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332nd out of 2,695 books
—
7,459 voters
Plainsong
by
Kent Haruf
A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver.
In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—...more
In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—...more
Paperback, 301 pages
Published
August 22nd 2000
by Vintage
(first published 1999)
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Jun 02, 2013
Steve aka Sckenda
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Lovers of the Plains and Minimalism
Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by:
Ted Posselius
Kent Haruf tells us about two sets of brothers living on the High Plains of Eastern Colorado. Don’t think scenic Rocky Mountains; think flat Texas Panhandle. The minimalist writing of Plainsong mimics the unadorned music of the title as well as the sparse landscape that is home for its characters.
Indeed, the interlocking storylines are melodious, not harmonious. Young brothers, Ike and Bobby, miss their mother, who has moved to Denver because she suffers from severe depression. As the boys cope...more
Indeed, the interlocking storylines are melodious, not harmonious. Young brothers, Ike and Bobby, miss their mother, who has moved to Denver because she suffers from severe depression. As the boys cope...more
This is a quietly beautiful book. I think most Americans -- and maybe others -- are suckers for well-told tales of small town life, even though small towns, and their virtues and vices, are quickly disappearing. This story has finely drawn characters and is centered on the life a high school teacher who is raising his two boys pretty much single handedly as his wife sinks into depression. But the hopeful thread of the story lives in the tale of a young woman who becomes pregnant and must seek he...more
18 likes · like · see review
A graceful, quiet yet powerful book. It is a study of small town life, told through several characters in alternating chapters. There is nothing new here -- just everyday lives with the usual problems. Some people have more good than bad in them, some have more bad than good, and a lot of people just don't know how to balance any of that. The crusty old bachelor brother farmers in particular were wonderful characters.
Haruf has an extraordinary ability to create characters that speak directly fro...more
Haruf has an extraordinary ability to create characters that speak directly fro...more
8 likes · like · see review
Plainsong, and its sequel Eventide, are both beautifully written stories of about simple honest people trying to live their lives as best they can. I cannot overemphasize how well-written these books are. The narrator never intrudes on the story, which may be the best sign of a good writer.
11 likes · like · see review
Apr 14, 2008
Colin Miller
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
novels,
book-club-picks
Plainsong is the story of intersecting lives in Holt, Colorado: Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher with problems in the classroom and at home with his depressed wife who won’t get out of bed. His sons, Ike and Bobby, begin to relate to other people around the town. Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old kicked out of her house and looking for a place to live and be loved. The elderly McPherons are bachelor brothers who don’t know anything about life outside of a farm. High school teache...more
8 likes · like · see review
Oh, what a beautiful book. Haruf's language is so deceptively simple--there's probably not a word in the book beyond sixth grade reading level. But with this simple language, he creates such beautiful, sad, lonely, human people. I'm particularly in love with the McPheron brothers, two elderly bachelor farmer brothers (and they're the single largest reason I think Nance needs to read this book).
Something else about the simplicity of the language--I can't recall a single time that Haruf directly s...more
Something else about the simplicity of the language--I can't recall a single time that Haruf directly s...more
13 likes · like · see review
A National Book Award Finalist, Plainsong by Kent Haruf provides a peek into the heartbreaks and struggles of a handful of characters in a rural Colorado plains community. In separate stories that find a tender, connected resolution, the book follows three families on their emotional pilgrimages. Abandoned by his despondent wife, school teacher Tom Guthrie endeavors to care for his two boys who become the target of bullies. Pregnant and alienated teenager Victoria Roubideux searches for answers...more
I bought this book in Salem, but didn't read it until I was in Montana, which is fitting for the book. Read it again last week, and as it's been a couple of years, I got to enjoy again, as though for the first time, the evocative language of Haruf's writing.
The texture of the language brought out the taste of a bitter winter Colorado wind, rushing along the flat, barren land. The plain spoken people were aptly described, rendering them not necessarily lovable, but realistic, living their lives i...more
The texture of the language brought out the taste of a bitter winter Colorado wind, rushing along the flat, barren land. The plain spoken people were aptly described, rendering them not necessarily lovable, but realistic, living their lives i...more
Plainsong: noun Unaccompanied church music sung in unison and in free rhythm according to the accentuation of the words
When this book was first published, I got the notion it had something to do with religion. Not that I have anything against religious-themed books, it’s just I wasn’t in the mood to read one. I don’t know where, or why, I got the idea, but perhaps my subconscious made the false connection due to the definition of the one-word title. I decided to read Plainsong only after discove...more
I'll read just about any book that takes place in the Midwest/Great Plains. It seems that there are more than usual using this location lately. We don't have oceans, swamps, mountains, or great forests, but we have lots of sky, and I think that does something to you, when you can see forever.
