Home by Marilyn Robinson

I should begin by saying that Housekeeping might be one of my all time favorite books ever and Gilead, while I loved it less, definitely moved me. I can pick up that book on any given day and read any paragraph just to be dazzled by Robinson's wicked control of the language. I am not a God kinda girl, but the image Robinson creates of the joy all humans should have when they come into contact with the miracle of water pops into my head at least weekly.

That is to say, I had crazy high hopes for Home, which was given to me by a friend a week ago. It took me that long to read it. Not because it isn't good, but because it doesn't require that you finish it. That the conclusion is a foregone from so early is part of the problem, but that's not entirely it. It's hard to explain. The pace of the novel invites a slow read, but that doesn't account for it either. The novel is infused with the same sort of moments you find in Gilead,

Somebody shouted fox and geese, and they all ran around to make the great circle, and then to make the diameters, breathless, the clover breaking so sweetly under their feet that they repented of the harm they were doing even as they persisted in it.

or

Who would bother to be kind to him? A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their face. Ah, Jack.

although they are fewer and further between. They are beautiful moments, but I don't care where they are leading even if I didn't already know. Neither the urgency of Gilead nor the adventure of Housekeeping are present in Home and although there could have been other means possible by which to propel the reader either of those would have worked beautifully. In the absence of any kind of forward inertia, the language was enough for this reader but probably not most.

That said, I do love a little melodramatic anything now and then and the final two pages of this novel deliver.