Marilynne Robinson’s Home

On Sunday I finished the last 50 pages of Home. I was stunned and saddened by the news of David Foster Wallace’s death, so reading seemed like all I could do. I liked this book more than Gilead, even though it seems like the critics have their qualms. The character of Jack is much more interesting in Home, and I enjoyed spending time with Glory. I’d recommend it over Gilead, but if you only read one Marilynne Robinson book, read Housekeeping.

I’ve noticed I’ve spent a lot of blog space writing about Marilynne Robinson’s books, even though I wouldn’t list her among my favorite writers. And as much as I’ve written about her lately, Housekeeping is the only book that affected me in any real way; the others I could take or leave. This gets me thinking about why I read the books I do and which ones become favorites. I tend to prefer books for the language, ideas, and characters, in that order usually.

Some read for the story, as in “that was a great story,” but I don’t think the actual story of a book matters much. As a writer this is difficult terrain for me, though, because there has to be a plot or some kind of tension in the book. I think it matters how one tells the story–the techniques, the language, the ideas, the characters, the overall effect. I love DeLillo for his ideas and language, Fitzgerald for his language and a je ne sais quai, Kingsolver for the ideas and stories and language, O’Connor for her sort of smack-you-in-the-head irony and weirdness and the location and feel of her stories, Lorrie Moore for her language and wit, and I could go on, but I’ll keep citing language and ideas as the factors that draw me in to a story.

Right now I have too many books going on, several of them nonfiction, but who knows when the next favorite will emerge.