Excerpt from Jack by Marilynne Robinson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Yes. Probably. But we couldn't be sure. The meteor might have been just a meteor."

"If you say so. My father would say that a sparrow isn't just a sparrow. Because its fall means something, cosmically speaking. I'm not sure what. He is certain of it, though."

"My father would say that, too."

"So, consider the sparrows your meteor brought down, the lilies it pulverized. How could it be just a meteor?"

"If the people thought they knew how to understand it. I mean, if they believed that it meant something, they'd assume there were rules, and they'd probably think they were the rules they were already used to. Only they'd be a whole lot more serious about keeping to them. Some of them. For a while. Which wouldn't be interesting."

"And if they decided it didn't mean anything—"

"That's hard for me to imagine. I can't really think about that. But if they didn't know one way or the other, they'd be like we are. I mean like people are. That's more interesting."

"Maybe. But meaninglessness also has its pleasures. As an idea."

She shook her head. "I've tried to imagine it and I just can't. That doesn't mean it isn't possible."

He said, "That's kind of you. To leave a little space for nihilism. Most people don't."

"I know."

"At least my father didn't."

"Mine either."

"How could we know whether the nihilists were right? A voice from nowhere that had never spoken before and would never speak again—'It was just a meteor! Calm down! Interpretation is not appropriate!' That would keep the conversation going for the next two thousand years."

She said, "Meaninglessness would come as a terrible blow to most people. It would be full of significance for them. So it wouldn't be meaningless. That's where I always end up. Once you ask if there is meaning, the only answer is yes. You can't get away from it."

They walked along through the ranks and clusters of the dead. Forever hoisting their stony sails, waiting for that final wind to rise. Here lies Wanda Schmidt, her breathless, perpetual "Remember me!" spelled out as Beloved Mother. He actually felt he knew some of them, in their posthumous and monumental persons, that is, and he could not stroll past them without the little courtesy of a nod. Yes, I am here this evening with a lady on my arm. Quite a surprise, I agree.

He said, "Let me guess. Long arguments over Sunday dinner."

"Endless. We'd go around the table. We were supposed to be able to think and express our thoughts, my father said. Girls, too."

"I suppose predestination came up?"

"Not much. We're Methodists."

"I forgot. Yes. We also had those dinners. Was the Almighty free to limit what He could know. If He wasn't free to, He wasn't omnipotent. If He did limit what He could know, He wasn't omniscient. Unless He could know what He didn't know. In which case—and so on."

"Why would He want to limit what He could know?"

"Well, my father suffered considerably over the doctrine of foreknowledge. He was uneasy with the thought that there might be dark certainty in the universe somewhere, sentence passed, doom sealed, and a soul at his very dinner table lost irretrievably before it had even stopped outgrowing its shoes, so to speak. If the Lord chose not to know, then—that eased the Reverend's mind. Though it would in no way alter the facts of the case. Once, I pointed this out to him, and he just looked at me, tears in his eyes. Everyone else left the table. No more arguments for weeks after that."

"Were you that bad? I mean, that he was afraid for your soul?"

"Pretty bad. Let's talk about something else."

Quiet.

So he said, "Pious people do worry about me. This makes conversation difficult. I can only assure you, as we two strangers wander through this solemn night, that I have not quite fulfilled my early promise. In case you're worried about that."

Excerpted from Jack by Marilynne Robinson. Copyright © 2020 by Marilynne Robinson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.