A Thousand Acres

Aug 19, 2008 Glen Engel-Cox rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: keepers

When this book was chosen by our book club for this month's theme of "tragedy," I approached reading it with some trepidation. There are a number of things that I don't care for in literature, and one of them is the family drama which centers on the drama as drama for its own sake, rather than to say something more about the world. Part of my bias against this kind of writing comes from having cut my eyeteeth on science fiction, the literature of ideas which, at its best, is about today as much...more When this book was chosen by our book club for this month's theme of "tragedy," I approached reading it with some trepidation. There are a number of things that I don't care for in literature, and one of them is the family drama which centers on the drama as drama for its own sake, rather than to say something more about the world. Part of my bias against this kind of writing comes from having cut my eyeteeth on science fiction, the literature of ideas which, at its best, is about today as much as it is about a future. I also spent three years in a creative writing program where, god bless them, my fellow students seemed to spend a lot of time writing autobiographical stories that didn't have much to say beyond it sucks to grow up in fill-in-the-blank. The book had won a Pulitzer, and if there's anything I learned in my MFA classes on literature, an award was often a signal that a book was not for the reader but written for the critics. A Thousand Acres screamed to me from its cover that it was that kind of book, that focused on the dissolution of the family as seen through a retelling of the King Lear story. I shuddered.

But, really, I shouldn't have. Having previously read two books by Jane Smiley (the quite amusing MOO and the intelligent and thoughtful Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel), I should have given her the benefit of the doubt. Within the first fifty pages, I was surprised that Smiley had drawn me into her story, and while it was still fairly mundane (the family dog wasn't going to start talking on page 100, to my dismay), I found the voice of the narrator intriguing and wondered just how much of King Lear Smiley was going to be able to transpose to 1970s Iowa. Turns out, quite a bit, in a wondrously deft way that I would have termed a 'tour de force' if I used that phrase anymore.

The narrator is the eldest of the three daughters, and instead of a king dividing up his kingdom, the family farm is to be divided among the daughters somewhat early by forming a corporation in which he gives control of the farm to the children, in a sudden move that delights the older daughters and their husbands and alarms the youngest, who no longer lives on the farm nor has much to do with it. Her concern about the alacrity of his decision infuriates the father, so much that he cuts her out of the paperwork process and thus the land itself. Pretty much every plot point in the Shakespearean play is touched upon in some manner, but never so roughly that the connections feel strained. If anything, Smiley's version is much, much more subtle in its understanding of the characters' motivations, giving both a sympathetic portrait of the older two sisters that is entirely missing in the play, as well as making the Lear figure less of a madman and more of a stubborn one, such that when his stubbornness leads him into the rain, his madness becomes if not sensible, at least reasonable. You don't necessarily take any one character's side in this fight, but none seems such a villain.

What Smiley does that, I think, one-ups Shakespeare even more than making the female characters sympathetic is that she truly makes the tragedy about the land as about the people. In the background, and infusing everything the character's do to a point, is the thousand acres of the title. Perhaps it is because it is hard for us to imagine a kingdom as something one can own and pass to your children, for it's very easy to grasp the concept of these thousand acres, how much they mean to the family, and how tragic it is that this family cannot hold on to that land. In the past, I've been less than sympathetic to the concept of the family farm, but even my cold heart can't read what Smiley has described here and see it as anything but a tragedy.

What this novel has over the modern literature that I feared it would be is not only a plot (people die here, not to mention being maimed and insulted and cruelly treated) but a larger meaning, and that big picture of this being more than just a personal tragedy, is what makes this worthwhile reading. Out of the group who read this for book club, I turned out to rate this book the highest, and that is to say, I recommend it strongly.(less)

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Jun 27, 2008 Joe S rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Joe by: My father. Who'da thunk?

Shelves: novels

This book won a Pulitzer back in that day, and that pisses me off. Although, really, I should know better by now. I'm always burned by the Pulitzers.

