I just finished reading this Pulitzer Prize winning novel. I don't read enough fiction (Phil tells me) and so I went looking for something interesting. I will tell you that it took me about 60-70 pages to finally get drawn into the plot of the story but in the end it was very satisfying.
The main character, John Ames, is a minister who is in his seventies and who is going to die shortly. He has a seven-year-old son for whom he is recording some of his own history and that of his family because he will not be around to give his account to his son when he is of age. The main plot centers around the minister's godson and namesake, who has turned out to be quite a rogue and a source of heartache to his family and to Ames. It is a recurring plot in literature which you find in Legends of the Fall and A River Runs Through It and lots of other pieces. And it is a common occurrence in families, so it resounds with people.
As always, I found a couple of passages and quotes that I liked, so I'll share them here.
"I believe that the old man had far too narrow an idea of what a vision might be. He may, so to speak, have been so dazzled by the great light of his experience to realize that an impressive sun shines on us all." (Oh, I have known a few people of whom this is true!)
"The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light. It seems like a metaphor for something. So much does... It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence. Or it seems like poetry within language. Perhaps wisdom within experience. or marriage with friendship and love..."
Recalling an article he read from 1948 (it seems to me appropriate for today):
"...It says 95 percent of us say we believe in God. But our religion doesn't meet the writer's standards, not at all. To his mind, all those people in all those churches are the scribes and the Pharisees. He seems to me to be a bit of a scribe himself, scorning and rebuking the way he does. How do you tell a scribe from a prophet, which is what he clearly takes himself to be? The prophets love the people they chastise, a thing this writer does not appear to me to do." (I see many scribes today but not many prophets who love the people they are rebuking.)
"Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave-- that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hand and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing. But this is pulpit speaking. What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the love of old gallantry and hope? Well, as I have said, it is all an ember now, and the good Lord will surely someday breathe it into flame again." (I am so struck by the beauty of this passage but it may need more context than I have given it here.)
