Rating: Summary: Capturing Time Review: For me, the pursuit of "feeling history" began about 2 years ago. Since there is no such thing as a time machine, I decided that the written word was going to be the only valid path to the past. This was one of the great books in which I traveled, and what a pleasure to read! (I found it in paperback on a sale table outside of Borders Books in Ann Arbor!) I would like to thank the author for his efforts to also "feel history" via evidence left by his family. If you read this book, you too will be able to capture a bit of history from someone willing to share it in a beautifully written style.
Rating: Summary: A People's History of the United States Review: Frazier's gifts as a writer shine in this climb through his family tree. Deadpan, folksy, soulful, urbane, Frazier captures the complexities of his family's unique history within the context of our country's history. Lots of real people and their small eccentricities. The negative editorial reviews reflect a collective missing of the boat. "On the Rez" is another great Frazier book.
Rating: Summary: A complex, fascinating read Review: I loved the style of this book. Each paragraph is incredibly packed with meaning and information. This book is history of the most enjoyable kind---the little stories that make up a person's life. Through seeing the patterns of the lives of the author's ancestors, both recent and far distant, we see patterns in history---especially religious history. We also see the history of small towns in the midwest, and of childbearing and rearing, and of education. The most enjoyable part of the book for me was the author's own nuclear family's tale. His parents are complex and very interesting people. I am a fast reader, but this book was impossible to read fast---you really have to slow and listen and enjoy it. Highly, highly recommended.
Rating: Summary: A complex, fascinating read Review: I loved the style of this book. Each paragraph is incredibly packed with meaning and information. This book is history of the most enjoyable kind---the little stories that make up a person's life. Through seeing the patterns of the lives of the author's ancestors, both recent and far distant, we see patterns in history---especially religious history. We also see the history of small towns in the midwest, and of childbearing and rearing, and of education. The most enjoyable part of the book for me was the author's own nuclear family's tale. His parents are complex and very interesting people. I am a fast reader, but this book was impossible to read fast---you really have to slow and listen and enjoy it. Highly, highly recommended.
Rating: Summary: My favorite, my absolute favorite Review: I've been thinking about this, and I've decided this is my favorite book, at least my favorite that I have read in the past 5 or 10 years.It's pretty hard to say why, but let me give it a shot: the way his writing conveys his affection for his near family and his ancestors without losing his sense of humour about them. (Ian Frazier started out as a humor writer.) His beautiful descriptions of the countryside he travels through, country you might otherwise think was much worth looking at. His wonderful details about his family history make you feel like everyone's family is important. Since I first read this book, I have developed a true genealogy fixation, trying to recapture the feeling Frazier invokes in this wonderful book. I wish he would write more.
Rating: Summary: My favorite, my absolute favorite Review: I've been thinking about this, and I've decided this is my favorite book, at least my favorite that I have read in the past 5 or 10 years. It's pretty hard to say why, but let me give it a shot: the way his writing conveys his affection for his near family and his ancestors without losing his sense of humour about them. (Ian Frazier started out as a humor writer.) His beautiful descriptions of the countryside he travels through, country you might otherwise think was much worth looking at. His wonderful details about his family history make you feel like everyone's family is important. Since I first read this book, I have developed a true genealogy fixation, trying to recapture the feeling Frazier invokes in this wonderful book. I wish he would write more.
Rating: Summary: A full year's reading and worth it. Review: Ian Frazier's Family is not a book that one reads at a sitting, but it is rather something to be savored over a long read. I have put nearly six months into reading it so far and am not the least bit bothered at my pace. While the book is ostensibly about Mr. Frazier's family, it is safer to say that it is really about the nature of family, particularly the American family. It is also a fascinating history of the country as seen through the lives of this family. Mr. Frazier has spent much time in gathering simply every piece of information that he can possible find about his family. There are more names in this book than one can hope to ever handle. But the tone, the flavor, and the rhythm of this piece make it an irresistable read.
Rating: Summary: Frazier's "Family"truly functional as history and biography Review: In "Family," Ian Frazier manages a literary coup seldom attempted, much less achieved:the telling of a personal talewith such sensitivity and imagination that the personal is transcended to become, quite possibly, the universal. The story -- of his family's migration, settlement and flourishing in America -- is at once both epic and allegorical. Equal parts history, autobiography, and geneaology, the story takes us from Frazier's family's early haunts in colonial Connecticut (and a host of other places) all the way into the contemporary interior lives of his parents, siblings, and of course, himself. Along the way, we are treated not just to stories of family life, but to grand meditations upon the meanings of history, family, and the ever-longed-for (in our time) "community." A generous book from a brilliant writer ("Great Plains," "Dating Your Mom") and regular "New Yorker"contributor, "Family" is a work of American narrative that should take its place alongside other masterworks such as Alex Haley's "Roots"and Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It"as an offering of passion and insight on the notion of belonging -- to our own families, and to the often fractious and ever elusive "American family." --Bronson Hilliard Boulder, CO May, 1996
Rating: Summary: Frazier's "Family"truly functional as history and biography Review: In "Family," Ian Frazier manages a literary coup seldom attempted, much less achieved:the telling of a personal tale
with such sensitivity and imagination that the personal is transcended to become, quite possibly, the universal. The story -- of his family's migration, settlement and
flourishing in America -- is at once both epic and
allegorical. Equal parts history, autobiography, and geneaology, the story takes us from Frazier's family's early haunts in colonial Connecticut (and a host of other places) all the way into the contemporary interior lives of his parents, siblings, and of course, himself. Along the way, we are treated not just to stories of family life, but to grand meditations upon the meanings of history, family, and the ever-longed-for (in our time) "community." A generous book
from a brilliant writer ("Great Plains," "Dating Your Mom") and regular "New Yorker"contributor, "Family" is a work of American narrative that should take its place alongside other masterworks such as Alex Haley's "Roots"and Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It"as an offering of passion and insight
on the notion of belonging -- to our own families, and to the
often fractious and ever elusive "American family."
--Bronson Hilliard
Boulder, CO
May, 1996
Rating: Summary: an absolute favorite of mine -- highly recommended Review: In this history of his family and of our country, the author follows the roads his ancestors walked, studies the civil war battles they fought in, and the towns they built. Frazier does a tremendous job of accumulating meaningful details, juxtaposing them in poignant ways, and writing charmed sentences. Rarely does reading history move me to tears, this one did. And I just realized this is the same guy who wrote Coyote vs. Acme. The guy's got range.
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