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12th out of 117 books
—
45 voters
Great Plains
by
Ian Frazier
National Bestseller
With his unique blend of intrepidity, tongue-in-cheek humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles up and down and across the vast and myth-inspiring Great Plains. A travelogue, a work of scholarship, and a western adventure, Great Plains takes us from the site of Sitting Bull’s cabin, to an abandoned house onc...more
With his unique blend of intrepidity, tongue-in-cheek humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles up and down and across the vast and myth-inspiring Great Plains. A travelogue, a work of scholarship, and a western adventure, Great Plains takes us from the site of Sitting Bull’s cabin, to an abandoned house onc...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
May 4th 2001
by Picador
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“I fear for the Great Plains because many think they are boring.”
p. 91
I'll probably like this book more than you. I salivated over the possibilities of Great Plains after reading the author's Travels in Siberia. I went in with high hopes but acknowledge now that twenty-one years lapsed between this book and the Russian one, and Great Plains, as great as it is, reads, and was, the work of a younger and more self-conscious man. Frazier tries to sound cool and detached and drifter-y, sleeping in h...more
p. 91
I'll probably like this book more than you. I salivated over the possibilities of Great Plains after reading the author's Travels in Siberia. I went in with high hopes but acknowledge now that twenty-one years lapsed between this book and the Russian one, and Great Plains, as great as it is, reads, and was, the work of a younger and more self-conscious man. Frazier tries to sound cool and detached and drifter-y, sleeping in h...more
Page 214: "Now, when I have trouble getting to sleep, I sometimes imagine that my bed is on the back of a flatbed pickup truck driving across the Great Plains. I ignore the shouts on the sidewalk and the bass vibnrations from the reggae club across the street. The back of this truck has sides but no top. I can see the stars. The air is cool. The truck will go nonstop for nine hours through the night. At first the road is as straight as a laser--State Highway 8, in North Dakota say--where nothing...more
Ian Frazier’s Great Plains is almost twenty years old now, but I’m just getting around to it. I’m sorry it took so long, but glad it waited for me.
As a work, it’s an odd-shaped duck--part history, part anecdote, part philosophy, part naturalism. The Plains, obviously, unify it. That and Frazier’s style. There’s a narrative lyricism that is simultaneously scholarly and poetic and which fuses past and present:
The town was called Mondak, because it straddled the Montana-North Dakota state line, an...more
As a work, it’s an odd-shaped duck--part history, part anecdote, part philosophy, part naturalism. The Plains, obviously, unify it. That and Frazier’s style. There’s a narrative lyricism that is simultaneously scholarly and poetic and which fuses past and present:
The town was called Mondak, because it straddled the Montana-North Dakota state line, an...more
Great Plains is a cross between Kathleen Norris' "Dakota" and William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways." It's a road book about the high plains -- that semi-arid, often treeless region covering 10 states lying between the Rockies and the Mid-West. Rather than a day-by-day log of a single journey, it is an account of many trips, as its author criss-crosses the terrain, jumping from place to place and from one historical period to another. When you are done, you have a sense of a vast land and a g...more
This starts a little slow—and one could be worried that the book would be of the trials and tribulations of the family alcoholic on an escapade out west, but Frazier's memoir very quickly moves into picturesque language about an area so often written about (famously by Cather), yet he is still able to present an intimate perspective of his background and his love for Crazy Horse.
Frazier's descriptions made me want to visit the Great Plains, and then I dumbly realized that I was already there! I...more
Frazier's descriptions made me want to visit the Great Plains, and then I dumbly realized that I was already there! I...more
Jun 22, 2009
Stop
added it
Read the STOP SMILING interview with author Ian Frazier
Of No Fixed Accord
By Nathan Kosub
(This interview originally appeared in STOP SMILING The Documentary Issue)
Ian Frazier is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he began his career over 30 years ago. In April 2005, he revisited the legacies of Baghdad's historical invaders. ?It seems that so much of the foolish and horrible things that people do come from being adrift in the world,? Frazier told me. Against that, a book is ?an efficient way...more
Of No Fixed Accord
By Nathan Kosub
(This interview originally appeared in STOP SMILING The Documentary Issue)
Ian Frazier is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he began his career over 30 years ago. In April 2005, he revisited the legacies of Baghdad's historical invaders. ?It seems that so much of the foolish and horrible things that people do come from being adrift in the world,? Frazier told me. Against that, a book is ?an efficient way...more
Ian Frazier moved from New York to Montana in order to focus on a novel. Instead he traveled 6,000 miles covering the area known as The Great Plains and recorded the history, his interaction with people along the way, the geological characteristics, and the tourist attractions along the way.