Brace yourself to fall into this subtle, character-driven novel. Haruf skillfully brings the reader into the lives of a select collection of individuals living in the rural town of Holt, Colorado. In their stories you will observe a poignant display of humanity. Each of their unique and yet interconnected stories will remind you of why you believe in good people and leave you with a sense of hope. On the contrary, it will, at times, also remind you of the ugliness that lurks in the world as well...more
3 likes · like · see review
I absolutely loved this book. I had downloaded a sample on my Kindle, and I liked it so much that I waited until I could get the book from a bookstore so that I could experience it fully. It follows the lives of some people in a small town in Colorado. It begins quietly, and continues with little ornamentation -- the title seems apt. It is subtle all the way through, but as in musical plainsong, the parts join together, making a greater whole. There is spare punctuation and no quotation marks, a...more
3 likes · like · see review
I get the point of the novel: to give a glimpse of small town life without extravagance. Beauty in simplicity. But I felt more depressed then touched by Haruf's picture of a whole town of people lonely in their own selfish wandering aimlessly without direction. I didn't like any characters in the book, except for maybe the boys who weren't old enough to yet become bitter, mean, and immoral. Nobody else in the book cared about anyone else as they focused on their small lives. Nobody did anything...more
2 likes · like · see review
The first page of this book has a definition of the word plainsong. It is:
"any simple and unadorned melody or air."
I appreciated this book more than I liked it. The author, Kent Haruf, writes with a vividly clear but simple prose about a small town in northeastern Colorado, a couple of hours from Denver, whose occupants struggle with their choices, their relationships and their opportunities.
Kind of a universal story, honestly, but in this setting - so sparse and empty - Haruf managed to develop...more
"any simple and unadorned melody or air."
I appreciated this book more than I liked it. The author, Kent Haruf, writes with a vividly clear but simple prose about a small town in northeastern Colorado, a couple of hours from Denver, whose occupants struggle with their choices, their relationships and their opportunities.
Kind of a universal story, honestly, but in this setting - so sparse and empty - Haruf managed to develop...more
4 likes · like · see review
I found it a bit irritating that the author always referred to Victoria Roubideaux as "she" except for naming her in the chapter titles, but perhaps that was to emphasize how many other people saw her and treated her.
The fact that I was unable to tell when the story took place also frustrated me. At times I thought it must have taken place in the 50's, but I don't think most teachers hung out in bars in the 50's.
Surely today a teacher would not place a teenage girl in a home with two old bac...more
The fact that I was unable to tell when the story took place also frustrated me. At times I thought it must have taken place in the 50's, but I don't think most teachers hung out in bars in the 50's.
Surely today a teacher would not place a teenage girl in a home with two old bac...more
1 like · like · see review
I'm from the Midwest, and though I agree with my East and West coast friends about some of its annoying (even madening) attributes (odd worship of football for one), I still believe it has a quiet, plain, yet surprising beauty all its own. This book captures that perfectly--the prose is spare, wiped clean of word-clutter, like the view I get out my window as I drive home across Iowa's corn fields. It's unadorned, but beautiful and communicative for that; because it says so little, what it does s...more
2 likes · like · see review
So delicate, so patient, so honest, and so lovely...it is difficult to find words to describe the world that this book gave to me, but what a fine world it was. A slow book, in the best possible way. There is no high drama here. Just the real, live, honest-to-goodness essence of waking up every day and living your life. The characters are full without explanation. They are consistent and unique, totally believable in their elegance and pain. Haruf's voice and tone carried me from page to page in...more
Great book. Very quiet, low-key tone. Multiple characters in a small-town setting in, I think, Wyoming (I read it last year). This book isn't flashy at all, the tone is somewhat elegaic, but he manages to convey a great deal of feeling with simple, eloquent language. There's a whole lot of heart here. If you're looking fos linguistic pyrotechnics, this is the wrong book for you, but if you want something to sink into and be absorbed by, here it is. I look forward to reading his other books.
Plainsong and Eventide by Kent Haruf are related novels about small town life in a fictional town called Holt, Colorado. Using this quintessentially American farming community as his base, Haruf examines what it means to be family and be connected to someone and what it takes to be a good neighbor
In Plainsong we are introduced to Tom Guthrie, a teacher whose wife cannot seem to get out of bed and their two young boys who are bewildered by what is happening in their family. Victoria Roubideaux. a...more
In Plainsong we are introduced to Tom Guthrie, a teacher whose wife cannot seem to get out of bed and their two young boys who are bewildered by what is happening in their family. Victoria Roubideaux. a...more
Plainsong by Kent Haruf is populated by the kind of people who help more readily than they criticize, who see more good than bad most of the time and who recognize that sometimes the simplest action can be the solution to even a complex problem.
A pregnant teenager, an angry mother, two elderly brothers working a ranch on the edge of town; a high-school slacker, a principled teacher, an accomodating principal who just wants calm waters; a kindhearted woman, a mean-spirited teenager, and two young...more
A pregnant teenager, an angry mother, two elderly brothers working a ranch on the edge of town; a high-school slacker, a principled teacher, an accomodating principal who just wants calm waters; a kindhearted woman, a mean-spirited teenager, and two young...more
This book remained unread on my bookshelf for months, because, I think, of its dismal cover: I have a proof copy. What a mistake. This beautifully written, spare, stark book takes as its theme the loosely intermingled lives of various abandoned souls who live in the imagined town of Holt, Colorado.
