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313th out of 335 books
—
445 voters
Main-Travelled Roads
Main-Travelled Roads contains eleven stories in this expanded and revised 1922 edition of an undisputed American classic. "Under the Lion's Paw" shows an honest, hard-working farmer victimized by a greedy landlord. Equally powerful is the semi-autobiographical "Up the Coolly," concerning a successful son who returns from the East to find his mother and brother trapped on a...more
Paperback, 247 pages
Published
November 1st 1995
by Bison Books
(first published 1891)
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Mar 25, 2008
Werner
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of 19th-century fiction, esp. regionalist fiction
Shelves:
classics
Garland (who wrote in the tradition of regionalist Realism) was a master of short fiction, and these 11 stories demonstrate it. A strong concern for social justice, which he saw denied to the family farmers he wrote about (as it still is to their descendants), and a compassion for his subject's poverty and its debilitating consequences, is evident in many of these stories, esp. "Under the Lion's Paw" and "Up the Cooly." But his characters are not simply whining, passive victims of fate and socie...more
Garland, Hamlin. MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS. (1891). ****. Garland was born in a log cabin in Wisconsin in 1860. His family later moved to Iowa, where he attended the Cedar Valley Seminary. After this, he helped his family move to South Dakota, where they staked a claim on some farmland. Garland, however, had greater ambitions. He wanted to become a teacher. He went to Boston to attend the Boston School of Oratory. He later became a lecturer there and at other local institutions. He made a trip back h...more
Jul 30, 2012
Dusty
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
graduate-school,
read-in-2012
In The American 1890s, a book I'm also working through, Larzer Ziff states that Hamlin Garland considered himself more a reformer than a writer of prose. While I agree that readers are more likely to remember these stories for their unflinching depictions of the United States' rural poor than for their lovely imagery and figurative language, I think it'd be unfair to say they aren't well-written.
The standouts are "Up the Coulee," in which a New York actor returns to the family farm after severa...more
The standouts are "Up the Coulee," in which a New York actor returns to the family farm after severa...more
Glad to have finally read this. There are a couple impressive stories in here: Up the Coolly and A Branch Road in particular (Under the Lion's Paw and The Creamery Man are pretty good too). The themes that run throughout the collection - the brutal hardships of rural life, the cruel circumstances that bind individuals to such a life and the conflict between duty and dreams - are brought out most fully here. The stories that follow these first two certainly aren't bad; they read well and often re...more
I have a soft-spot for "pioneer" authors, Willa Cather and Ole Rolvaag in particular, so I picked up this little collection by Hamlin Garland with high hopes.
Ultimately disappointing. Some of the plots or characters were good and/or touching. . .But his prose was a little cumberous, and I was left with a foul impression of bigotry.
I'm probably just being hypersensitive because of a bias in favor of my own Scandinavian ancestry, but his tone and characterizations of the "stupid Norwegians" was a...more
Ultimately disappointing. Some of the plots or characters were good and/or touching. . .But his prose was a little cumberous, and I was left with a foul impression of bigotry.
I'm probably just being hypersensitive because of a bias in favor of my own Scandinavian ancestry, but his tone and characterizations of the "stupid Norwegians" was a...more
Main-travelled roads was one of the better books I have read. Of all the aspects of the novel, I love the realistic viewpoint of the novel. For example, in the short story, Up in the Coolly, Garland does not portray the life of the farmer as glorious, describing the individuality of the farmer; rather, in the story Garland portrays the life of the farm and Grant, the farmer, as a toilsome, underpaid and underappreciated job like many of the midwestern farms in the late-eighteenth century. I also...more
the stories do a decent job of conveying the bittersweet life on the american farm in the mid- to late-19th century, and the dialect and descriptions of nature are both quite good. but garland never achieves real depth of character (a problem in many short stories), and some of the endings are so abrupt i had to check and see if pages were missing.
I first read this book of short stories in college many moons ago. From time to time I would think about some of the stories that for some reason left a powerful impact upon me. I found another copy a few years ago and from time to time I give the book another read. it is still as good as the first time I read it.
I enjoyed Mr. Garland's style of writing but his stories for the most part are grim. He lived 1860-1940 and that time period is reflected in his writing. In his foreword he speaks of "a record of the privations and hardships of the men and women who subdued the midland wilderness and prepared the way for the present golden age of agriculture." Some of the stories manage to have an optimistic ending, but most do not.
On the Kindle, and I'm mostly listening to the stories when I walk and on my commute to work. Really liking it so far. Garland's well crafted, no-frills language matches the stark Midwestern/prairie lives of the characters, and manages real emotional intensity. Reminds me a little of the brilliant Kansas scenes in Erin McGraw's Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard.
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And now that I finished it, I can see that these stories are fundamental to an understanding of the literature of the M...more
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And now that I finished it, I can see that these stories are fundamental to an understanding of the literature of the M...more
Actually one of my favorite short story books I've ever read. If you like late-19th century writing (Twain, Howells..) you might enjoy these stories too.
This is a neat little collection of short stories about farming in the old west and midwest. Great characters and descriptive writing.
Chronicles Summer School of the Midwest.
Dark, and really, really good
I first read this book in high school, and have read it every other decade or so since. There is only one thing I remember about it now. Garland writes that a man sitting alone in the middle of the bench when driving a buckboard is unfriendly and doesn't want company, but if he sits to either side of the bench, then it is a silent invitation for a pedestrian going his way to jump up and share the ride. For some reason I've always remembered that.
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From wikipedia: Hannibal Hamlin Garland (September 14, 1860 – March 4, 1940) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garlin of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock...more
More about Hamlin Garland...
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garlin of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock...more
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Jan 31, 2013 06:24am