The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery. –Flannery O’Connor This sentence by Flannery O’Connor describes the sensation I have always felt in reading the fiction of Marilynne Robinson. I experience the world Robinson creates in the same immersive way I move through a dream. I am wrapped up in it, suspended. After it’s over, I am disoriented, but at the same time more acutely aware of the world around me, as if my senses have been sharpened. I first read Robison’s Gilead over 20 years ago, and at the time I wasn’t captivated by it . Gilead is an extended letter written by a small-town preacher, John Ames, to his seven-year-old son. Ames is dying and he intends the letter to be read long after he is gone, when his son is an adult. Beyond the letter,...
reflections and whimsies on literary fiction