Based on the rough plot of King Lear, yes, which is objectively the worst of Shakespeare's plays and that should say something. This book is an excellent example of why everyone should leave psychological novels to the Russians and Henry James. Nothing strictly happens, of course, just like in Lear (except there, at least, everyone dies in interesti...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Steve rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

A clunky retelling of Lear. Only at the very end do you get a touch of Lear's darkness, but it's not enough to save the novel. One of the most overrated novels I've ever read. I think this book won some awards, and might of been an Oprah Book before there were Oprah Books. A classic example of why some awards and book club favorites are not to be trusted. Come to think of it, I've only read one great novel by Smiley, The Greenlanders. And that book is unlike anything else she's done.

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May 18, 2012 Scott Axsom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Written in 1991, Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning “A Thousand Acres” pretends to be about the death of the American farm but, if I’ve ever read a book richer in subtext, I cannot recall it. She tells the story via the lives of three daughters of a third generation farming family in Iowa in the 1970’s. Through the obsequious character of Ginny, Smiley describes the ethos of small town/agrarian American life in unrelenting detail and, by doing so, she describes the death of an American myth.

The laye...more Written in 1991, Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning “A Thousand Acres” pretends to be about the death of the American farm but, if I’ve ever read a book richer in subtext, I cannot recall it. She tells the story via the lives of three daughters of a third generation farming family in Iowa in the 1970’s. Through the obsequious character of Ginny, Smiley describes the ethos of small town/agrarian American life in unrelenting detail and, by doing so, she describes the death of an American myth.

The layers of “A Thousand Acres” are many and Smiley offers a measureless stream of betrayal and death; the death of innocence, of illusion, of hope, of trust, of a way of life and, most of all, the death of a family resulting from the exposure of its most sacred myths to the stark light of honest reflection. She describes with heart-rending frankness the universally-familiar Machiavellian aspects of family dynamics and, by placing them in the context of the great American bucolic dream, she renders them commonplace.

As the middle sister, Rose, comes to the sharp focus that cancer brings [not a spoiler], she describes her mother’s well-worn advice; “I’m grabby and jealous and selfish and Mommy said it would drive people away, so I’ve been good at hiding it… You’ll notice that Mommy never said, ‘Rose, just be yourself.’” Rose's realization summarizes life in small town America, or in any family, be it natural or chosen. There are myths to which we subscribe and succumb, regarding our friends, our loved ones, our selves – myths that we’re convinced make life easier, make our relationships functional - and “A Thousand Acres” is a stark and painfully beautiful description of the cancer (both physical and psychic) that those myths, in truth, represent. The tale serves as a profound reminder to live honestly and authentically, regardless of the pain that's sometimes necessary to achieve such a state of grace.

I’ve been lucky in my reading lately. I’ve just completed two of the best books I’ve ever read; “Angle of Repose” followed by “A Thousand Acres”. This book, I think, is now tied for second, along with “The Grapes of Wrath”, among my favorite books of all time. This is a truly Pulitzer-worthy novel and one I’d recommend to anyone who longs to understand the pernicious, sometimes ruinous, natures of both American and family mythologies. A poignant and eye-opening read.
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Jan 05, 2008 Angela Wynne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A simple story-family lives on and works a 1,000 acre farm that has been in the family for four generations. Father, Larry, decides to retire and leave the farm to his three daughters. Dad acts funky, daughters become concerned, family unravels, peope die, people get angry, people leave, etc. Boring, right?

Wrong!! The beauty of this story IS its simplicity. However, the characters, like real people are quite complex. They move through life vastly unaware of their motivations. Through the course...more A simple story-family lives on and works a 1,000 acre farm that has been in the family for four generations. Father, Larry, decides to retire and leave the farm to his three daughters. Dad acts funky, daughters become concerned, family unravels, peope die, people get angry, people leave, etc. Boring, right?

Wrong!! The beauty of this story IS its simplicity. However, the characters, like real people are quite complex. They move through life vastly unaware of their motivations. Through the course of events that follow, the characters reveal themselves to Ginny (the main character and oldest daughter of Larry) in various ways. Ginny, to this point has been going through her day to day life without questioning her motivations or those within her tightly knit circle.

