Another masterpiece by Robinson

Marilynne Robinson, whose previous novels include Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and Home (2008), is a master of creating a character and giving that character a unique narrative voice.

In Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014, $26, 272 pages) the titular character is taken from an abusive home as a young child by a woman who calls herself Doll. Robinson’s language captures the child’s age and environment: “Her arms were all over scratches.” “The people inside fought themselves quiet.”

Robinson never offers dates, but it’s probably around 1920. Doll raises Lila with the help of another woman. Then, when Lila is a teen or older, they join a group moving from place to place, looking for work and food. She captures the feel and detail of the 1930s Depression without giving dates or other historical information.

The narrative moves back and forth, always from Lila’s perspective, though written in third person, between her experience with this group, led by the mercurial Doane, and her coming to the town of Gilead, Iowa, the setting for Robinson’s two previous novels.

She arrives after having been abandoned by the group and Doll being arrested for murder. Soon she meets Reverend John Ames, who is the narrative voice of “Gilead.”

When they first meet, she says, “I just been wondering lately why things happen the way they do.” This sparks a connection. He says, “I’ve been wondering about that more or less my whole life.”

This exploration of the meaning of things runs through all of Robinson’s fiction (she is perhaps our most theological of literary artists), yet she is less interested in answers than in the exploration of them. Ames says that “life is a very deep mystery, and that finally the grace of God is all that can resolve it. And the grace of God is also a very deep mystery.”

He has been a minister for many years and is well-respected in town. He lost his wife and newborn son forty years earlier and has remained unmarried. Yet this young woman throws him for a loop.

She is not that impressed by his religious talk. For her, “the best thing about church was that when she sat in the last pew there was no one looking at her.”

She carries with her a lifetime of living hand-to-mouth, often outside. She connects with nature, and even after she is living with Ames, she gets up in the morning and walks to the river to bathe.

She also carries with her the presence of Doll and often thinks back to the time Doll rescued her. She wants “to feel trust rise up in her like that sweet old surprise of being carried off in strong arms, wrapped in a gentleness worn all soft and perfect.”

One day, when Ames tells Lila he should repay her for taking roses to the grave of his wife and child, she hears herself say, “You ought to marry me.”

Given her hard life, she has developed a hard exterior and has a difficult time trusting anyone, so her statement surprises even her. And then he agrees.

One of the strong images in the novel is water. Lila likes to spend time at the river, and soon after they agree to marry, she asks Ames to baptize her.

Afterward, they talk. She captures the turmoil of her life when she says to him, “I don’t trust nobody. I can’t stay nowhere. I can’t get a minute of rest.”

Throughout the book, Lila struggles with believing she can be accepted for who she is. Despite Ames’ acceptance and love for her, she keeps longing for Doll. “She lived for Doll to see.”

A major theme of the novel is how sorrow and joy, loneliness and connection come together, and people move between them, as in a dance.

Given her long experience of loneliness, Lila has trouble accepting love. “When you’re scalded, touch hurts, it makes no difference if it’s kindly meant.” Yet after her baptism, Ames puts his hand on her hair. “That was what made her cry. Just the touch of his hand.”

Everyone experiences loneliness. Even the wind, “clapping shut and prying open everything that was meant to keep it out, bothering where it could, tired of its huge loneliness.”

In Lila we get to know a person who has grown up in poverty. She is made strong through her survival skills yet wounded by her experiences of rejection and is looking for some connection, even while hesitating to grasp it when it comes.

In this novel we come to know a unique character who draws out of us our own feelings of rejection and our longings for connection. Lila is yet another masterpiece from Marilynne Robinson.

Those neglected middle schools

It’s fall, and students are back in school. People who want to fix education, or at least improve it, often focus on “dropout factory” high schools or access to pre-kindergarten instruction. But middle schools tend to get ignored.

In “Bad Grades” (Pacific Standard, September/October), Dana Goldstein reports on studies done on middle schools and points to ways they can better meet the needs of the students within them.

A recent study from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign of 1,400 Midwestern middle schoolers “found that about a fifth of students reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment, bullying or abuse, often within the classroom,” Goldstein writes.

Another study showed that 28 percent of Taiwanese eighth and ninth graders earned scores on a math test that placed them at an accomplished level, while only 6 percent of U.S. eighth and ninth graders did.

But don’t blame the students, says Goldstein. Middle schools are poorly designed to meet their students’ needs. Five studies, however, provide some hope.