In what reads like a personal diary Frazier captures the essence of each location quite well. I will say, however, that there are some conflicting remarks with what I've read in other places. For instance,...more
In what reads like a personal diary Frazier captures the essence of each location quite well. I will say, however, that there are some conflicting remarks with what I've read in other places. For instance,...more
This is heartbreakingly witty, earthy, funny, and expansive. If you have ever yearned for North Dakota, this is your unrequited love story. I read this on the heels of Nathaniel Philbrick's Last Stand, and they were great companions. I would read this kind of book every day for the rest of my life: the perfect mix of history, natural history, incisive commentary, squirrelly off-beat locals, missile silos, Lewis and Clark, humor, and an expansive landscape that captures the imagination.
My favorit...more
My favorit...more
I've never before visited any part of the Great Plains. Nor had I ever before read a book by Ian Frazier, though his writing is frequently featured in the New Yorker, so I was familiar with him. While I wouldn't say this book convinced me in any way to want to visit the Great Plains- to the contrary, Frazier portrays this region as one who's heyday was long in the past, despite many joy inducing elements- but it very much made me want to immediately pick up another of Frazier's books.
Part travel...more
Part travel...more
I should probably add a 'shelf' to my profile on here called 'Great Plains.' There's been quite a bit of Stegner going on over here, and now this. I think it feeds some sort of nostalgia...for a place I've never actually lived. I'm a city boy and can't claim the tiniest bit of even ironrange cred let alone plains cred (I was disappointed to find out from this book that Minnesota isn't even officially included in the enormous region known as the Great Plains. Too many lakes to qualify). But when...more
Honestly I have no idea why this book is so well-rated. It is poorly written by an obviously self-indulgent, self-important person. The first page alone every sentence ends in an exclamation point, like the author is yelling at you - I almost put it down right then and there. I almost wish I had. The story is disjointed, historical characters fall through the cracks (except for Crazy Horse, this guy LOVES Crazy Horse) and become strings of names reminiscent of some books in the Old Testament. It...more
I found this book and several others at thrift stores on a recent trip to Seattle. Dollar books rock.
I was looking forward to reading Great Plains. The description on the back made it sound right up my alley. However, something about the first chapter filled me with dread. Halfway through the first chapter, I was already agitated and preparing myself to really not like this book.
Fortunately, I’m no quitter and I pressed on. That first chapter notwithstanding, this is a very interesting and enter...more
I was looking forward to reading Great Plains. The description on the back made it sound right up my alley. However, something about the first chapter filled me with dread. Halfway through the first chapter, I was already agitated and preparing myself to really not like this book.
Fortunately, I’m no quitter and I pressed on. That first chapter notwithstanding, this is a very interesting and enter...more
I've made good use of my snow days by reading about the Great Plains. Ian Frazier is a good writer, kind of random, like me. My Dad grew up on the Great Plains (North Dakota) and we spent the best part of nearly every summer visiting Grandparents, Aunts , Uncles , and cousins and the Great Plains. My sister and I loved it and wouldn't trade a minute of it. My own family has toured much of the Great Plains by following the paths of the pioneers and Lewis and Clark. Frazier's book tells the story...more
Cruising off the momentum of Travel in Siberia, Frazier's latest book, I picked up Great Plains expecting a bit of the same combination of reporting, research and goofy encounters that characterized the Siberia romp. I am not pleased to report that this is Minor Frazier. The book reads more like a collection of disjointed postcards from a road trip across the states than any unified project about a place, though most of the events do take place on the Great Plains in the middle of the country. T...more
How did I miss this one when I was going through my Ian Frazier stage? This book is previous to his famous novel, On The Rez, but I enjoyed this one even more. The descriptive quality of Frazier's words, his daily desire to approach every stranger on the street and ask them a question, his consistent follow-up, traveling back to a place years later to revisit a particular fact, it's all these things I can only hope make Bill Bryson crawl under a chair and suffocate himself with a sock. This book...more
Pretty good read, not your usual travel book. More a book of longing & dreams, Frazier's love affair with those wide open American spaces & the sometimes-strange people who inhabited them.