There is a pivotal point in the story where Ginny sees the people and things in her life for what they truly are. She does not like what she sees and decides to turn her back on the life that she has always known. In so doing, she seeks to make a life for herself-one that is hers and hers alone.

The various catastrophic events and revelations (I am not giving anything away) that lead Ginny to this point, punctuate the power that parents have over their children. That power can become lethal and suffocating when abused on so many levels.

A note on the other two sisters-Rose and Caroline---Rose's name is particularly interesting to me. She is portrayed as a very attractive woman who tends to be coarse and unsentimental(petals and thorns). Rose is completely selfish and makes no effort to conceal this fact. In the end, she may have been the only character who did understand herself. Even at the end of her life, she had no illusions about who and what she had been.

Caroline, the youngest, was seemingly detached from the family in general. She was the only sister who moved away from the farm and made a life for herself in the city. Caroline, a lawyer, moved in and out of the story and provided an interesting juxtaposition to the other two sisters.

I was interested in the book from the very first word and became more and more intrigued as I read. There were several events that were utterly shocking, but even so, I never questioned their plausability. Smiley did an excellent job of convincing me of the believablility of these characters and their actions. For one week I lived with them and watched their every move with interest and ultimately horror.

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Nov 18, 2007 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres, (Harper Perennial, London, 2004)

This is an interesting novel, to say the least. I came to it with prejudice, I must admit, as it's a reworking of Shakespeare's King Lear, a play that I love and that I'm currently working on for my dissertation. So then, on reading the blurb, I immediately thought that Smiley's novel would involve her murdering the play. I was wrong.

What happens, in fact, is that Smiley puts her own spin on the story of Lear and his daughters, just...more

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May 15, 2009 Saxon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: school

This won a Pulitzer Prize and acts as yet another testament to why the Pulitzer Prize should largely be ignored. However, the fact that it did win a Pulitzer makes me feel less embarrassed about reading it...even if it was just for class.

A Thousand Acres, told from the middle of three daughters, is a story about a small farming community in rural Iowa during the mid-1970s and is loosely based on King Lear. A bunch of tragic shit happens that is mostly the fault of the men. This proves to be Smil...more

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Sep 26, 2008 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: play-film

This is a modern retelling of King Lear and is a tragedy. The location is the midwest and the father is planning on turning over his property (farm) to his 3 daughters. Everything has its price. And these daughters have paid it. This is a well-written novel which deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize. Nonetheless I found it depressing and haunting.

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Apr 08, 2013 Clif Hostetler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

I read this book sometime during the 90s long before my Goodreads.com days. The following review is from PageADay Book Lover's Calendar for April 7, 2013:

It has to be said that Jane Smiley’s inspiration for this novel came from Shakespeare’s King Lear, and yet in this Pulitzer Prize winner she makes the terrain of familial betrayal wholly her own. Smiley’s most sympathetically drawn characters are the two oldest sisters who compete for love in all the wrong places. The writing is wonderful, the...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all my friends

Recommended to Becky by: Mom

This story is much more profound that I originally expected it to be. Three daughters raised under similar circumstances,but each reacted very differently to their childhood. There is a lot of depth to the characters in this book, even some of the minor ones. Humans are so complex and so interesting.

Ginny (the oldest daughter) just adapted to whatever circumstances came her way. Most people would call this 'easy to get along with'. But it caused a lot of miscommunication and unhappiness. It made...more

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Apr 22, 2008 Cynthia rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just didn't get this book. I think this Pulitzer Prize winning book was just over my head.

This story involves a Iowa farm family (3 daughters with their husbands and their overbearing, stubborn, old school father). Their farm is their life (with the exception of one daughter, Caroline, who became a lawyer). The father decides to relinguish control over the family farm and sign it over to his two oldest daughters, Ginny and Rose, and their husbands (Ty and Frank?) . Well he immediately regrets...more

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Nov 02, 2007 Lisa Findley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read A Thousand Acres as part of a senior seminar. We read King Lear first and then this modern take on it, and that was a great way to do it. You get the historical and literary context of the novel and also an almost brutal comparison of who's good, who's bad, who's complicated, and what does it mean for the themes of power, loss, and loyalty.

