The End of the World as We Know It

For an author who is constantly struggling for the right words, Marilynne Robinson sure does an amazing job with what words she did find. Her language is one that is expressed in a way that requires no distinction between fiction or non-fiction, in fact I as I read deeper into the text I’ve frightfully came to a realization that there seems to be no allusions and few sub-textual connotations. What potential for deep ambiguous insight has been told straight forward, which I find fitting, because if these are meant to be final thoughts, then it stands to reason that the narrator will leave little room for interpretation or questioning.

This is a book that has been constructed largely on the premise of one old man’s memories, and in exploration of these memories Robinson is creating depth and dimensions to this narrator, as we are vividly told of what is past, but to us, it is present. It is within this naked exposure to one’s most private and intimate knowledge that bonds people together, making the narrator real in our mind, just as his memories are our memories as well.

From what I’ve managed to read so far, this has been my favorite passage, “There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition for morality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing because that meant the whole world to us… Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.”(57) In this instance of thought I believe that Robinson was able to finally catch one of those elusive words, “human beauty”, in this single phrase we are able to justify almost any art that man has created, because according to Plato’s wisdom of origin, art is the most imperfect of creation when compared to nature or fortune. In this sense, Robinson admits something that very few people are willing to acknowledge, the fact that there is beauty  in imperfection; the fact that because we are imperfect, we are mortal, which then ensures the need to procreate and most importantly, create memories. Then the final comment of “I think piety  forbids me to try” is so … ugh, lacking in words; to say that his reverence for God has prevented him from imagining a reality without impermanence, a world without memories and appreciation, a world without death and God, without imperfection, makes quite a nerve wrecking thought. Then, there’s also the argument that language provides order, which then constructs reality, thus it would also be a world without language, and thus a world without order, but keep in mind that this is all simply my imagination that can continue infinitely, just as your imagination can as well, at one point we may accidentally prove or disprove God, but that will eventually become a memory as well.