JACK
By Marilynne Robinson
Virago. 320 pages. £18.99
ISBN 978 0 349 011 813
As a literature enthusiast married to a seller of Christian books, my bedside table reflects predictably seesawing reading habits.
Fiction, biographies of past saints and gospel-drenched wisdom jostle alongside each other and I swing from one to the other, juggling the different genres and storylines in my head. Engrossed in a compelling novel one evening, I’ll be chewing through a devotion on the psalms the next, and it feels like distinct, separate experiences. I’m not expecting to be edified by the secular read, and I’m not expecting literary flair or command from the ‘Christian’ book.
But then there’s Marilynne Robinson.
Gilead landed on the literary scene 17 years ago, and with it Robinson introduced a community, and its people, through which she would tell compelling tales. Four novels so far have emerged from the peopled fabric of the town, Gilead, and faith is stitched into the foundations of the families and their stories. Jack homes in on the prodigal son of the Presbyterian minister. He made fleeting appearances in the three previous novels, but here he takes centre stage and we see the world through his eyes.
Beyond redemption?
In his own opinion, Jack is a man beyond the redemption that his estranged father preaches of every Sunday. He is an intriguing character, often entertaining, articulate and erudite – seen through his love of reading poetry. But he has dubious morals, a shady past and swings in and out of trying to walk a better path. He has little optimism when it comes to self-improvement and is constantly voicing his father’s imagined disappointment.
When reflecting on her writing, Robinson has spoken of the ‘teeming world’ that she seeks to depict, ‘steeped in its sins’, but also of her desire to show her reader what is best and what is most loveliest. Jack offers a beautiful juxtaposition of the two with the appearance of Della in the narrative. Warm, kind, loyal and making her way in the world as a schoolteacher, she is also the daughter of a Methodist minister. Paired in their background, and encountering one another in unusual places, such as the local cemetery, they fall in love. But there are barriers. Jack’s character and past are obvious hurdles, but there is also race. Della is black and Jack is white, and at the time mixed-race marriages were illegal. Della’s love for Jack seems misplaced and hopeless. And yet she persists.
Hope and grace
As we watch the protagonists wend their way through the slow, rich narrative we wonder if there’s any hope. At one point, as they converse amongst the gravestones, Della tells Jack that ‘there are lots of reasons why you should, you know, keep body and soul together’ as if there’s every chance that he might give up on life. And sometimes it seems likely. But then there’s Della. There’s grace.
Showcasing lovely, beautiful grace that does not let the least of us fall, Robinson shows us God’s work in our world. She gives us hope anchored not in changing characters, but in the work of God. Alongside remarkable grace, Robinson steeps her prose in God’s sovereignty. There is a clear, unavoidable sense that everything is ordained by the One who created, and rules, the world. And so there is hope and light and grace as God works to redeem even the most unlovely.
God at work
Instinctively I separate my reading material into that which will explicitly teach me of Christ, and that which doesn’t. But I’m struck as I dwell on Jack how the Lord’s common grace is more evident in the nitty-gritty of this ‘teeming world’ than I might first assume. Against the fractured morality of our own humanity, and that which we see around us, we can be tempted to withdraw and look the other way. But maybe we are missing grace in action, our sovereign God working out His saving plan in amongst the grubbiness of this world. Let’s be expectant of redemption and grace in the most unlikely corners of our society. Remembering, as we approach Christmas, the glorious grace-filled moment that happened on the marginalised edges of Bethlehem’s ‘teeming world’.
