When I Was a Child I Read Books
2012 • 224 pages
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor. In "Austerity as Ideology," she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challenging. In "Open Thy Hand Wide" she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child," one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.
Reviews with the most likes.
These essays address topics related to the culture wars in the United States–attitudes about the nature of democracy, human nature, education, generosity to those with whom you do not share opinions, heritage or class, and cosmology. They are worth reading slowly, partly because Robinson's writing is such a delight in word choice and sentence structure, but also because they are complex creations, traveling through many subjects to forge an argument for study of the humanities. I am not much of an essay reader–I prefer to be absorbed in longer reads–but these essays were satisfying.
