Plainsong

Rating:
Summary: It just IS
Review: PLAINSONG is beautifully crafted, yet simple, like a piece of shaker furniture. True, we don't learn every detail of the characters' lives, (ie "what really happened" to Tom Guthrie's wife) Instead, we get a glimpse into the private lives of these people, in the here and now. The reader gets to be the fly on the wall.

It's a good read. It just is.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most honest books I've read
Review: This story is a great book about ordinary people who live ordinary lives and is written in an extraordinary way. Kent Haruf is a wonderful author who really brings his characters to life. Not everyone in the book is perfect but reading this story you can feel the warmth in their hearts. The characters all learn from eachother and come together to make a wonderful small town America. I loved the McPheron brothers and how you see their lives changed through loving a young pregnant girl who happens to come upon their doorstep. Maggie Jones is the one who binds everyone together through her strong, helpful character. The boys Ike and Bobby go through some tough times but hold eachother together with their brotherly love. I have not read such a plain, simple story of wonderful characters in a long time. This is a book that anyone can read and love.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth your time
Review: I can't imagine why this book would have been nominated for any award. I didn't feel it was well written or worth my time. As an example: what was the intent of the chapter on the pet horse? It just didn't seem to fit with his story. It had no purpose other than to take up page space. I would suggest you pass on this book.

Rating:
Summary: Every Once...
Review: ...in awhile, along comes a sweet and simple book that finally has a profound impact. PLAINSONG is such a book. It doesn't drag you into a whirlwind, it simply tells its story via various characters. It's a departure from the frantic nature of most of today's books and films because of its low-key, soft-sell approach. It's funny, touching, painful, and uplifting, and in an odd way, calming. It deals with the fine possibilities of the human spirit within the harsh realities of life. And that's a theme we see too little of in our culture. Haruf declines to surrender to ugliness, preferring to insist beauty of spirit is still posssible in our world. Good for him.

Rating:
Summary: The "Seinfeld" Of Books
Review: I loved this book, but when my wife asked me what it was about, I replied, "Nothing." And to me, that is what this wonderful book depicts.

Set in the rural town of Holt, Kent Haruf meshes together the stories of a recently separated high school teacher (Tom Guthrie), his hard-working pre-teenage sons (Ike and Bobby), a couple of old-time farmers (Harold and Raymond McPheron), a pregnant high school girl (Victoria Roubideaux, and the other high-shcool teacher that connects them all together (Maggie Jones).

This narrative story builds the character development quite nicely, and allows the reader to feel for the characters. Haruf does a tremendous job of simply describing life (waking up for work, cleaning the house, making oatmeal cookies, etc.). These simple smaller stories bring together all of the characters in one exceptional voice.

This book shows how people can adapt to their lives, and eventually redeem themselves. This book is not about one story. It reminds me of Seinfeld. Everyday life instances captured in the written word, interweaved together. It is fabulous and one terrific ride.

Haruf's language is very crisp and clear, and makes for a real nice and easy read. He is very descriptive in his writing, including one scene involving a horse autopsy that I swear I could actually see it in front of me.

This was a wonderful book, and one that I would clearly recommend to anyone. It deserves more than five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Thank You Mister Haruf
Review: Plainsong has characters that catch the reader's attention early in the book and holds one until the reader grows to love them with all their quirks. Kent Haruf gives us enough insight to each of the character's stories to arouse curiosity over what he or she is going to do next. Although the style is never told in first person, I am reminded of Kingslover's Poisonwood Bible, for it was in that novel that I felt so strong a connection to the characters. I will take the time to read more of Mister Haruf's work, as I am happy to find a novel that I enjoyed this extensively.

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Summary: Earthy book about people reaching out to others.
Review: Kent Haruf, in "Plainsong," describes some of the troubled people in the community of Holt, Colorado. In alternating chapters, Haruf gives voice to the lonely and the lost. There is Tom Guthrie, a high-school teacher whose marriage appears to be dying and Victoria Robideaux, a pregnant teenager whose mother cruelly locks her out of the house. In this novel, Ike and Bobby, Tom's pre-teen children, learn some grown-up lessons about love, death and letting go. Although they are very young, no one shelters Ike and Bobby from the harsh realities of life. The McPhersons are two crusty old bachelors who are set in their ways until they are asked to perform a tremendous sacrifice in order to help Victoria during her pregnancy. In his realistic dialogue, Haruf perfectly captures the nuances of emotion expressed by each character. The author is particularly adept at describing the loneliness and despair that a person feels when he has lost a loved one, when his pride is wounded, or when he doesn't know how to face the future with dignity. Another theme expertly explored in "Plainsong" is how the members of a community reach out to one another and provide support when such support is desperately needed. This book is earthy, with graphic sexual situations, profanity and even a vividly described autopsy of a horse! The book has a little humor, but it could have used a little more humor to offset some of the bleak and tragic situations that Haruf describes. "Plainsong" is not always entertaining but it is an unflinching look at the troubles that tear people apart and sometimes bring them together.

Rating:
Summary: Lose yourself in Holt
Review: Haruf's Plainsong is a wonderful read. I became immediately impressed by the diverse characters in the quaint small town. Plainsong reminds me of Where the Heart Is. I would love to read a sequel. Victoria's adventures would make an excellent novel. I hated to turn the last page!

Rating:
Summary: lovely, lovely book
Review: A very quiet book, but quite moving. It's quite short, but it creates an entire world you are sad to leave at the end. It reminded me a lot of William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow (midwestern/western small town, small boys, familial upset) but where that ends in sadness, this ends in a sort of redemption. I liked it very much and would recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: disappointed - my first Haruf may be my last
Review: Like many other reviewers, I was unimpressed by the run-on sentences and the lack of quotations marks. If you want to tell a story in one sentence with no punctuation marks, write a poem.

Some of the language and scenes led me to believe in Haruf's talent for telling a story. Unfortunately, Plainsong reads like an author's detailed notes to himself, or his outline for a novel. None of the stories in the book are complete. We don't know why Guthrie's wife left. Is she depressed? Did she have a nervous breakdown? We don't know how Guthrie feels about her either. But his response is to abandon his children to their own devises, take up drinking excessively at a local bar, and go to bed with not one but two women who work at the same school as he does. The relationship between Victoria and the father of her baby is totally undeveloped. Russell Beckman, the high school athlete, bully, and pain-in-every-teacher's-neck is an overused stereotype. Maggie is a catalyst for moving the story forward but we really know nothing about her, except that she teaches at the high school and lives with her elderly father. Old Mrs. Stearns serves absolutely no purpose in the story. The McPheron brothers are the only characters I cared about at all.

The book does paint an authentic picture of small town America. If you grew up in a small rural town, as I did, you know every one of these characters. But the book is much more like a painting than a story. We can see the characters, we see what they're doing, but we have no idea how they feel or what they think.

I get the feeling that this book was written under contract, and that Haruf was paying much more attention to the deadlines of the contract than to the telling of the story.