Marilynne Robinson and FQ

Am I allowed to say I might have fallen a tad in love with Marilynne Robinson? Love as not the nimbly, half-romantic love as in the case of Zadie Smith or the secure warmth of revering love as in with Margaret Atwood. Love, as an awed yet grudgingly disaffected love one reserves to people one wants to love but somewhat is not sure yet. 

Gilead was read in haste; it took too much of time to have any true memorable dent on consciousness. As refreshing the prose was, it was the ‘Other’ book in many ways – it was set too far away in America, too long back in time and dealt with a topic of little personal interest  – religion. Moreover the story was intensely intimate – the letter from a father to his son with geo-religious subtexts. Marilynne Robinson who had won the Pulitzer for the book, which in fact had prompted the reading, was just a name.  

Reading the Believer conversation between Cornelia Nixon and Marilynne Robinson has been a great revelation specifically to shed more light on the person behind the writer of Gilead. Cornelia Nixon engages Marilynne Robinson in a variety of subjects within the context of her books. I had mentioned about abolitionists before. They move on to religion, evolution, feminism, writing, environmental activism etc, dealing with different books that Marilynne Robinson has written. Talking about them she comes across sound in her arguments and reasonable in conviction unlike some such believers who can be extremely entrenched.

The talk is genial, a sense of warm rapport between the two is easily palpable on the pages. I later learnt that in all the interviews in the book the interviewing writer was asked to choose their own interviewee writers. They were approached by Believer with a slip ,  I would like to interview the writer ......... I  suppose having such a choice creates a certain sense of bonding during the interview as the interviewer often choose writers whose works they are well acquainted with or have a pressing question to raise.  I enjoyed the discussion about fictional books - Housekeeping, Gilead,  the various themes running in the stories, and esp. of water in Gilead that was so distinctly etched  in my consciousness. In fact the discussion in the group encouraged me to read out a passage on water that I had written. You do remember of the other great water passage in English literature, don't you?  Ironically for all the religious theme within  the book Marilrynne implied the irony that she had drawn the passage from Freurbach a noted atheist. 

The other curious segment of the discussion was her non-fiction, esp. Mother Country which apparently has anti-British sentiments. I hadn’t known she lived in UK before, apparently she did, during when she wrote the book. She reflects  on the controversial Sellafield Unit in Cumbria ( Lake district)  and the release of nuclear waste into Irish sea, that had been huge controversy a few decades back. 

But the impressive bit is her knowledge of details. You could easily figure that she isn’t one of those fancy activists who is voicing her views for an audience or to meet a deadline. Though one might not agree with all her views one can still appreciate and in many times respect her views. 

Here’s a good example of her arguments -

Europe has dabbled with that stuff and so as Japan, using British technology. They have made these reactors that are graphite moderated like those reactors at Hanford that make bomb grade material, and they consider them 'Dual use', they produce electricity and then they also produce plutonium and  uranium which Britain sales, ships into Germany and into Japan by sea. And now the Irish sea is the most radioactive body water in the world. All this talk about media proliferation and people talking about Russia, but Britain is much older and more important source of nuclear proliferation difficulties.

She goes on to talk about another important thing that has been on my mind lately - this sense of 'displaced patriotism' amongst left-winged intellectuals in America. In their sense of appreciation of the history and culture somehow they condone Britain more than America in its wrongdoings.  A recent example would be the war on Iraq - how many articles would you find by left-winged intellectuals that blames or if not blames holds Britain equally responsible for the wrongs done in Iraq? There is a pervading feeling of guilt which makes Americans resist attacking Britain.

Further in the discussion about the same book I found another curious nugget - that  Greenpeace had sued her for hurting their reputation (under British libel law) and won!

Here’s the story in her own words :

One of the things that was very disturbing was that while Greenpeace was active about all this in Britain, there was no information about it in the United States. Or to extent that there was any, it tended, as it does tend to be, very misleading. For example, they had a brochure that said that Greenpeace claimed that they had helped to create a ban on ocean dumping of radioactive material. But there still is an ocean dumping of radioactive material all the time, a great deal of it done by Britain. They not only put this stuff down the pipeline into the ocean, but the dump radioactive waste of the coast of Spain. So this rouses one’s curiosity  about what Greenpeace understands its role to be. They collect an enormous percentage of money that is doanted to environmental causes in the world.

There was one particularly ridiculous episode in which Greenpeace figure, and I couldn’t get any satisfaction about what they were doing. So in the book itself I raise questions about why did this happen and what were they doing. I made it joking around a little bit and basically they have this pipeline that since 1957 has been dumping radioactive waste into the sea, right? And according to Greenpeace they had taken divers out and lowered them to block the thing. in the first place it’s been putting out corrosive material since 1957. How are you going to make a  cover that  fits the thing? Isn’t that a little bit hard to imagine? Then they have lowered the divers to the mouth of what is a source of the most intense radioactive contamination in the world, pulled them back again. There happened to be a Geiger counter in the boat which pinned.

Now what’s wrong with the story? You’re going to  block something because it disgorges radioactive waste,  and you don’t take a geiger counter? you only have one there? it only accidentally goes off when the divers come up? Who are these divers that you’re going to put them into this intense radiacive environment? it’s all craziness. i simply ask in the book, what can this mean? so i got sued. and amongst the things greenpeace sued me for were hurt feelings.

As an aside I have my very own experience of Sellafield: We were roaming all about Lake district. At Barrow, we read about Sellafield especially that the drive towards (Sellafield) being magnificient ( the road is between the mountains on one side and sea on the other). Having been that far it only seemed the natural thing to do, even though the visitor centre wasn’t answering the calls. But a few yards abouts there, when we started clicking a couple of snaps off the zoom we were surrounded by  police ( a car and an van) who, after confirming our identity and the purpose of the visit informed us that the place was closed for visitors and firmly requested to leave. There was an edge of paranoia in the episode.

Anyway,  I found the discussion between Marilynne Robinson and Cornelia Nixon very insightful, it helped me appreciate a very different perspective. I recommend this book for anyone interested in writers, writing and world in general.

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Have started with Haruki Murakami talking to Sean Wilsey. The interview is rather peculiar, in that they exchange emails which are translated to and fro. Personally I think this would allow a lot of answering time, especially for people like Murakami who fiercely, consciously, do not wish to engage in live media. So, in a sense the real person behind the writer is not out in the open, exposed. Incidentally, as I was thinking, the interview has stemmed onto this territory with Wilsey asking why Murakami who doesn't routinely talk to media chose to talk to NYT after 9/11 The answer is cleverly wrapped in two pages. Ah Murakami, you bugger!

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Have also started The Finkler Question. It is interesting to say the least. The theme is that of three friends , two of whom have been recently widowed. Lot of looking-back-prose akin The Sea (Banville) that is refined but a bit obscure and requires concentration. It has a saddening sense of humor; I've taken a liking to the character Treslove.