Tina,  Tricia (late), Veronica
• Food I Ate: A lot! I even got to take home the excess food. This book discussion is also a celebration of our book club’s third anniversary, which explains why the time extended until 11 PM.
• Post-discussion Activity: Reading of the participants’ weekly journal entries (I picked Tina’s journal which has entries on her surfing experience and her resolve to be a gracious person), distribution of our folio entitled There Is a Balm in Gilead: Memories of Hope (my entry is my “coming out” story), awarding ceremony (for fun! I won Favorite Reviewer), pool party, more food (local food and pizza delivery), more drinks (carbonated and alcoholic), more singing (the good and the bad), more goofing around. A great night!
• Other Nominated Books: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

There Is a Balm in Gilead

Discussion Time

From Ella:

And as I close the book, there goes fangirling. Some Filipino phrases are reiterations of what I felt when the book ended. And being a tear-jerker of books, as usual. I cried. I cried while I tweeted. I cried while learning that this book is a new favorite. I concluded the tweet-series with the award of five stars. And with my state of being as vulnerable as I was, I was walking while crying, and simply melancholic during my stay in my workstation. This is a definite goodread. Hail to Marilynne’s work!

From Emir:

Wasak. In a good way.

From JL:

Reading this book is like talking to a dear old friend over coffee, letting the day pass away with nary a hurry, sitting comfortably and listening intently to an unfolding life story, letting his words and memories surround your inner space, thawing unknown cold regions within you and planting seeds for some future harvest, emerging from this storytelling somehow moulded and changed. I’ve never read fiction as slowly and as fully as this, nor has fiction caused me to decelerate as much as this. I think this is part of its brilliance and beauty, that after each reading of even a tiny slice of a chapter, the sunlight entering my window is a little bit brighter and gentler, and the feel of my body, or that feeling of embodiment, sends a thrill of acknowledgement and satisfaction and I’m led to gather my thoughts about one person or another who has managed to enrich me even without them knowing it.

From Lynai:

Gilead is a deeply melancholic book. I can feel the mix of joy, love, sadness, longing, and regret jump at me in every sentence that Reverend Ames writes and every time I attempt to re-read it, the melancholy feeling becomes even more poignant that I can’t help but be teary-eyed at times. Yes, Gilead is a book worth re-reading.

From Maria:

I hope I can do the same for my son. <3

From Monique:

Gilead spoke of relationships: father and son, husband and wife, minister and his flock, man and his namesake. While the last one undeniably does not come along very often, I found, however, that this particular relationship – the one between Rev. Ames and his namesake, John Ames “Jack” Boughton, the son of his best friend – was the most touching and meditative one highlighted in the novel. That they should be namesakes – there are so many other names that the elder Boughton could have given his son, but no, it had to be “John Ames” – is not a meaningless exercise. And their relationship demonstrated all human emotions possible: love, hate, jealousy, resentment, devotion, acceptance, generosity.

From Tina:

There was a little question of whether this book was a sad one before we started discussing it online, but our moderator just said that it’s a book that will make us heave deep sighs. And she was right. Deep sighs, indeed. I found myself close to tears in the end, and it made me wonder what kind of legacy would I be leaving, and if I would be ever able to say or write that same last line in the book with peace and surrender, just as Reverend Ames did for his son. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

My write-up here.

The F2F16 Attendees

The Bookish Swimmers

Videoke Time

Happy Birthday, TFG!

Photos courtesy of Louize and Tina. Postcard designed by Aenna.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead is a long letter written by Rev. John Ames to his seven-year-old son, whom he begat at a very late age. Rev. Ames believes his death is imminent due to his failing heart so he sets out to write something that his child would read. He does so because he believes that his young son would barely have enough memories of him when he gets older. As Rev. Ames continues to write his letter, the novel becomes a fragmented diary filled with Rev. Ames’s memories of his youth, his family, his loved ones, and his feelings for his son.

This is one of the few books that I’ve reread. The first reading was amazing, and this second pass is even better that it demands a second piece of writing. It’s not so much as missing a number of things from the first time as fully appreciating the prose, both in the textual and subliminal levels. This is not to say that I previously misread the whole thing. I firmly believe that it is impossible not to understand the novel because the language is clean, unpretentious, and it drives straight to the heart.

I don’t mean to say that this is a purely sentimental novel that romanticizes the last moments that a dying man and his young son have left. Rev. Ames writes about various topics that concern mostly his family and his life in Gilead, Iowa. He has been the pastor of the town for nearly half a century. In novels where characters are religious or where narrators are devoted servers of the Church, there is the danger of turning the novel into a comprehensive Sunday sermon or a plainly pious piece of writing that would alienate the nonbelievers.

That’s the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There’s a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn’t really expect to find it either.

