Thanks for returning with your thoughts on Gilead, and I’m especially glad you enjoyed it so much! I agree that nothing much happens, at least on the exterior, but I loved watching the preacher’s inner struggle.

I still haven’t picked up Home. I enjoyed Gilead so much I’m afraid of diluting the experience by reading another version of the same events, though I’ve heard good things about the book. I suspect I’ll enjoy it when I get there, having enjoyed Robinson’s first two books so much. She knows what she’s doing, and I don’t think she’d have written Home if she didn’t have a clear artistic reason for doing so. I don’t think it was self indulgence.

As I am not religious and anyway am more familiar with Roman Catholicism, the differences between Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Calvinists (I’ve probably forgotten a few) were completely lost on me, and also several, if not most, of the theological questions went right over my head, but it didn’t matter at all. I thought the story was beautiful. This conscientious old man who loves his wife and son, who strives to be a good and honest person and see the good in others, even the ones he dislikes (which he tends to regard as a personal shortcoming rather than the others’ fault) I found very moving. Nothing much happens, but it is so beautifully written that it kept my attention to the end. Attesting to that is the fact that when I picked it up again I didn’t have to reread the last few pages, I was immediately back into the story.

I am looking forward to reading Home.

The quote doesn’t really matter, because I didn’t choose to read it because some quote said it has suspense. I don’t need a book to be suspenseful to consider it good. I do think this one is developing too slowly though. Hopefully the last half will be more eventful.

Estelle, glad you stopped by, and I hope you return often! I too loved Housekeeping and feel that Robinson’s ability to render the relationships there and here is astonishing. I have not yet read Home, and I’m a bit afraid it will be anticlimactic after enjoying her first two so much. We’ll see!

The fact that Obama likes this book makes me like him even more!

I’m reading Gilead now, proposed (in a way) by KevinfromCanada because I disclosed that I am originally from Iowa. One of the quotes on the back says “Full of suspense and storytelling…” Hm, I’m on page 98 and haven’t felt a moment of suspense. I do like the storytelling by the narrator, but so far there’s not a lot of it. I will persevere though.