I read a quote from Jane Smiley in which she said someone had come up to her and said that they loved this book. She said she appreciated the complimen...more

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Sep 01, 2007 Johnsergeant rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiblecom, recorded_books, fiction

Narrated By: C. J. Critt

Awards -
Pulitzer Prize Winner

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jane Smiley’s spellbinding novel also headed best-seller lists for many months. A Thousand Acres is the powerful, mythic story of an American farm family and the land that nourishes and consumes its members. Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family’s ferti...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Peter rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of Shakespeare; feminists readers

Jane Smiley's take on William Shakespeare's King Lear is a powerful story of anger, redemption and guilt. Smiley's plot follows Shakespeare's closely: Larry Cook is an Iowa patriarch who decides to divide his farm among his three daughters: Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Problems arise immediately when Caroline, the youngest, voices doubt and is instantly cast out of the family. The remaining two daughters begin to gradually wrestle any control away from their father, who in turns responds to his eve...more Jane Smiley's take on William Shakespeare's King Lear is a powerful story of anger, redemption and guilt. Smiley's plot follows Shakespeare's closely: Larry Cook is an Iowa patriarch who decides to divide his farm among his three daughters: Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Problems arise immediately when Caroline, the youngest, voices doubt and is instantly cast out of the family. The remaining two daughters begin to gradually wrestle any control away from their father, who in turns responds to his ever-dwindling authority with hysterical rage. Secrets of the family's past surface, that threaten to disrupt familial ties.

William Shakespeare's King Lear is a flawed character, typical of his tragic figures in that he is an agent in his own demise, yet also a victim of his surroundings and his fate. Smiley's version of Lear, "Larry" is a fire-breathing monstor who doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities about him. Smiley doesn't try to spend too much time making Larry Cook into a three-dimensional character, because he serves as a plot device to get her literary agenda across, mainly through the trials that befall on Ginny and Rose.

Shakespeare's trio of daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia aren't as fully realized as Smiley's creations -- not surprisingly, given that women characters weren't Shakespeare's strongest point. Ginny and Rose are both as conniving as Goneril and Regan, though Smiley gives them a doozy of a back plot which justifies some of their actions -- and when the reader starts to think that maybe Smiley is using the characters' tragedies as excuses for the women to absolve themselves of guilt, she writes a wonderful and redemptive final act of forgiveness for Ginny, while Rose, through her anger, morphs into another Larry. Smiley isn't as interested in Caroline, either, painting her "good girl" role with such ironic scepticism, that she also appears only to move the story forward and to give Ginny and Rose another common enemy to battle.

Smiley's novel is fraught with a lot of ideas she wants to put across -- mainly the plight of the American woman living in a man's world, be it a farm in Iowa, or a kingdom in England. The point is necessary to address, and most of the time Smiley does an incredible job in showing just how toxic and dangerous mistreating women could be. (less)

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Mar 12, 2008 Chu Yi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: advisory

I did not enjoy reading this book, but I am glad I managed to get it done. I hate all the family issues and questions that were raised because it seem very unsympathetic and I could not understand why would family members do things like that to each other. Larry, the father of the family decided to pass his 1000 acres famr to his three daughters, but the youngest, Caroline turned him down. So the other two daughters, Ginny and Rose and their husbands took over the farm. What I couldn't understan...more

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Dec 04, 2007 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a hard book to read. It is Smiley's adaptation of King Lear, told from the point of view of one of his daughters. Most of the characters are good sorts of folks--or at least can be decent--except the father, who is a shallow and evil man.

