EppsNet Archive: Marilynne Robinson

Boring a Lot of People For a Long Time

 

I’ve probably been boring a lot of people for a long time. Strange to find comfort in the idea. There have always been things I felt I must tell them, even if no one listened or understood. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead Read more →

Happy Fathers Day

 

I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead Read more →

These People Who See Right Through You

 

These people who see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you’re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead Read more →

To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear. — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

EppsNet Book Club

 

Welcome to the EppsNet Book Club! Here’s what we’ve been reading lately . . . Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Gilead is the journal of an old man — a pastor in a small town in Iowa — writing to his young son, whom he intends to read it after his death. He doesn’t know how to get to the point, he complains about his health despite an absence of physical symptoms, he sees everything as a blessing . . . He has no strong convictions — I think this but other people think that and they may have a point. The one strong conviction that he does have, he recants by the end of the book. It’s not a bad book but since the author, Marilynne Robinson, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for it, I feel like I have to say that it’s not a very good book either. Imagine… Read more →