Native American Indians, pioneers, gold-seekers, entrepreneurs, and of course the military folks who were supposed to keep the preceeding groups from doing each other in.... Lewis & Clark, Crazy Horse, Custer, Jesse James, Bonnie & Clyde, a few farmers & ranchers, the empty Clutter house, t...more
Native American Indians, pioneers, gold-seekers, entrepreneurs, and of course the military folks who were supposed to keep the preceeding groups from doing each other in.... Lewis & Clark, Crazy Horse, Custer, Jesse James, Bonnie & Clyde, a few farmers & ranchers, the empty Clutter house, t...more
I just returned from an 8 week cross-country road trip, part of which took me through Minnesota, Montana, and both Dakotas. This book was the perfect way to end the trip and it answered lots of the questions I had while traveling through what I formerly thought of as "flyover" states. Never again though.
Frazier is brimming over with what in my family we call UBIs (useless bits of information) except that in his case though many of them may indeed be useless they are nevertheless fascinating. If...more
Frazier is brimming over with what in my family we call UBIs (useless bits of information) except that in his case though many of them may indeed be useless they are nevertheless fascinating. If...more
Equal parts retelling of history already well-known (e.g., Dust Bowl, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse) and personal travel narrative of an outsider (a Manhattanite who moves to Montana), I found this book shallow except in its stories of real Westerners that the author meets. By trying to be both introspective and quasi-academic, the book ends up being an unsatisfying overview of the Great Plains region. Perhaps the author should have done more homework, or dug more deeply into his experiences, to...more
Sebuah buku sastra perjalanan yang sangat menarik dari Ian Frazier. Dengan cerdas ia mengolah folklore dan mitos yang berkembang di Dataran Raya Amerika yang tandus, kosong, dan jarang. Frazier, dengan mata dan telinga yang terbuka lebar, berhasil melebur dalam kehidupan Dataran Raya dan dengan khusyuk ia mendengarkan segala kisah-kisah yang berhembus di padang-padang prairie selama ratusan tahun...
Indian, shaman, koboi, monumen kebodohan rakyat Amerika, penjahat Jekyl dan Hyde, Capote, dan seja...more
Indian, shaman, koboi, monumen kebodohan rakyat Amerika, penjahat Jekyl dan Hyde, Capote, dan seja...more
I've lost count of how many times I've read this book, but I just read it in preparation for a trip to the Great Plains. And it's still one of my favorite books. Frazier's not a stylist or a cloying writer who uses irony to skewer everything; he's just a good writer with a sense of humor, a sense of wonder, and a sense of adventure. The book is history at its most enthusiastic: sincere, brimming with life, and appreciative of the chance encounters that define and enliven travel. Most importantly...more
This is my kind of a book. Long sentences, lots of description, rambling ideas, nothing but a lot of fun and good information. Frazier takes us back and forth through the Great Plains, and time, and history. He's at the top of his game here, sometimes over the top, and its all good. I bought this book at Border's going out of business sale and am so glad I have it. a book, a real book I can leaf through and lend to people, and talk about, and read again, maybe by flipping to a passage I want to...more
Frazier just up and moves to Montana, but not before stopping by his sister's wedding and drinking so much he longed for the hangover ambulance to come and take him to the hangover hospital. Ha ha. I enjoyed the personal elements of the narrative, but then the history lesson gets a little too thick. Or maybe just a little too disorganized. He shifts from telling amusing anecdotes to randomly naming off a Native American tribe and adding a random fact about them. That goes on for pages and pages...more
It's hard not to be caught up in Frazier's somber and lyrical meditation on the great plains. Frazier weaves together stories from his own travels with historical anecdotes in such a way that by the end, it seems as though he has given us a taste of most of the significant historical and cultural landmarks of the plains and allowed us to see the connections running between all of them. I'm sure that he overlooked some things and took some controversial positions, but to achieve this effect in 20...more
This was a well-written, short book on a large subject, geographically speaking. Ian Frazier's tone is conversational and easy to read, except when he tries to relate a lot of detail like the circumstances surrounding Crazy Horse's death. I could tell Frazier has a lot of interest in and love for the plains; I'm grateful for that so I can get to know them through his writing without having to actually visit them myself.
