Marilynne Robinson isn’t exactly a prolific author. Since 1981 she’s published four books: two novels, a book of nonfiction on the nuclear industry in the UK, and a collection of essays. However, her first novel, Housekeeping, is acknowledged as an “American classic.” (I’m not sure if that accolade is a guarantor of excellence–I’ve just finished another soi-disant American masterpiece, Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, and found it a work of wildly fluctuating quality*.)Maintaining her impeccable record, Robinson has just scooped the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her second novel, Gilead. (See here for all winners**). I must admit, even with the kudos granted by the judging panel, I’m not in a rush to approach this novel. A synopsis of its themes offered by the Pulitzer site kicks off with the following:”In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames’s life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition.”Now, just as some people feel an almost physical queasiness when presented with tales of space exploration or seafaring (some kind of aesthetic seasickness?), stories concerning the lives of honest folk on the American Plains leave me stone cold. I have a fear that the prose required will be as exciting as the nightlife in Topeka.Stories recounted by screwed-up Mitteleuropeans are more my style. *Any novel dealing with the various ragged mental states induced by drink, drugs, and a suicidal mindet has to live up to the gold standard set by Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. Exley’s novel, mawkish where Lowry manifests palpable despair, seems the work of a tinsmith in comparison.**I wonder how long it will be before a blogger gets a Pulitzer?