Plainsong

The landscape of Kent Haruf's Plainsong is flat, sandy, full of wheat and corn, and out in the open country, between the small towns, stands of trees surround lonely farmhouses. This is the same country that was so well portrayed in Willa Cather's novels and masterfully mapped by William Least Heat-Moon in PrairyErth. It is a dry land where the wind pushes what little Winter snow there is from farm to farm and where corn dries up in the Summer sun. It is here that they live, the people of the wonderful novel Plainsong.Victoria Roubideaux is in high school, pregnant but single, Tom Guthrie and his depressed wife are leaving each other, Maggie Jones steps in to rescue Victoria and gets involved with the searching high-school colleague Tom, while Guthrie's two boys get themselves into all kinds of boyish trouble and adventures, and the old McPheron brothers with their cattle and small farm end up taking center stage in the story about Holt, Colorado.Everything in Plainsong is moving at its own pace. People seem to go about their lives in a fashion crafted to play along with the landscape, rather than employing tactics to change the course of a force greater than themselves, and this is summed up well by Maggie Jones as she brings Victoria down to earth to accept what lies ahead of her: "Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are".But where Cather or Erdrich or McCarthy would have emphasized unbearable struggles, human wickedness, or even pure evil, Kent Haruf seems to believe that people can find whatever kindness is within them and bring that out when society, unborn babies, frail old ladies, and everyone else need it. Now, that may sound rosy, even bordering on romance, and to be honest, Plainsong is far from romantic and very far from rosy. Holt is a community in social recession, and there is a somber tone to many a scene in the book which I can best describe by comparing it to how it feels standing in a brisk Kansas wind on a cloudy day on an absolutely flat expanse. Like Haruf says in another book, the photo essay "West of Last Chance": "It isn't pretty, but it's beautiful".Being a beautiful novel, Plainsong is also at times very funny. I mean, really ha ha funny. But since what makes us laugh depends on personal tastes I'll just quote a passage which I thoroughly enjoyed. It is from a scene where the two old, eccentric McPheron brothers want to cheer up the girl staying at their place, and so decide to buy her a crib for her unborn baby. But they come to a dead end when to question, Where to buy a crib?, arises. And so one of them calls their friend Maggie Jones:"When Maggie picked up the phone Harold said to her, If you was to buy a crib, where would you think to get it?Maggie paused, then she said, This must be one of the McPheron brothers.That's right. The good-looking smart one.Well, Raymond, she said. It's nice of you to call.That's not as comical a you think, Harold said.Isn't it?No, it ain't. Anyhow, what's your answer? Where would you buy a crib if you was to need one?I'm to understand that you don't mean a corn crib. You wouldn't have to ask me about that.That's right.I believe I'd drive over to Phillips. To the department store. They'd have a baby section.Whereabouts is it?On the square across from the courthouse.On the norh side?Yes.Okay, Harold said. How you doing, Maggie? You doing all right?She laughed. I'm doing fine.Thanks for the information, he said. Happy New Year's to you, and hung up." (P. 176-177)While things in Plainsong seem to just happen they do not happen without drama. But drama happens unceremoniously in Plainsong. Fights, flights, deaths, births, love, hate. All extremes of the emotional continuum come into play in the novel, but they're played out so subtly that you easily fall into their slow moving rhythm which seems to acknowledge itself as itself. It is as if the language of the novel accepts fate and never accelerates to keep up with the drama. It seems to know that it is enough to describe the depths of human lives.Actually, the book reminds me of David Lynch's The Straight Story, where the peak of the drama occurs when the brakes on old Alvin Straight's lawnmower fail on a downhill drive, and Alvin is suspended somewhere between life and death for a few seconds. The Straight Story moves at about Plainsong pace throughout the movie, but Alvin's quest and his struggles to mend the relationship to his older brother still managed to get me deeply engaged in his life, just like I did with the lives of people in Plainsong.

I hadn't even read half the book when I realized that this would likely be one of my favorite novels of all-time. It is brilliant. A masterpiece. Monumental. All overused words in book reviews, but totally apt descriptors for this brilliant, monumental masterpiece by Kent Haruf.Taking place in the fictional rural setting of Holt, Colorado, this is the story of several people who have one thing in common: They are all emotionally damaged, but through their interactions with each other they achieve a level of healing.--High school history teacher Tom Guthrie is the father of two boys, Ike and Bobby who are 10 and 9 years old respectively. His wife, Ella, has retreated to the guest room where she sleeps all day and all night and eventually leaves the family entirely.--Victoria Roubideaux is 17 and pregnant by a young man she met the previous summer. She has no idea where he is now. And things get complicated very quickly when her mother kicks her out of their house.--Raymond and Harold McPheron are elderly brothers who live 17 miles out of town on a cattle ranch. Orphaned at a young age, the two have always lived together and neither ever married.--Maggie Jones is a high school teacher who has a knack for helping others just when they need it most. But will she ever find happiness of her own?The astonishingly spare and sparse prose in which the novel is written reflects the spare and sparse landscape of Holt. It's almost as if the writing style allows the reader to vicariously become a part of the setting. But at the same time, the writing is incredibly descriptive from an old screen door to the sight of oncoming headlights to the look of faded wallpaper. Brilliant. Monumental. A masterpiece.This exquisite work of literature is also a compelling story with a finely rendered plot and characters that simply pop off the page they are so real and vivid. In many ways, this may be the Great American Novel—or at least in the top 10.Just an afterthought: "Plainsong" was a finalist in 1999 for the National Book Award. Only a finalist? When I realized this, I immediately Googled to find out that year's winner. It was "Waiting" by Ha Jin, which I have read. Here are the opening lines of my review of "Waiting": On the one hand, this is a literary masterpiece, a political allegory, and a love story that won the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction, the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. On the other hand, the title is quite apt. The reader will be kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting for something to happen. It doesn't. This is a relatively short book that feels quite long."Plainsong" is better, in my opinion. Much, much better.Bonus: This is the first in a three-part series, so the story doesn't end here. Yay!

Good

The characters are beautifully crafted.The author's detailed description of the scenery and characters will make you dive into the story of the book.Makes your heart light-weighted :)

Es un libro que se lee bien, con calma, no hay precipitación, aunque eso no significa que todo sea dulce y agradable y que no haya momentos duros y difíciles, de hecho ninguno de los protagonistas pasa por un buen momento. No es un libro duro, la narración hace que no lo sea, pero la historia sí lo es, quizá esa discrepancia hace que todo resulte un tanto ajeno. La historia no mantiene el nivel, flojea bastante en la segunda mitad y no termina de cuajar. No es que esté mal, pero le falta algo, o quizás le sobra miseria humana.

This was a very good read, well written and following this writer, was as good as expected.

Une écriture lumineuse au service de vrais personnages qui continuent à encore vivre bien après avoir refermé le livre. Magnifique.