The book also gets less pleasant when Frazier gets preachy about conservation...more
The book also gets less pleasant when Frazier gets preachy about conservation...more
Ramblings of a trip through the Great Plains; including historical anecdotes of important events like the Dust Bowl and the capture of Crazy Horse. Some chapters are very interesting, others not interesting at all. The historical accounts were the best part to me. I didn't see much of a theme until I reached this paragraph toward the end of the book, in a chapter about the nuclear weapons system in the northern Great Plains:
This, finally, is the punch line of our two hundred years in the Great...more
This, finally, is the punch line of our two hundred years in the Great...more
Maybe it's because I read this while actually on the Great Plains. I read most of it by the fire at Mom and Dad's. Or maybe it's because I'm so emotionally attached to the Great Plains (much more so than, say, Siberia), but I wanted more from this book. Although it does have a big "notes" section at the end, the text of this book is only 214 pages. The Great Plains need more than 214 pages, I believe. Don't get me wrong. I liked this book a lot. So much so, that I wanted more of it. My favorite...more
Feb 17, 2010
Elizabeth K.
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Elizabeth by:
I saw Melissa P. mentioned it, and I usually like Ian Frazier.
Shelves:
2010-new-reads
I picked this up at the library after Melissa had mentioned it. I like the other things I've read by Ian Frazier, in large part because I'm generally a sucker for ruminations on American identity issues.
This one is focused on the Great Plains, obviously. Weirdly, I didn't know when it was published, but by the first 1/3 through, I was thinking to myself that it sounds, in my head, very 80s. It was 89, as it happens. I'm still not clear on what made it so obviously 80s to me.
Frazier is a New York...more
This one is focused on the Great Plains, obviously. Weirdly, I didn't know when it was published, but by the first 1/3 through, I was thinking to myself that it sounds, in my head, very 80s. It was 89, as it happens. I'm still not clear on what made it so obviously 80s to me.
Frazier is a New York...more
This was a breezy, sweeping crash course on America's Great Plains and much of the West; equal parts travelogue and history with a vividly conveyed sense of place, spiced with historical tidbits and humorously imparted facts of the weird. It's kind of like a bunch of digestible NPR commentaries strung together. Frazier does it with ease, and not in any particular order -- somehow running the gamut from Sitting Bull and Bonnie & Clyde to Lawrence Welk; from arrowheads to barbed wire; from Men...more
This one gets a grudging four-star rating. I wanted to be blown away, but man, there are parts of it that read like a high school geography text. I almost stopped reading sometime during Chapter 3. Ian Frazier drove all over the Great Plains and wrote about his travels, the region, and its history. If that one-sentence description doesn't grab you at least a little bit, you might wimp out long before the third chapter. My suggestion: Keep reading. When Frazier moves beyond summary to interpretat...more
People from Kansas like to say they know everything there is to know about Kansas history because of its simplicity. State flower: Sunflower. State bird: Meadowlark. State Motto: Ad Astra Per Aspera. State Serial Killer: BTK. Smelliest city in the state: Dodge City, where incidentally I grew up (and famous for being the windiest city in the nation - my terrible hairdos from birth to age 21 are a testament to the wind and too much hair gel.)
Dodge City is located in the western part of the state,...more
Dodge City is located in the western part of the state,...more
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Ian Frazier (b.1951) is an American writer and humorist. He is the author of Travels in Siberia, Great Plains, On the Rez, Lamentations of the Father and Coyote V. Acme, among other works, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He graduated from Harvard University. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
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Feb 20, 2011 08:25pm
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