There's teenage Victoria, pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend; Tom Guthrie, who wife has retreated into deep depression, leaving him with his solemn and perforce self-sufficient young boys, Ike an...more
There's teenage Victoria, pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend; Tom Guthrie, who wife has retreated into deep depression, leaving him with his solemn and perforce self-sufficient young boys, Ike an...more
Ah, what a lovely little book. I had never read any Kent Haruf before, but I fully intend to read more. This is a loving, gentle evocation of a time and place where, though they don't always get along, the people know and understand each other. In the very best way, this book reminded me of Wendell Berry, one of my favorite authors.
Plainsong is one in a series of novels about Holt, Colorado, a fictional town about an hour's drive from Denver. It is urban enough to have a thriving downtown, but r...more
Plainsong is one in a series of novels about Holt, Colorado, a fictional town about an hour's drive from Denver. It is urban enough to have a thriving downtown, but r...more
I first read Plainsong several years ago, and reading it again now reminds me of how much good book is like meeting an old, cherished friend. Much is the same, but there are always new things to discover. Set in Holt, Colorado, outside Denver, this character-driven novel plays out in cold weather, an oppressive cold that seeps into the reader as well as the characters.
It is told by four sets of characters, third person: Guthrie, a high-school teacher, his two sons, Ike and Bobby (9,10), Victori...more
It is told by four sets of characters, third person: Guthrie, a high-school teacher, his two sons, Ike and Bobby (9,10), Victori...more
A book that, for me, tests the star rating system. This was a truly wonderful read, sucking you in to this small community, engaging you in the lives of a few very rich characters as they go through a little less than a year of their lives. I read on wanting more and regretting it's leaving.
It's not quite a profound book, though. The tale is a little small and the characters gems but, with the possible exception of the McPherons, not memorable. You get to touch their lives but no more. In a way,...more
It's not quite a profound book, though. The tale is a little small and the characters gems but, with the possible exception of the McPherons, not memorable. You get to touch their lives but no more. In a way,...more
Reading Plainsong immediately after Hunting and Gathering invites comparisons between the two: both novels begin with seemingly unconnected characters who, as the narrative progresses, become intimately intertwined in the lives of one another; both novels are unexpectedly hopeful, despite plot events that might suggest misery (in Plainsong: a seventeen year old pregnant, a depressed mother who cannot care for her two young boys, a delinquent youth who tortures the same young boys); both novels b...more
Plainsong: any simple and unadorned melody. This definition of the word aptly describes the book by the same name, written by Colorado author, Kent Haruf. Like a soft breeze rustling the stalks of winter wheat, this story liltingly tells the tale of the fictional residents of Holt, Colorado, out on the eastern plains. In a subtle and restrained manner, events are played out, personalities are developed, and mundane, everyday life is described with a simple beauty. Routine is interrupted by the i...more
I want to say this book is sweet, but I'm afraid that would give the wrong impression. There's mess here, in the form of multiple kinds of loss, multiple kinds of violence, multiple kinds of fear. Not everything is tied up in the end, not by a long shot. But the overall impression is of hope. This book is sweet in the way an apple is on a hot autumn day, when you're thirsty and the apple is a little dusty and warm from the sun. Or the way freshly dried hay smells sweet. It's a nourishing kind of...more
When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be like the television series "Lost". What I mean by that is I was hoping that it would be fast pace, mysterious, and exciting. It didn't end up exactly fitting my expectations, but different isn't always bad. The beginning was kinda slow and hard to follow. But as it went on and as a met more characters, it was hard to put down. Each chapter is labeled with a characters name. Haruf goes back and forth between characters, almost like a s...more
Plainsong is a slow, marching story based in a small Colorado town. The story centers around a diverse array of characters. There is Guthrie, a school teacher whose wife is basically a ghost that wants to leave them. There is Ike and Bobby, Guthrie's two boys, who are trying to make sense of their parents' deteriorating relationship. Then there is Victoria, a teenage girl who is pregnant. After her mother kicks her out of the house, she goes to live with two elderly brothers, the McPherons, who...more
When people noticed I was reading "Peace Like a River," they kept recommending Plainsong, then my wife brought it home from the library to recommend to her book group, so I read it.
Amazing, and not at all like Peace Like a River in style or content. Yes, there are kids - well, Oliver Twist has kids, too, what is that supposed to mean?
Kent Haruf has that uncanny ability to not "paint with words," but to take black and white photos with words. I knew I was in for something when the first few pages...more
Amazing, and not at all like Peace Like a River in style or content. Yes, there are kids - well, Oliver Twist has kids, too, what is that supposed to mean?
Kent Haruf has that uncanny ability to not "paint with words," but to take black and white photos with words. I knew I was in for something when the first few pages...more
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Kent Haruf was born in eastern Colorado. He received his Bachelors of Arts in literature from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and his Masters of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. For two years, he taught English in Turkey with the Peace Corps and his other jobs have included a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation...more
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“Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are.”
—
5 people liked it
“Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.”
—
2 people liked it
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Sep 26, 2012 07:12pm
Oct 02, 2012 06:45pm