What makes this book hard to read is that it is like watching a loved one with an addiction that goes untreated. The demise is horrible and inevitable, and the characters lack the insight to avoid it. One of the women in the book, the narrator, does com...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book kept me so interested all of the way through. It is one of those very well written books by a superb author. But unlike many such books, I felt no difficulty at any point. I was just so caught up in the story, despite the fact that I knew going in that it was a modern version of King Lear and therefore had a head's up on the story line. But Smiley incorporated the aspects of King Lear so smoothly into the plot that it was completely believable and, what's more, understandable. I love i...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Corey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Probably a little over written, A Thousand Acres is my introduction to Smiley. Though I'll confess to not caring for Shakespeare very much (I can appreciate him from a scholarly standpoint, but not enough to actually enjoy reading the work), and the fact that I have never read King Lear, my guess is this is probably an over-written take on it. This was a book not without it's lulls, but in certain places where it was good, it was REALLY good. The writing rarely "wow"ed me, but the characters wer...more

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Mar 14, 2009 Visha Burkart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Picked this up because once again, a retelling of Lear has hit the shelves (Chris Moore's FOOL) and Entertainment Weekly did a write up about Lear re-tellings and this one was mentioned. Was impressed - highly readable, incorporates fascinating facts specific to a time and place (1979's Iowa farmland), OUTSTANDING characters (although you, like me, may want to beat the shit out of some of them, including Ginny, the narrator), compelling narrative drive - honestly, I took a morning off and just h...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-to-film, favorites

This book was truly mesmerizing to me. I can't distinctly put my finger on what make this book entirely un-put-down-able. This story is set on a family farm in Iowa from a period between (circa) 1977 to 1980, a time and place as anachronistic to me as Japan in the 1830's; however, through Smiley's writing style I was there, I could see the beauty of the farms, smell their smells, and feel what it was like to kick dried mud off a tractor tire. Smiley is likely very faithful to farming, she used a...more This book was truly mesmerizing to me. I can't distinctly put my finger on what make this book entirely un-put-down-able. This story is set on a family farm in Iowa from a period between (circa) 1977 to 1980, a time and place as anachronistic to me as Japan in the 1830's; however, through Smiley's writing style I was there, I could see the beauty of the farms, smell their smells, and feel what it was like to kick dried mud off a tractor tire. Smiley is likely very faithful to farming, she used a lot of references to the art, science, and machinery of farming, but I wouldn't know at all, but I didn't get lost in those details either.

The characters are probably what made this book the most remarkable for me. The two oldest sisters (Ginny and Rose) had a relationship that is seemingly similar to that of me and my sister (without the shared sexual partners thing) with one having a dominant and angry/aggressive demeanor and the other (that would be me) being more likely to avoid confrontation at all costs and behave in a way that she knows will allow her to be accepted by her peers.

However, the characters are where she had her minor set-backs for me as well. 1) The character of Caroline (the youngest sister) was kind of a non-event for me, I never could fully understand where she was coming from, which perhaps you're not supposed to because the protagonist (Ginny) doesn't understand her sister either--a definite possibility in the first-person narration, we're subject to the knowledge and perspective of the narrator; and 2) The character of Ty (Ginny's husband). I absolutely loved Ty, I could see myself (having a personality on the Ginny end of the continuum) being comfortable with Ty, following his lead and trusting him to run the farm successfully. I didn't understand Ginny's restlessness and why she left for St. Paul; I think this was critical, and Smiley wrote it as if Ginny made decisions in regard to her relationship with Ty without ever knowing why she was making the decisions.

The plot of the story was immensely complex, and (based on the advice Smiley gives in her book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel) I kept thinking to myself, "This climax is coming way too early," because what I thought was the climax was only rising action. Smiley had so much complexity in the interpersonal relationships that unfolded (without becoming confusing or tedious) that you just were completely immersed in the goings-on of this family. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised--she won a Pulitzer prize for this, and you don't get those from writing a human/vampire/werewolf love triangle story, it's got to be unique and teaching and entertaining and novel and wonderful (all of which this book is).

All in all, Smiley has a great lyrical writing style and a complex storyline that is totally worth the 371 pages that you'll read. She got knocked down to an A (rather than A+) because of the minor character flaws I felt.

