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.
Rating: 
Summary: A touchingly real story
Review: For those who have never lived in a small town, especially a farming one, this story could seem unreal. People living apart but then coming together does not happen in many communities where neighbors disappear when the garage door closes. But for those who have seen acts of kindness arise from people and places you might not expect, Plainsong rings quite true. Yes, there are middle-aged men who would take in a pregnant girl without thoughts of lust. There are boys who would look forward to time spent with an odd old lady. There are still people in this world willing to join hands with those who might have nothing to offer but a hand in return. This book was wonderful--though a few of the farm animal scenes were too graphic for me--and I would recommend it to anyone with a belief in human fraility and redemption.
Rating: 
Summary: overrated
Review: I would like to think it is because I am only 22 and this novel was written by a man 40+ my age and that I cannot relate to him, but I have read Faulkner and Hemingway and McCarthy and can't rationalize anymore. This book was horrible. In Haruf's attempt to emulate great novelists, he fails with intermediate and weightless prose, reminding me of many 'authors' in my middle school. The characters had no feeling. They were as vague as the setting and I had no impression of the novel except that it was a waste of time. The dialogue was highly implausible and the situations the characters fall into are so desperately lacking feeling that I don't feel for them. If this book was a finalist for the National Book Award, then literature is going downhill. It's violently upsetting.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple and Meaningful
Review: A lovely and simple book, looking at life in a small town. The characterizations and interactions of the main characters was very real, drawing you into their complicated lives easily. I loved the McPheron brothers and their simple but heart felt attempts to connect with the young Victoria Roubideaux. Tom Guthrie as a father stuggling to bring up his sons as a single parent was interesting, but I found his sons Bobby and Ike even more interesting. I like the way each persons life crossed into the others, all courtesy of the kind and seemingly all knowing Maggie Jones. My only complaint is that I wish the ending had more resolution to it. But life is like that, not everything is wrapped in a pretty package with a bow on it. All in all a very enjoyable book.
Rating:
Summary: There is nothing Plain to this Song
Review: This is the last book I read for the year 2000 and I was delighted that it was a memorable one. Plainsong is the story of a community and the sublte, yet intricate ways in which people are connected to one another. It was an optimistic book--without being sentimental. Showing that human nature has the ability to forgive, give, and learn. Each of the characters has voice and teaches something about humilty and grace. Perhaps you'll discover a song of your own in one of them.
Rating: 
Summary: The Simple Life
Review: I enjoyed Kent Haruf's "novel," but I tend to agree with some of the other readers here that I was more impressed with Haruf's spare imagery and spot-on dialog than the rather pedestrian plot. Haruf is a good storyteller, problem is, the story doesn't really go anywhere. The characters are well-drawn, however, and I found myself wanting to learn what happens (or doesn't happen) to them. I was confused by one section of the book involving the boys and an elderly neighbor on their paper route. I may have been making too much of an effort to tie everything together. I would recommend the book, but you may want to keep your expectations low. It was a pleasant book, plain and simple.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely and accurate
Review: What struck me most was how "right" Haruf gets the essence of a small town (I grew up on a third-generation family farm just outside a small town of under 100 people, then went to high school in a town of 700 before moving to a megalopolis for college). Whether describing the rigorous monotony, broken by extraordinary events like a calf's breech birth, of farm life or the simple (but not necessarily uncomplicated) decency of Holt, Colorado's denizens, Haruf's prose rings absolutely true for me. Though the book's overriding theme is the search for family and continuity when traditional family structures have a)broken down or b)are non-existent, Haruf manages to sidestep easy sentimentality for something that feels like a very real yearning to connect his characters with one another. The McPheron brothers are wonderful creations - "as good as men can be," in Maggie Jones' words - and their relationship with pregnant teen Victoria is a model of the book's fundamental decency and of Haruf's gift for spare, unembellished prose (Faulkner's sense of community crossed with American minimalism, minus the archness and irony, maybe). Maybe it's because I hear echoes of people I knew growing up in "Plainsong," but the characters have stuck around in my head for weeks after finishing it. I read this back-to-back with Larry Brown's "Joe" and couldn't help but marvel at what two very different, very talented writers can do with stories that are similar at their core. A few professional reviewers have noted the book's tendency toward what might be termed 'triumphalism,' but I think it's ultimately beside the point. Haruf's book isn't about mortality or the enveloping darkness of the new Southern writers (Brown, et al); it's about the ties that we allow (and yearn) to bind us together.
Rating:
Summary: Good Entertainment Value for the Money
Review: Looks like mine is the 178th review of Plainsong; if that fact alone doesn't convince someone to purchase this warm novel, I don't know what will! My wife purchased this book and I couldn't help but get hooked on it very quickly. Why? Very simple; the characters. Haruf's writing had me caring immediately about all the book's characters and what happens to them. What I think he does well though is how he gently ties all the characters to each other. When this happens, you are given enough time though to understand and appreciate each one. Very good book; I will look for others by this author.
Rating:
Summary: Real voices, real wisdom, real life...
Review: In a quiet, unassuming Colorado town, life involves the connections that human beings make with others. The writing is plain, like the title, and honest, like the McPheron brothers - older bachelor farmers in Holt, Colorado. The school teacher, Maggie sort of makes the links in town to better the lives of a young girl who has been kicked out of her house for getting pregnant and abused by her ignorant boyfriend, of another school teacher whose two sons are trying to understand why their parents' marriage has failed and their mother is handling depression (and some of the hard knocks that come from being the teacher's kids), and of the bachelor farmers who take in the pregnant girl against their better judgment and are changed in a powerful and lovely way by the experience. These people all interact with and have a positive impact on the others' lives - in a place and a community that are not happy, simple, or kind. A very well written novel and a reinforcement to the reader that kindness and support are still found in a world where one does not expect to find them.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Clear Clean Gem!
Review: The only problem with this one is deciding whether to plough on through this potential page turner or to savor every word. This is the kind of book you miss when you've finished it. The characters are drawn in such a compelling way that they linger; you may catch yourself wondering how they're doing today, like old friends, weeks after you finish your too brief time with them.
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