Gilead won the Pulitzer prize in 2005, and although it didn't sound particularly appealing I thought I'd give it a shot. I initially liked the measured, reflective narrative style, but it quickly sent me to sleep. I struggled to concentrate on the largely boring, rambling, grandpa-simpson "there's an interesting story behind this silver dollar" kind of prose that trundles in random directions without any cohesion. I'm giving up 90 pages in, sorry Ms. Robinson.
1 star
I don't think you can rate a book that you haven't finished reading - you should score it not applicable or something. Or does 90 pages of the book equate to 1 star and if you read 180 pages would it be 2?
ReplyDeleteYou should try reading Robinson's Housekeeping. It was her first novel written in 1980, and is pretty good. Beautifully written. Don't go near Home - it is just Gilead but told from Jack Boughton's perspective. I think that she just wrote Home because she had been thinking about Gilead for 20 years (it was published in 2004, and only her second novel) and had spent so much time working on the world of Gilead that she couldn't bear to waste it and just used up her spare material on Home, which she wrote very quickly (by her standards)and it was published in 2008.
It was the most beautifully written boring book I have ever read. I can see why it won the prize, because the writing did strike me as being a cut above, unfortunately the story sucked. More pages wouldn't have helped - I did some random sampling further on in the book after I gave up and wasn't inspired to continue. I'll put housekeeping on the list, but I'm wary now, so it will have to be extra good to impress....
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