The Abandoned Child
Our experience of reading will always differ from each other;
even at different times in our own lives books will ‘speak’ to us in different
ways. Our reading is informed by our experiences, our circumstances, our education.
There is a complexity to my own circumstances in reading Lila (which is difficult to outline as it involves aspects of myself
that, because they are so close at this time, are difficult to see with any
clarity) that draws me to the abandoned child, who sits at the beginning of the
novel, and whom we encounter in various forms throughout.
In the essay, ‘When I was a Child’, Robinson writes about
the literary references she makes in her first novel, Housekeeping, demonstrating how they accord with the knowledge and
experiences of Ruth, the young narrator. Similarly, Robinson’s narrator, Lila,
describes the world through the lens of both her experiences (her memories),
her observations of the world, what she has been taught (which has been limited
through her circumstances), and, importantly, what she is reading: the Bible.
Impulsively taking a pew Bible from the Church in Gilead she
attends sporadically, Lila first reads Ezekiel. Lila becomes fixated by certain
passages, laboriously writing them out ten to fifteen times, on her tablet.
Ezekiel 16 particularly stands out for her, and as the novel and her memories
unfold, we come to understand why these verses speak to her so powerfully:
(Ezekiel is to prophesy) “You are
to say: This is what the Lord God says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth
were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother
a Hittite. As for your birth, your umbilical cord wasn’t cut on the day you
were born, and you weren’t washed clean with water. You were not rubbed with
salt or wrapped in clothes. No one cared enough about you to do even one of
these things out of compassion for you. But you were thrown out into the open
field because you were despised on the day you were born.
“I passed by you and saw you
lying in your blood, and I said to you as you lay in your blood: Live! Yes, I
said to you as you lay in your blood: Live!” (Ezekiel 16:3-6, HCSB)
This image and idea of the
abandoned child is not merely a trope in this novel (you can read more about
this in this New York Times article by Robinson),
it is woven in complex ways throughout, and this biblical passage becomes a
focus for Lila to not only reflect on the events of her life, but also as a way
of coming to understand God, as this passage resonates with her experience:
abandonment and compassion.
If we trace this image
throughout the novel we see the ways in which it is used both to expand upon
the “very deep mystery of God’s grace”, and the ways in which that is expressed
through humanity, who bear his image.
As I’ve reflected on this over
the last week, I have encountered the intricate strands of Robinson’s prose as
woven into the fabric of the world in which I live. I have been reminded of how
the fear of abandonment, of being lost, is a pervasive fear, which is utilised
in popular culture, particularly in films for or about children (Toy Story, Madagascar, Rio, et al.), and which has come from fairy
tales like ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Snow White’. My mind has returned again and
again to Gilbert Meilaendar’s ethic, where love says, “’It is good that you
exist.’” I have encountered acts of
compassion, where a father, leaving the care of his baby to a stranger (me),
leapt into the ocean to rescue two children from being swept across rocks in a
rip. And I have been reminded, through reading the Crucifixion narrative with
my children, that Jesus himself cries out, “My God! My God! Why have you
forsaken me?”