 | A WRITER'S WIT |  M. Crowley |
MY BOOK WORLD
Strout, Elizabeth. Abide with Me. New York: Random, 2007.
With this reading, I now own and have read all ten of Strout’s novels. After the first one, Olive Kitteridge, I became a fan and could not wait to read another one. This novel is her second, and why I chose to read it last, I have no idea. Well, perhaps I do.
As a fallen seminarian/pastor, I usually shy away from books named after a hymn title or words associated with the Bible (although I finally read Marilynne Robinson’s distinguished Gilead). At the same time, “Abide with Me” (the hymn) plays a great part in this novel; it echoes throughout the sanctuary where key scenes are staged, especially during what I shall call the climax.
Set in the late 1950s, the novel resonates, even in this rural Maine setting, with the USSR’s Khrushchev, in-home bomb shelters, and other timely markers—the weather’s always cold, the war is now cold, too. Reverend Tyler Caskey (so close to “casket,” hmmm), is grieving over the death of his wife. His baby daughter is staying with his mother in another town, but he retains full custody of his six-year-old daughter, who, after her mother dies, ceases to speak except for short, soft responses—as if she has disappeared inside herself. Caskey loves his job, though he is woefully underpaid, quirky congregants are coming at him from all directions, and his actions (visiting persons in jail) are often criticized. There are other pressures. The organist insists that the church needs a new instrument. His housekeeper, whom he becomes close to, confesses that while she worked in a nursing home, she, out of mercy, took the lives of two suffering women. This older woman is also the victim of gossip that she may be having an affair with the young minister.
The usually forthright cleric, instead of facing all these complications head on, retreats into his own life, his own head. To confront the entire congregation he prepares a sermon, staying up all night, so that he might deliver it with the punch that the angry words will need to get his message across: You all are selfish, self-righteous people who have intruded too far into my life. Alas, when the time comes and he faces the unusually full sanctuary, he falls to his knees in the chancel area and announces that he can no longer be their pastor and vacates the church. There is silence until the organist, generating the decision from her gut, begins to play “Abide with Me.”
During his ten-day stay with a professor at the seminary where he was educated, Tyler sleeps at will, while the elderly couple take care of his two girls. Strout delivers a particularly poignant declaration, which also helps set the tone for this denouement:
Anyone who has ever grieved knows that grieving carries with it a tremendous wear and tear to the body itself, never mind the soul. Loss is an assault; a certain exhaustion, as strong as the pull of the moon on the tides, needs to be allowed for eventually (283).
Whoa, isn’t that a mouthful of wisdom and truth!
I admire Strout for tackling this novel with restraint and yet courage. She seemingly stands back and watches, almost taking her cues from her characters, never judging the young minister who has so harshly judged himself. Never manipulating the characters but allowing them to be their fully flawed but loving selves. The minister returns to face the church’s board. When they ask him what he needs, for they do want him to come back, he asks for a raise, a decent domicile (he and his family have been living in a dilapidated farmhouse outside of town), and childcare for his children while he is at work. The people of this congregation step up and provide the caring minister with what he needs, and you, as the reader, want to cheer, because not every congregation in this world would necessarily learn their lesson. It is a satisfying but unsentimental conclusion, one that should cue us all to do a better job of conducting our lives. At least, I think so.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Lorraine C. Ladish
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mother Teresa
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Theodore Dreiser
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My Book World | David Sedaris, The Land and Its People
With this reading, I now own and have read all ten of Strout’s novels. After the first one, Olive Kitteridge, I became a fan and could not wait to read another one. This novel is her second, and why I chose to read it last, I have no idea. Well, perhaps I do.
As a fallen seminarian/pastor, I usually shy away from books named after a hymn title or words associated with the Bible (although I finally read Marilynne Robinson’s distinguished Gilead). At the same time, “Abide with Me” (the hymn) plays a great part in this novel; it echoes throughout the sanctuary where key scenes are staged, especially during what I shall call the climax.
Set in the late 1950s, the novel resonates, even in this rural Maine setting, with the USSR’s Khrushchev, in-home bomb shelters, and other timely markers—the weather’s always cold, the war is now cold, too. Reverend Tyler Caskey (so close to “casket,” hmmm), is grieving over the death of his wife. His baby daughter is staying with his mother in another town, but he retains full custody of his six-year-old daughter, who, after her mother dies, ceases to speak except for short, soft responses—as if she has disappeared inside herself. Caskey loves his job, though he is woefully underpaid, quirky congregants are coming at him from all directions, and his actions (visiting persons in jail) are often criticized. There are other pressures. The organist insists that the church needs a new instrument. His housekeeper, whom he becomes close to, confesses that while she worked in a nursing home, she, out of mercy, took the lives of two suffering women. This older woman is also the victim of gossip that she may be having an affair with the young minister.
The usually forthright cleric, instead of facing all these complications head on, retreats into his own life, his own head. To confront the entire congregation he prepares a sermon, staying up all night, so that he might deliver it with the punch that the angry words will need to get his message across: You all are selfish, self-righteous people who have intruded too far into my life. Alas, when the time comes and he faces the unusually full sanctuary, he falls to his knees in the chancel area and announces that he can no longer be their pastor and vacates the church. There is silence until the organist, generating the decision from her gut, begins to play “Abide with Me.”
During his ten-day stay with a professor at the seminary where he was educated, Tyler sleeps at will, while the elderly couple take care of his two girls. Strout delivers a particularly poignant declaration, which also helps set the tone for this denouement:
Anyone who has ever grieved knows that grieving carries with it a tremendous wear and tear to the body itself, never mind the soul. Loss is an assault; a certain exhaustion, as strong as the pull of the moon on the tides, needs to be allowed for eventually (283).
Whoa, isn’t that a mouthful of wisdom and truth!
I admire Strout for tackling this novel with restraint and yet courage. She seemingly stands back and watches, almost taking her cues from her characters, never judging the young minister who has so harshly judged himself. Never manipulating the characters but allowing them to be their fully flawed but loving selves. The minister returns to face the church’s board. When they ask him what he needs, for they do want him to come back, he asks for a raise, a decent domicile (he and his family have been living in a dilapidated farmhouse outside of town), and childcare for his children while he is at work. The people of this congregation step up and provide the caring minister with what he needs, and you, as the reader, want to cheer, because not every congregation in this world would necessarily learn their lesson. It is a satisfying but unsentimental conclusion, one that should cue us all to do a better job of conducting our lives. At least, I think so.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Lorraine C. Ladish
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mother Teresa
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Theodore Dreiser
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My Book World | David Sedaris, The Land and Its People
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