"The book is an account of the memories and legacy of John Ames as he remembers his experiences of his father and grandfather to share with his son. All three men share a vocational lifestyle and profession as Congregationalist ministers in Gilead, Iowa. Ames' father was a Christian pacifist, but his grandfather was a radical abolitionist who carried out guerrilla actions with John Brown before the American Civil War, served as a chaplain with the Union forces in that war, and incited his congregation to join up and serve."
"Although there is action in the story, its mainspring lies in Ames' theological struggles on a whole series of fronts: with his grandfather's engagement in the Civil War, with his own loneliness through much of his life, with his brother's clear and his father's apparent loss of belief, with his father's desertion of the town, with the hardships of people's lives, and above all with his feelings of hostility and jealousy towards Boughton, whom he knows at some level he has to forgive. Ames's struggles are illustrated by numerous quotations from the Bible, from theologians (especially Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion), and from philosophers, especially the athiest philosopher Feuerbach, whom Ames greatly respects."
This is a fairly well read book (#3,441 in Amazon Books), though this surprises me somewhat, since I am not sure I would have appreciated a book with so many religious quotations had I not myself been the son of a minister who was the son of a circuit-riding minister.
Growing up in a parsonage with a liberal, extremely well-read, intelligent, humble, thankful, trusting, minister father who constantly struggled financially, I immediately identified with John Ames in this novel. Even 50 years ago a minister who simply wanted to work with his congregation to understand the teaching of Jesus and try to live them without judgment of others had stiff competition from those who preached the gospel of social and material rewards in this life and the fundamentalistic rantings of Radio/TV evangelist (John Ames: "You can spend 40 years teaching people to be awake to the fact of mystery and then some fellow with no moe theological sense than a jackrabbit gets himself a radio ministry and all your work is forgotten.")
Ames, a pacifist, struggles just a bit with his 7 year old son playing with guns, tanks, and the other symbols of war, much as I am certain (from his comments) that my father did when watching me in the same activities (I was 11 in 1956.) My father also struggled with the economics of being minister of a relatively poor congregation during the mini-dust bowl days of 1950's West Texas. In 1956 my father also faced health issues; he had an emergency stomach resection that year in Lubbock for hemorrhaging ulcers. Blue Cross/Blue Shield refused to pay, citing "pre-existing condition" because he listed ulcers on his application for insurance over 10 years earlier. This emptied the savings account my parents had accumulated over the years (I personally have still not forgiven the Insurance companies for doing this to our family.)
Like John Ames, Rev John Floyd had a flow of books into our home. My father received books weekly it seemed from the lending library of Brite Divinity school or the main library at TCU; he only had to pay parcel post rates. Looking back he was much better read than I ever will be. These are not men who have accepted a set dogma and preach the same thing Sunday after Sunday, year after year. They opened themselves to new knowledge, new understandings, and new interpretations of scripture and daily strove to live as "good" men in terms of personal behavior, community example, parent, and spouse. In the book it is suggested that John Ames' father opened himself to the extent that he sided with John's brother Edward in a more Spinozistic philosophy and moved with Edward to the Gulf Coast, leaving Gilead behind forever. It seemed to me that there is a lot of symbolism in the decisions by various characters at various points to leave or stay in Gilead; I have my own interpretation and will leave you to arrive at your own.
Finally, an important bit of the book for which I had no correlative experience growing up; Lila. Lila came into Ames' life by appearing, from place unknown, sitting in his congregation one Sunday. Eventually Ames, who has been a lonely widower for years, marries Lila. Her prior life is apparently was hard and tragic, but Ames never ask her about her earlier life, and in fact does not dwell on it, accepting her for what she is, unconcerned with anything she may have been, leaving the reader curious about Lila, but respectful of Ames.
Beyond straight forward enjoyment of the narrative, reading Gilead raised many memories of my childhood as a preacher's kid, and that is good and satisfying.
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