Extra: Marilynne Robinson's Reading Genesis
My review
EDIT: The link to my review below didn’t work. This one should. My apologies!
Some of you, my readers, may recall my mentioning that I would be reading and reviewing Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis. Well, I did, and it’s here!
Here’s a taste of my review:
One ingredient of Robinson’s erudition is her deep knowledge in the literature of the ancient civilizations surrounding the Hebrew culture of the Old Testament. Robinson assumes Genesis borrows from these other works, a position some readers might consider at odds with divine inspiration (although the two positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive). More importantly, in making comparative readings, Robinson finds that it is the gods and myths of those other cultures that come up wanting in light of the account of Genesis.
Indeed, the God of Genesis is a different kind of God altogether. And Genesis tells a different kind of story about His relationship with His people.
You can read the rest of the review here.
My favorite work of Robinson’s is her novel Housekeeping. It is stunning. Here’s a review a wrote on it a few years ago.
Here’s another link that should work: https://rlo.acton.org/archives/126490-reading-genesis-with-marilynne-robinson.html
Given that Robinson's style here - "no chapters, no headings, and only sporadic, unmarked section breaks" - is consistent with both her fiction and her other non-fiction, I wonder what, as an author yourself, your take is on that Karen, beyond the "overall sense of a reader who is simply reading"?
I'm not entirely sure what, as a reader, I'm meant to make of it - but of course the far better question would be to ask what is it making of me? She's definitely not a writer who goes in for listicles and the like (much to her credit) and I think that, for me at least, adds another layer of weightiness to what she writes - that she is letting me know things are complex, not always easily categorised and most certainly multi-layered - so I, her reader, need to be patient, hang in there, think along with her without worry or hurry. It could be a long night's journey into day but it will prove worthwhile and the sun will rise, so keep taking one more step... That kinda thing. Maybe.