Review: Marilynne Robinson's 'Reading Genesis'

Also, introducing Apple Core: My listen-through of Apple Music's Top 100 Albums of All Time

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Today, a review of Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis and, then, the beginning of Apple Core, in which I’ll be listening to Apple Music’s Top 100 Albums of All Time and writing down my thoughts.

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Reading Genesis, by Marilynne Robinson

I loved Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis, duh. What’s not to love? It’s one of our greatest living writers tackling the origin of everything. 

Well, there’s at least one thing not to love: It’s a deeply unfashionable topic! And Robinson’s take on it is deeply unfashionable as well. Her writing often seems designed to piss everyone off, and Reading Genesis’ approach to the Bible’s opening volley is no exception. Fundamentalists who insist on a literal reading of Scripture will find plenty to hate here, but so will “enlightened libs'“ who think it’s all a bunch of fairy tales (i.e. ancient myths from surrounding cultures that the Hebrews re-appropriated and re-contextualized into their own monotheistic framework.) But Robinson saves her most vicious rancor for her own tradition of mainline Protestants.