443. Plainsong
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Kent Haruf
Genre: Fiction
301 pages, published August 22, 2000
Reading Format: Book
Summary
Plainsong tells the story of several residents of Holt, a small town in the high plains of rural Colorado. We meet a high school teacher who is left to raise his two young boys alone, a teenage girl who is kicked out by her mother when she finds herself pregnant and taken in by two elderly, bachelor brothers who raise cattle and a town bully with a proclivity for evil.
Quotes
“A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, a girl’s got purposes you and me can’t even imagine. They got ideas in their heads you and me can’t even suppose.”
“You’re going to die some day without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind anyway.”
“You understand? If you can read you can cook. You can always feed yourselves. You remember that.”
“Don’t you have any scars? Inside. Do you? Of course. You don’t act like it. I don’t intend to. It doesn’t do much good, does it?”
“Why hell, look at us. Old men alone. Decrepit old bachelors out here in the country seventeen miles from the closest town which don’t amount to much of a good goddamn even when you get there. Think of us. Crotchety and ignorant. Lonesome. Independent. Set in all our ways. How you going to change now at this age of life? I can’t say, Raymond said. But I’m going to. That’s what I know.”
“You’re not talking to her, Maggie Jones said. You and Raymond don’t talk like you should to that girl. Women want to hear some conversation in the evening. We don’t think that’s too much to ask. We’re willing to put up with a lot from you men, but in the evening we want to hear some talking. We want to have a little conversation in the house.”
My Take
Having previously read and enjoyed Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, I had high hopes for Plainsong. While Plainsong is not quite as good as Our Souls, it is still a very good read and the author has some interesting insights into the human condition. I especially enjoyed the story of two elderly brothers who run a remote ranch and take in a pregnant teenage girl who brings out the best in them.
