READING GENESIS, by Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson’s “Reading Genesis” is a writer’s book, not a scholar’s; it has no footnotes. Its power lies in the particular reading it gives us of one of the world’s foundational texts, which is also one of the foundations of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s mind and faith. We want to know what Robinson thinks of Genesis for the same reason we’d want to know what Tolstoy thought of it. The spirit of God moves on the face of the waters, and eventually, far off in Idaho, the novelist’s bedsheets stir. But the surprising thing about “Reading Genesis,” given that it’s by a writer who can make even nonbelievers feel the presence of the thing they disbelieve, is that it is hardly interested in the numinous.

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Persons: Marilynne Robinson, Robinson, Genesis, Tolstoy, Gilead, Jacob, sideshows, herdsmen, ” Locations: Idaho