Grace and Reading
In considering the intertextual play between Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Robinson’s Lila in the trope of the fallen woman in
the previous blog, I demonstrated something of the singular experience of
reading. Whether Robinson was intentional, aware or not of the strong
resonances with Hawthorne’s text is an unknown to me (given there are no
explicit references to Hawthorne’s) as I read. And so I need to be careful in
my reading, because on the other side of the page is another person, another
human. Robinson herself has stated that, “comprehension has an ethical content”
(New
York Times Interview).
In Robinson’s character of Lila, we are given insight into
the complex nature of reading. Much of the novel focuses on her reading of the
Bible, her interaction with it. And the intersection of her current life, her
reading of the Bible and the memories of her past, are all part of her attempting
to make sense of her life. Specifically, of “why things happen the way they do”
(p. 29) (I covered this idea of the “integrative mind” in detail in the first
blog, Grace
and Memory). For Lila, reading, and this is reading the Bible, is both
comprehension and experience.
Lila reads the Bible, beginning with Ezekiel, going back to
Genesis, and then on to Job, with unaffected, innocent questioning. We are
drawn into her reading and into her memories, often simultaneously, Robinson
demonstrating the ways in which we bring all of our selves to our reading. Lila
reads passages, relating them to not only what she is hearing in Church and to
what her husband, the Reverend John Ames discusses with her, but more often the
passages are avenues for her into her past. Integrally, her reading the Bible
is part of her self-discovery. Towards the end of the novel, Lila reflects,
“She never expected to find so many things she already knew about written down
in a book.” (p. 176). There is grace in reading.
In privileging the reader with this access to the mind of
another reader, Robinson is encouraging us to reflect on our own reading
experience (particularly, I think, our reading of the Old Testament). This is
the brilliance of the novel form, as another soul is laid bare for us, whom we
engage with over a period of time, allowing us to see the subtle fluctuations,
the apparent contradictions, and endless diversions. In writing Lila, Robinson
is bearing witness to this character she has written. Writing itself is a form
of bearing witness, of testimony.
Lila’s own reading can serve as a good example of what
Reinke meant when he talked about the use of our “primary imagination” in our
reading in Lit!. That
is, using our own experiences to make sense of what we are reading. The novel demonstrates
how Lila grapples with this, often through her experience of reading the Bible,
coming ever closer to an understanding of herself, of “why things happen the
way they do” (p. 29), and leading her, and hopefully the reader, towards some
understanding of the “very deep mystery” (p. 31) of God’s grace.