This Is Personal

Marilynne Robinson is receiving accolades and awards by the bucketful these days.  I’m not sure why I hadn’t read her until now.  Some would say that Home was not the best choice for a first read, but it’s what happened to be on my bookshelf.  It’s a lovely book with gracious writing.  The content makes me angry, and that’s clearly my problem.

Home is the second of the Gilead trilogy.  It takes place in rural Iowa around 1960, though at times it seem more like 1860.  There’s an ageing patriarch (retired Protestant minister), a wayward though kind daughter who has come home to care for him, and a prodigal son whose return is the main event of the novel.  Yes, the language is lovely.  Yes, writerly skill is on full display here. 

“Your Honor, I object!”

What does it mean to apply a high degree of literary polish to a septic (my take) human environment? The father is, while clothed in the clerical robes of immunity, passive aggressive, controlling, inaccessible to those who care for him, and incapable of honest emotional communication.  Everything is expressed indirectly.  Censure comes out as praise; silence is the ultimate punishment.  Religion becomes an excuse for lack of honesty and openness. Scripture is the perfect way to comment: it judges from afar, and it is invulnerable to criticism or refutation.  It’s the perfect refuge for those who have shied away from life, chosen a sheltered and safe (though perhaps limited and sad) path, and wish to denigrate those who have taken greater risks in hope of greater reward. That stance is IMHO cowardly and self-serving, and I will have none of it.

Some choose a riskier path.  Some have to deal with more difficult individual impulses.  For some, the safe haven of conventional theology just doesn’t work.  And when some of those risk takers run into trouble, how are they treated by the faithful?  Not with compassion.  Not with genuine empathy.  Instead they encounter a condescending mercy whose primary intention is to protect the forgiver.  Those who cloak themselves in religion have to keep reapplying that coat of immunity whenever they encounter those who stray and sin.  Because the coat keeps wearing off no matter how they smile, no matter how much scripture they quote, no matter how conventionally charitable their actions.  They refuse to acknowledge their own double-edged emotions, their own destructive and selfish impulses, their own humanity, the sadness that is the result of their own decision to shy away from challenge and genuine emotion.  They hide their sadness and their flaws, they go underground, they act in secret, they whisper and titter.

Yes, the growth of trust between the brother and sister is marvelous to observe.  Yes, the historical resonances from the time ring true.  Yes, even the neighbors deserve our empathy. But the suffering imposed on those who choose an alternate path is inexcusable, and witnessing it as a reader makes me angry. Very angry.

I’m told that Housekeeping is a safer bet.  It’s on my list for the future.  For now I need to step aside from this skillful and gracious portrayal of hypocrisy and resultant suffering.  It hurts too much.

Sorry.