Robinson herself won the Pulitzer in 2005 for her novel, Gilead, a work of such moving power and beauty that I consider it an example of all that a novel should be. Woven into her narratives are powerfully brought forth questions on the very nature of the Divine and of our relationships with it and with one another. At the same time, it is just a damn good story. Her nonfiction work will challenge you, so much so that I tend to reserve it for those rare stretches of time when I feel up to paying it the full attention it deserves.
A small treat was to be had this week in a New York Times interview of Robinson, which can be found here. It is not necessarily an in-depth piece, but it is interesting nevertheless for her responses to questions about books and literature in general. What I found most compelling, though, was her response to the question of which writer, either living or dead, she would like most to meet.
"A wonderful writer has given the best of herself or himself in the work. I think many of them are frustrated by the thinness and inadequacy of ordinary spoken language, of ordinary contact even with the people they know best and love best. They turn to writing for this reason. I think many of them are magnanimous in a degree their lives cannot otherwise express. To meet Emily Dickinson or Henry James would be, from their side, to intrude on them, maybe even to make them feel inadequate to expectation. I can’t imagine being a sufficient reason for the disruption. We do have their books."What truth. I understand completely what she means by frustration with the "thinness and inadequacy of ordinary spoken language." I find myself befuddled oftentimes in weightier conversations by an inability to express all that I am thinking. It is not that I lack a thoroughly thought through opinion on a thing, but that I seem to somehow not be able to force the words shifting around in my head out through my lips. Give me a moment to consider and to speak them slowly and I can generally make my point clearly. Especially, though, give me paper and pen and time to erase and rearrange and I can offer a marriage of words that says all that I truly mean to say.
This is what I admire about Marilynne Robinson. She is willing to cut to the chase, so to speak, and not gloss over matters with romantic notions. I suppose you could call it a thoroughly Midwestern sensibility. Or something like that. Of course, it is tantalizing to imagine a conversation with a great writer or anyone, for that matter, whom we hold up as a hero or an inspiration, but in imagining such a thing we neglect to recognize the humanity of that person, the very thing that makes them someone whose work we so respect. As an example, a particular course I took in college was afforded the opportunity of a visit from a writer of note whose work we had read and confronted intensley as a group. I had found the book extraordinary and one that I loved and I anticipated the visit for weeks, imagining a deeply inspiring conversation that offered insight and wisdom of the sort that I thought only an artist of this ilk might convey. Long story short: it was a bit awkward. And it was a good lesson for me. Part of what made this person a brilliant writer was also the same thing that made her not so much a brilliant conversationalist.
But, "we do have their books" and that, of course, is really all we need.
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