1. Accept that middle schoolers are adolescents. “Today,” writes Goldstein, “puberty’s onset is happening months and often years earlier than it did in the 1960s.” The most likely cause of this change is diets high in fat and processed sugar. “Early puberty,” she writes, “is associated with depression, misbehavior, academic struggle and sexual initiation at a younger age.”

Middle schools should provide a supportive environment and, writes Goldstein, “because the adolescent brain is not at its best in the early morning, the opening bell should ring closer to 9 a.m. than to 7 or 8.”

2. Crack down hard on truancy. A study of sixth graders in Philadelphia found that, “of the students who failed either English or math in sixth grade, less than a quarter went on to graduate high school.” And poor attendance drives academic failure.

3. Hire better-educated teachers and give them reasons not to quit. “Since the middle school years have a crucial impact on children’s later success,” writes Goldstein, “middle school teachers should be among the most elite and highly paid educators in K-12.” They should have better training and be given incentives to stay, like higher salaries, says Goldstein.

4. Focus on character as much as book learning. Goldstein writes that “the best middle school curricula teach kids coping mechanisms that can be applied both to completing schoolwork and to navigating adolescent friendships and dating.”

One promising program, Habits of Mind, helps students develop skills such as “applying past knowledge to new situations,” “admitting you don’t know,” “listening with understanding and empathy,” “taking responsible risks” and “being able to laugh at yourself.”

5. Or get rid of middle school entirely. A growing number of school reformers believe it makes no sense to isolate sixth, seventh and eighth graders in separate school buildings.

One study of children in Florida found that, “across urban, suburban and rural areas, students who attend middle schools do worse academically than peers who attend K-8 schools and are more likely to drop out of high school,” writes Goldstein.

In response to these findings, she writes, “hundreds of middle schools across the country, especially in cities, are transitioning to K-8 formats.”

According to these studies, teaching middle school is a high calling and needs all the support it can get, because it affects the lives of many of our children.

A big book for lovers of novels

A review of The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt (Belknap Press, 2014, $39.95, 1,200 pages) 

Such a large book invites comparison to a doorstop. But you can avoid the weight by reading it electronically, as I did. The larger question: Is it worth the time it takes to wade through 1,200 pages? The short answer is yes; the water is fine, and there is much to enjoy, that is, if you love novels.

Schmidt calls his book “a biography,” thus treating the novel as having a life of its own, a life that spans almost eight centuries, beginning with “De proprietatibus rerum” (On the Properties of Things) by Bartholomeus Anglicus, around 1240.

While he touches on novels in other languages (translated into English), his focus is on novels written in English. He also chooses not to include comments by critics, unless those critics are themselves novelists. “This book … is told mainly by novelists and through novels.”

And while a 1,200-page book may seem exhaustive, there are simply too many novels written to cover them all, though Schmidt comes closer than anyone I know of. How then to choose which ones to include? He writes, “A sense of canon, though not a stable one, governs my approach.”

While it follows a chronological arc, The Novel is organized thematically, and within each theme are novelists from across the centuries. For example, under the chapter “Impersonation,” Schmidt joins Daniel Defoe with Truman Capote and J.M. Coetzee, and under “Braveries” he combines Robert Louis Stevenson with Bruce Chatwin.

Schmidt says he has tried to avoid an ordering that insists on geographical, ideological, cultural or sexual zoning. Instead he has followed a “committed curiosity.”

His assessments of writers and novels abound. For example, in a discussion of Jane Austen’s novels, he writes: “Of all the novels, ‘Emma’ is formally the most satisfactory.”

He writes this about Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”: “Her book is a dialogue between two dictions, the formal diction of a writer and the informal diction of her speech, an uneasy bilingualism that many modern writers practice as a result of ethnicity, class, location, intimacy.”

Sometimes Schmidt frustrates when he references a work, then fails to explain his point, as when he notes that Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs is “on the button” regarding his interpretation of Great Expectations but doesn’t say how.

He also offers general guidelines about what makes some works better than others. “Goodness is not much fun in fiction,” he writes, “its patience and resignation leave the reader impatient.”

While Schmidt covers a plethora of writers, including many popular ones (yes, Stephen King is here), he keeps that canon in the back of his mind. He notes that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is “regarded by some as the, if not the great, American novel.” Later he calls Ragtime “the closest thing to that chimera ‘the great American novel’ that I have encountered.”