Gilead avoids becoming either of the two. Still, there are the passages that will make you heave deep sighs, but there are also moments of small comedy and bits of history. And even if we are reading the words of a pastor, the reader does not hear the tone of supreme authority. Indeed, Rev. Ames is a good, virtuous man, but he is also human. He will have lapses and he will provide us with a sense of intrigue as the novel unfurls to its latter parts.

[Though I must say all this has given me a new glimpse of the ongoingness of the world. We fly forgotten as a dream, certainly, leaving the forgetful world behind us to trample and mar and misplace everything we have ever cared for. That is just the way of it, and it is remarkable.]

Good characters do not always come up with boring stories. Rev. Ames has really interesting stories to share despite the lack of physical action. The conflict between his pacifist father and his radical grandfather, the story of his brother who has shirked away from the long line of pastors, his late marriage, his best friend who is also a pastor, and his namesake, his best friend’s prodigal son, are some of the big stories that the seven-year-old will be reading as soon as he gets his hands on the letter.

Since this novel resembles a diary, there is also the danger of writing too much about mundane details that might make the reader uninterested. This mundaneness, however, is celebrated even more than holidays. Rev. Ames talks about grace found in the little events of life, about how he loves such moments, and about how he feels more alive in them. The reader must restrain himself from reading too fast because there is so much detail that should not be missed. The words are stripped down to the bare necessities, and it works perfectly because it is these little quiet words that make Gilead such an illuminating book.

[To me it seems rather Christlike to be as unadorned as this place is, as little regarded. I can't help imagining that you will leave sooner or later, and it's fine if you have done that, or if you mean to do it. This whole town does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little, then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here as a last wild gesture of lover-I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence.]

This novel was published almost two decades after Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, which talks about women and which makes Gilead quite a departure from it since it talks about fathers. The two are somewhat similar because there are characters in each that are thrust into the future with their fates still questionable, and they deal so much about our mortal lives.

In these times where there is so much credit given to style and structure, where does one put novels that meander on and on only in calm waters? On what pedestal should novels with great spiritual power be placed? What happens to books that inspire so much interest but are always stuck on the to-read shelves?

Have faith. These books will find their ways to the readers and will make us believe that there are miracles after all.

Dates Read: April 1 to 9, 2013

No. of Pages: 247

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I have decided / At twenty-five / Something must change

I know, I know, I was 25 four years ago, but I figure that at my age, something really must change. I’ve been really restless for the past couple of weeks, which explains the lack of activity in this blog. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking but I still couldn’t figure out what things need to change. As far as this book blog is concerned, there’s the review backlog that I need to take care of. And I’m not forgetting the reading plans that I need to follow. I barely have the necessary focus and energy to work on these two, but I’m already considering another blog for personal stuff, just so I could keep bookish posts and personal things separate.

No, I won’t resurrect my old personal blog. I want to start anew. I’m not sure if I want to share this new blog with the people I know. I’m pretty sure I won’t; I want it to be anonymous in the mean time. I already have a name for it, but for the sake of celebrating this day, I’d like to hold a contest.

Participants, at the comments section, suggest a name for my hypothetical personal blog. Please include a brief reason why you’re suggesting that name. You may suggest as many names as you want, so long as each of them has a brief description.

How will I pick the winner? The entry that has the strongest appeal to me and that has a very convincing reason wins. So surprise me! I’ll announce the winner maybe on Saturday. Contest runs for 24 hours. That’s from April 25, 8AM to April 26, 8AM. And the prize? Any book from the Book Depository (at most USD 15.00). That means everyone is welcome to join. And oh, you have to be patient for the prize because I’ll place the order in mid-May (along with my personal book hoarding).

So yeah, Happy Birthday to me. I won’t publish or respond to any comment until the deadline. I’ll be in outer space, so see you there!

Who is hands-down the best literary hero, in your opinion? Likewise, who is the best heroine?

I actually couldn’t think of literary heroes and heroines, hence, the delay in coming up with a response. The topic says “literary” hero; the character is not required to have come from a classic book, right? Now that I have explained myself, I think I can now properly answer the question.

My favorite is Adrian Finn, Tony Webster’s friend in Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. Why? Because he’s so deep and melancholic, and his ruminations on life and history affected me tremendously. I even gained valuable insights on suicide when I finished the novel. Probably I still have a hangover from our mini-discussion of the book last weekend, but I really did like Adrian even before that. In fact, revisiting the novel only made me like him more. And this reminds me that I have to write something about the novel soon.

Runners-up would be the funny Lionel Essrog of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn and the eccentric unnamed narrator of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. Now for the heroine: I could only think of Jane Eyre. What a feisty little kid she was! I’m not too sure though if I still like her after she announced “Reader, I married him,” but maybe she deserves it. I just like the idea of Jane Eyre being strong and independent, and one can still be both even if she is married. Right?