On a side note, Smiley was living in Iowa at the time that she wrote this, I know (from reading her nonfiction work) that she was later divorced and now lives in San Francisco (remarried, I believe), and I wonder if any of that was going on around the time she was writing this and/or if that had an effect on the shape this story took. (less)

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Jan 11, 2009 Faith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005

I bought this book last August, and only now I got to read it. It was sertainly worth waiting for... Or, well, waht I mean is that it is totally great! "A great American tragedy about the failure of a family's land and the failure of its love", Independent says on the cover of my copy of the book. That's it in a nutshell. Larry Cook owns a farm of a thousand acres, and he desides to retire and hand the farm over to his three daughters and their husbands... And then everything starts going wrong....more

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Jan 04, 2009 Antof9 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005-read, depressing, fathers, made-me-cry, upsetting, women

Well, I've processed the book a bit, and I also watched the DVD. I'm still trying to decide if I'd say I "liked" it or not. I guess I did like it, but I didn't love it. It was interesting to me that while reading the book, I could kind of picture some of the beautiful cinematography that the movie captured. That doesn't usually happen for me :) I was also somewhat distracted by the fact that I knew the two women who were in the movie. So although I didn't know which was played by whom, I kept pi...more Well, I've processed the book a bit, and I also watched the DVD. I'm still trying to decide if I'd say I "liked" it or not. I guess I did like it, but I didn't love it. It was interesting to me that while reading the book, I could kind of picture some of the beautiful cinematography that the movie captured. That doesn't usually happen for me :) I was also somewhat distracted by the fact that I knew the two women who were in the movie. So although I didn't know which was played by whom, I kept picturing one or the other of their faces while I was reading.

I think the reason I don't love this book is that there's not a lot of hope in it. It's incredibly well-written, mostly believable and wholly authentic, but it's also very sad. I felt sorry, really, for almost all of the characters by the end.

One passage I enjoyed was about "being an aunt" -- surprise, surprise!

Pammy came up to the table next to me, and I put my arm around her waist.  She said, "Can I make some popcorn?"

I said, "Sure."

She said, "Will you help me?"  She knew one of the great family truths, that aunts always help, while moms always think it would be good for you if you did it yourself.

I did like her relationship with Pammy and Linda, but I was also sad about Rose's relationship with them. The whole thing was very odd, and of course Jess asking about the well water just compounded how I felt about it.

Re: the movie -- I remember thinking while I was reading the book that there was no way the movie could accurately represent it all -- there was too much! And I think I was right. While I was watching it, I was thinking that I wouldn't understand it at all if I hadn't read the book.

