Online Book Group - Official Discussion Thread for Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Ok, here are my thoughts....

I came about this (holds up fingers) close to throwing the book across the room when I first started reading it. The grammar is autrocious, and I really had to fight off my inner editor to continue this book. The dialogue without the quotes (something that usually doesn't bother me), bothered me in this book. The author just threw dialogue in the middle of a paragraph and sometimes it was really tough to figure out when someone was speaking, thinking, etc. This is the first case where I've seen quoteless dialogue handled really poorly. (Cormac McCarthy and James Frey handle that kind of dialogue well)

That being said, the story itself grew on me and eventually it hooked me enough to finish it. The story of Ike and Bobby reminded me of my own childhood a bit (hearing them talking about collecting money and delivering papers brings back memories lol). I was impressed with the author not revealing immediately that Ike and Bobby were Guthrie's kids (or at least I didn't realize that until later in the book when they went up to the McPherons farm). I loved the interactions with Victoria and the McPheron brothers.

The story itself reminds me of just some old country stories. The language was simple and warm.

I'd probably never read this book again (or another book by this author), but the story was good enough. It eventually entertained me.

The thing that bothered me, though, was that this looked like a first draft to me. Good God, the writing was clunky. It took me about 40 or 50 pages before I could get passed it and just focus on the story, and if it hadn't have been a book club selection, I would've given up before I finished--missing out on a good story.

Personally, I just thought this book needed some editting. If it had been editted and the writing tighter, I would have REALLY enjoyed it.

a few minor spoilers ahead... just FYI

I really enjoyed this book. It's a very easy read, simple in language but with compelling stories. I wasn't bothered at all by the lack of quotes for dialogue... but then, I managed to read Saramago's Blindness, which has no quotes AND multiple speakers within the same paragraph AND none of the characters have names. I found it actually easier in this book to distinguish who was speaking even better than Cormac McCarthy's books. My only annoyance was with the "should of", "could of" etc. Haruf should've written "should've"! But that's also a personal pet peeve.

On to the story... I also enjoyed the interactions with Victoria and the McPherons. I felt bad for Ike and Bobby, with all the trauma they endure--the abandonment from their mother, the death of their horse, Mrs. Stearns, and of course the whole incident with Russell. But it makes them very likeable characters. They deal with it all very well. Not to give too much away, Jen, but if you are expecting more from Ella (the boys' mother), I think you'll be disappointed. Guthrie makes a good enough father, though, that as far as Ella goes... good riddance, I say.

I didn't know this until I'd finished Plainsong, but there is a follow-up novel, Eventide. I haven't read it yet, but from what I've read about it, some of the original characters show up in the sequel, though not all. (I think it also has a new set of characters.) But I'm interested to know if the dispute between Guthrie and Russell is resolved in the next book.

General Joy said:

My only annoyance was with the "should of", "could of" etc. Haruf should've written "should've"! But that's also a personal pet peeve.

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I'm guessing that the bad grammar and stuff like this was probably on purpose. Or I'd like to think that a book that goes to publication would have caught something like this before publishing the book. God help us if it was all truly accidental because the grammar is absolutely horrid. lol

But reading this book gives me hope. If stuff like this gets published, then I might just have a chance after all.

(Heh, I don't mean to be negative, because I DID enjoy the story part. The writing style annoyed me though.)

I like to think the mistakes were done on purpose too. I suspect the author wrote "could of" to emulate the sound of the words as the characters spoke them, but in my mind, "could've" would have had the same effect. Oh well. It was a minor thing I could overlook because I liked the novel very much. Anyone else read it?

I've put my fingers to keys four or five times this week to write my thoughts, but I keep getting called away for something or other. Ack! Maybe this time I'll get through it all *hides under the bed*

My overall feeling is that I like this book. I like the stories, the setting, and the rambling pace. I think the pace is the real victory for this book. It is just right for the place and people it is describing.

I, too, was caught up by that lack of dialogue tags. At first. Then it grew on me as I got to know the characters. About halfway through I decided I really like the way Haruf used the tagless dialogue. I get this sense of looking in on a small town that way - the sense that there are lots of things everybody knows, but nobody is saying. Small-town murmurs and secrets. It's as though somebody is saying to me "I can let you in to take a peek, but I ain't gonna tell you anything and you can't stay long."

Like Jennifer, I cringed at the run-on sentences. Run-on sentences have become one of those tools favored by overly-MFA'd, navel-gazing, literary snob types of writers and I hate it. Unless there is a purpose for it, but I can't think of a good exaple right now. I didn't like it for this book. Simple language, simple sentiments are the stars of this book. And I agree that grammar "mistakes" were intentional. They are simply another layer to the setting.

My favorite story was Victoria and the McPherons. Boy, do I love the McPherons! They are heroes - gritty, funny, awkward, kindly heroes. Guthrie was less interesting for me. I felt the same about Ike and Bobby until they met Mrs. Stearns. From that point on their story became more interesting on all points.

Speaking of heroes, one thing that has me thinking alot is the heroes vs. villains dynamic in this book. With the exception of one character (I'll get to that in a sec), every other character is EASILY defined as a hero or a villain. And I think it is a detriment to the book. The villains are especially deviant - with simply no good qualities whatsoever. It almost gets to the point of characature, and that takes away from the story, for me. The only character that straddles the line (and is the most real for me because of it) is Ike and Bobby's mother. She is obviously battling some demons (severe depression, ya?) but she also loves her sons, knows she is hurting them, and is sorry for it. And yet, she leaves them. Unfortunately, she is a rather minor character and we don't get to learn more about her condition, her past, her lost dreams, her struggles.