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LitPicks - December '07
In praise of the land: this month's books delve into the soil of the great American plains to find rootedness, connection and community.
A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully
Written | Great Works
Plainsong
Kent Haruf, 1999
320 pp.
By Molly Lundquist
The title of this book is beautifully apt for a story set on the great plains: musically, plainsong is an unadorned melodic line. Haruf's novel, then, is a plainsong—in terms of his taut, straight-forward prose; his unadorned but compelling characters; and the austerity of his setting.
Plainsong is also a hymn of praise. And Haruf's story becomes a paean to the power of place and to the capacity of individuals to transcend loneliness and despair, coming together in community.
All is not well in pastoral America: Tom Guthrie struggles on his own to raise two boys as his wife descends into depression; his young sons, Ike and Bobby miss and worry about their mother; teenaged Victoria Robideaux is locked out of the house when her mother discovers she is pregnant; and two crusty bachelor brothers plod along in barren silence on their isolated ranch.
Hardly an auspicious beginning for what is ultimately a sweet story (ouch...Kent Haruf would just love that). But school teacher Maggie Smith, while not the central character, is the lynchpin that brings—and holds—these disparate, and desperate, characters together. In the end you fall in love with all of them as they begin their tentative steps toward love and trust.
The book moves slowly, and Haruf's writing has a graininess that lingers on tiny details as characters move from place to place. I admit I sometimes got impatient and wanted him to move at a faster pace, but... he doesn't. In the end, it doesn't matter, because he's so good.
Haruf wrote a 2004 sequel, Eventide. While I don't think it's quite as good (except for the cover—it's better, gorgeous!), I enjoyed picking up with the same characters.
Be sure to see our Reading Guide for Plainsong and our Reading Guide for Eventide.
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A Thousand Acres
Jane Smiley, 1991
384 pp.
By Molly Lundquist
King Lear travels to Iowa, brought here in the late 20th century by Jane Smiley. This is Smiley's stunning tour de force, a Pulitzer Prize winner and many believe a contemporary classic.
A Thousand Acres is a modern re-telling of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, but told from the perspective of Ginny, a latter day Goneril (Lear's evil daughter in the original). In this version, Ginny/Goneril is the heroine.
We've had so many recent send-ups of the classics—Ahab's Wife, Bridget Jones's Diary, On Beauty, Mr. Timothy, even Wicked—that the novelty has worn off, if not worn thin. But A Thousand Acres was seminal, one of the first and still (along with On Beauty) the most dazzling.
A bare-bones outline is as follows: affluent farmer, Larry Cook (Lear), lives surrounded by his daughters and their husbands. All's well that ends well ... until Larry decides to turn his farm over to his three daughters. Once deprived of power and responsibility, however, Larry's mental state deteriorates—he lashes out at his daughters, dragging them into court to regain the property. Ultimately, the story is Ginny's, as she struggles to find herself, to move out from under her father's and husband's shadow, and to achieve a life of her own.
The modern parallels with Shakespeare are finely wrought. Though hardly necessary, you might consider approaching Acres with some knowledge of the original. So, for example, you could ...
1. Read Shakepeare's King Lear.... Right. Okay. Then how about this:
2. Watch the very fine 1984 King Lear with Laurence Olivier or the
pretty good 1997 BBC/PBS version with Ian Holm;
3. Read Spark Notes "No Fear Shakespeare" (Oops, hear that?...the sound of my grad school diploma going down the drain.);
4. Invite a literature prof or teacher to guide you through King Lear
and /or A Thousand Acres, comparing and contrasting.
Or you could just read this magnificent work on its own.
Do check out our Reading Guide for A Thousand Acres. Finally, check out the 1997 A Thousand Acres film version with Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jason Robards, and Colin Firth—after you've read the book, of course.
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My Antonia
Willa Cather, 1918
289 pp.
By Molly Lundquist
Read this beautiful book. I should just stop here. So I will.
Well...no. On second thought, maybe not. At least I should explain myself. After all, that's what LitLovers is all about: people who love books (in this case, moi), talking about books (moi, again).
Truth is there's not much more to say about this American classic than what H.L. Mencken said in 1918:
No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Antonia.
The story revolves around European immigrants, in particular the Shimerda family and their lively daughter Antonia, as they eke out a bare existense in Nebraska at the end of the 19th century. We follow their hardships through the eyes of Jim Burden, who tells the story from a vantage point of about 30 years—a distancing technique used by Cather for some reason. (Truthfully, I need to think about why.) What we take away from this story—or saga, really—is the grandeur of the country, the land, and our ancestors who struggled to become part of the American dream.
Also, see our Reading Guide for My Antonia.
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