The Givenness of Things: Essays
by marilynne robinson
farrar, straus and giroux, 304 pages, $26
Why is it that the most graceful writer of our day, who offers such a beautiful defense of charity and intellectual humility in her novels, is so often flippant and uncharitable in her essays? If Marilynne Robinson so habitually “violates her own poetics,” as Paul Seaton has put it, is she misunderstanding her vision, or are we?
