​Conversing with Ether

The Givenness of Things: Essaysby marilynne robinsonfarrar, 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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Honor Thy Child

Lila: A Novel by marilynne robinson farrar, straus and giroux, 272 pages, $26 Of Pieter Bruegel’s sixteenth-century de­­pic­­tion of Icarus crashing into the sea, W. H. Auden observes “how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster.” Bruegel’s painting shows a tragedy . . . . Continue Reading »

Christ and Casserole

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 247 pp. $23. Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, published in 1981, is an extraordinary work of art, and many readers have waited impatiently for Robinson to publish a second novel. I’m among them, although I’ve waited more in dread than . . . . Continue Reading »