Lila by Marilynne Robinson

‘I just been wondering lately why things happen the way they do.’

With this apparently simple question, a young itinerant worker, Lila, breaks into the insular life of an elderly widower, Rev. Ames, shaking him out of his grief and into an unexpected romance.

The third book of the Gilead quartet, Marilynne Robinsons’ Lila, stands alone as the fullest account of one her most reticent and self-effacing characters. The novel circles back and forth around Lila’s backstory, from her beginnings as a neglected toddler to her rescue by Doll, an older woman with whom Lila travels as part of an itinerant gang, to Lila’s chance encounter with Rev. Ames in his church, which sets her on a journey in a wholly different direction. After her decision to settle in Gilead, Lila struggles to bridge the gap between her old life with Doll’s rough and ready values, and Ames’ deeply held belief in the goodness of God. As Lila reflects to herself, ‘If there was a Good Lord…Doll had never mentioned him.’

Robinson’s particular gift is to find miraculous and transcendent within the ordinariness of life. In The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought Marilynne Robinson writes:

‘I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of miracle is here, among us.’

Marilynne Robinson

In Lila, Robinson reflects, deepens and reconsiders themes from her previous books, this time from Lila’s point of view. Compelling and profound, this is a book which brings equal rewards for those who have already visited Gilead before, and for those who arrive there for the first time.

STUDY DETAILS:

• Four-week online study (on Zoom) led by Toby Brothers and Nicky von Fraunhofer
• Thursdays, 5-7.00 pm (UK time), 9-30 November 2023
• £140 for four meetings
• Recommended edition: Lila by Marilynne Robinson, Virago, ISBN-13: 9781844088829