Schmidt calls the life of the novel in English “a complex and ragged story. It develops in contrary directions, it becomes almost impossible to hold the limbs together, each with its own impulses and intentions, struggling with the rest.” He notes trends, such as modernism and postmodernism, and places writers in those and other categories.

Keeping this historical development in mind, he writes that Hawthorne, among American writers, is the one “who first creates credible characters of both sexes, who can write children and old people, and who has developed a sense of good and evil.”

Schmidt’s breadth of knowledge is astounding. He not only seems to have read the thousands of works mentioned in this tome but to have studied them closely as well.

Nevertheless, most readers will have quibbles about his choices of who to mention and how much to write about a certain author. Like all of us, Schmidt has his favorites.

He gives more space to William Dean Howells than to Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. He gushes over Martin Amis but completely ignores Denis Johnson, Louise Erdrich or Alice McDermott, among others.

He also mentions many writers I’d never heard of and offers insights into others that make me want to explore their works.

The novel is an expansive and personal medium. It’s a place to explore new worlds, encounter new ideas and be challenged to change our lives.

Schmidt quotes Ford Maddox Ford: “With the novel you can do anything: you can inquire into every department of life, you can explore every department of the world of thought.”

Reading The Novel is a huge investment of time, but for those who love literature and wish to expand their acquaintance with it, that investment is well worthwhile. Schmidt’s “biography” is a major achievement, and we are in his debt.

The possibility of the impossible

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, … Now I know only in part.—1 Corinthians 13:12

We all see the world through lenses that are stained, cracked or askew. And sometimes, as Jesus shows us, we need to learn from those who are blind.

In John 9, one of my favorite passages in the Bible, we see how people’s assumptions affect what or how they see. The disciples assume the blind man or his parents have sinned.

Jesus sees the man in a different light. Here, he says, is an opportunity to see God at work.

The neighbors can’t believe it. It doesn’t fit their worldview. And when the Pharisees hear who healed the man, they decide, This guy’s a sinner who doesn’t keep the Sabbath. According to their worldview, they’re right, a person who doesn’t keep the Sabbath can’t be from God.

The blind man in this story is like the ideal disciple. He’s truthful, focuses on his own experience, not on what it means, and he’s courageous.

The Pharisees call the blind man back in and hint at what he needs to say. Remember, according to us, this man is a sinner.

This reminds me of when the police or other authorities question someone and say, Admit it, we know you’re guilty. Just say it.

All the blind man has to do is say, Yes, he’s a sinner, so he couldn’t have healed me. But he won’t go for it. He simply tells the truth. All I know, he says, is that I was blind, and now I see.

They want an explanation. How did Jesus do it?

And here is the funniest line in the story, maybe one of the funniest in the entire Bible: I already told you. Aren’t you listening? Do you also want to become his disciples?

The Pharisees resort to categorization, a strategy many of us employ often. We know more than you. We come from better stock.

The blind man, with the clear eyes of innocence and logic, points out the contradiction here. If Jesus is a sinner and not from God, how did he heal me?

Later, Jesus confronts the Pharisees. Because you say you see, you remain blind.

It should be obvious that this story is not really about physical sight but spiritual sight. In fact, many blind people are more aware of what’s around them than those of us who have sight.

It’s easy to read this story and laugh at the Pharisees, but when I read it, I’m struck by how much like them I am. I, too, think I’m right most of the time. And when I’m contradicted, I look for a way out, a way to categorize the one who disagrees with me, or I simply ignore what they say.

In his article “Seeing Our Blindness” (page 22 of the October issue of The Mennonite), John C. Murray writes, “The biggest hindrance to new insight, new understanding and a deeper awareness of God’s presence and activity in the world is what we think we already know.”

One of the things my spiritual director asks me is, Where have you seen God active in your life? This is what Jesus does in this story. While others saw a man stuck in his blindness, someone they could go on ignoring, he saw a possibility. Derrida calls God “the possibility of the impossible.” I need to look for that possibility. I’ve learned that when I look, I tend to see God’s activity in ways I don’t when I don’t look.

Jesus saw possibility. He even saw that spitting in the dirt and making mud can serve as a way to anoint a man and bring healing.

Mennonite Church USA is facing important decisions as we examine our differences. We must look for the possibility of the impossible as we seek unity in the Spirit.

But seeing requires humility, realizing we often don’t know what we think we know. As Christian philosopher John D. Caputo says, “Faith is idolatrous if it is rigidly self-certain but not if it is softened in the waters of doubt.”