Two things of note from the movie -- that I don't remember from the book but may have been in it -- at one point, the narrator says "the death of a parent is the one misfortune for which there is no compensation". As someone who lost a parent, I couldn't agree more. I thought that was so profound. And then at the very end, the thing that (I think) made me like the movie more than the book, she said this about Rose's girls -- "they have something Rose and I never had -- hope."(less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Diane Gilbert-snyder rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is surprisingly easy to find bad reviews of A Thousand Acres in the literary press, and surprisingly difficult to find any reviews of it there by women. Is there a connection? I wonder. The story, a retelling of King Lear set in late 1970s rural Iowa, is narrated in first person by the oldest of the three daughters, a character reviled as evil in Shakespeare’s play, but with whom we greatly sympathize in Jane Smiley’s novel. Many reviewers could not seem to get past this central deviation, ex...more It is surprisingly easy to find bad reviews of A Thousand Acres in the literary press, and surprisingly difficult to find any reviews of it there by women. Is there a connection? I wonder. The story, a retelling of King Lear set in late 1970s rural Iowa, is narrated in first person by the oldest of the three daughters, a character reviled as evil in Shakespeare’s play, but with whom we greatly sympathize in Jane Smiley’s novel. Many reviewers could not seem to get past this central deviation, expressing criticism, in particular, of what Smiley did with Lear’s counterpart, Larry Cook. Christopher Lehman-Haupt in the New York Times said: “It seems too much to have made Larry Cook a sexual abuser of Ginny and Rose in their childhood. Lear himself is hugely egotistical, but to push his selfishness into pathological monstrosity insults him retroactively and robs him of majesty.” In my view, this takes the comparison between book and play way too far, and does the novel a disservice. For, although wondering how far the parallels will go is part of the fun of reading A Thousand Acres, this book is much more than “King Lear in a cornfield.” It is a terrific drama in its own right, the theme of feminine submission is central to its plot, and Smiley’s handling of it is just plain brilliant.
What woman—of my generation or earlier, anyway—hasn’t known at least one man, whether her father or some other authority figure, who made it abundantly clear, implicitly or explicitly, that, as Larry Cook puts it on page 183, “There’s only one side here and you’d better be on it.” Even were I to view Smiley’s depiction of Larry as incest perpetrator to be an offense against Shakespeare, I could still only marvel at the convincing, complex portrait she draws of Ginny, who begins the story as a dutiful wife and daughter who knows her place and doesn’t question it, and ends it as an independent woman who looks the truth in the eye without flinching, believing that being dead is “preferable to returning to the life I had lived before.” Smiley leads us through her transformation seamlessly, steeping us in an understanding of the subjugated psyche at every stage, starting with the unconscious status-quo: “It was easy, sitting there and looking at him, to see it his way. What did we deserve, after all? There he stood, the living source of it all, of us all… When he talked he had this effect on me. Of course it was silly to talk about ‘my point of view.’ When my father asserted his point of view, mine vanished. Not even I could remember it."
The inability to remember and the self-effacing reflex are trademarks of victims of abuse and lesser forms of subjugation, and are in part what makes these things so difficult to write about. But, as Smiley shows, it is quite possible to write about that very inability. When Ginny finally does begin to recall trauma long buried, it never gels “into a full figure, but always remained fragments of sound and smell and presence." It is her sister Rose who has a “special talent” for “remembering, knowing, judging, as if continually viewing our father through the cross hairs of a bombsight,” and who, on the subject of remembering, delivers some of the most powerful words in the novel as she faces death from breast cancer: “I have no accomplishments. I didn’t teach long enough to know what I was doing. I didn’t make a good life with Pete. I didn’t shepherd my daughters into adulthood… I didn’t work the farm successfully… So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn’t forgive the unforgiveable… That’s my sole, solitary, lonely accomplishment." But what an accomplishment, and what an inspiration for writing—and for calling the dynamics of King Lear into service, for that matter.
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Feb 24, 2013 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The plot follows Shakespeare's "King Lear": in 1979 a prosperous Iowa farmer decides to split his farm between his daughters, leaving out the youngest because of her supposed indifference. As a result of this loss of power and control over everyone's life, he slowly goes mad and blames his two eldest. In a parallel plot, a neighbor manipulates his two sons w/ the carrot of inheritance; the favorite son has been gone for 13 years as a result of dodging the draft while his brother faithfully farms...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Nicole Dillie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

This novel is part of a great tradition of novels that take on the literary burden of a great work. In this case we read King Lear on an Iowa farm. From the beginning, you know more or less what will happen, so what kept me reading was what this new setting and cast brought to the familiar story.

Zebulon county is heavy beneath the weight of its crops and its history. There is a viewpoint particular to this place, beyond the belief in appearances the Ginny, the narrator, clings to for much of the...more

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Jan 31, 2013 David Clark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2013

Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres is not recommended for readers needing happy or uplifting stories. However, for those readers who revel in graceful prose and finely observed relationships, this novel is for you.

Smiley tells a story that on the surface describes the implosion of a solid prosperous Iowa farm family. The Cook family, like many successful midwestern multi-generational farm families, failed to adequately account for the dangers implicit when passing control from older to young...more Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres is not recommended for readers needing happy or uplifting stories. However, for those readers who revel in graceful prose and finely observed relationships, this novel is for you.

Smiley tells a story that on the surface describes the implosion of a solid prosperous Iowa farm family. The Cook family, like many successful midwestern multi-generational farm families, failed to adequately account for the dangers implicit when passing control from older to younger generations or the treacherous economic conditions that exploded during the final decades of the 20th century. While the economic tale has become well known, Smiley’s principle interest resides in the dissonance found below the surface, a calm surface marked by church pot-lucks, hard-work, and taciturn small-town manners that also hides a viscous under-tow of incest, abuse, hate, patricide, and even murder. While these recent farming economics may reflect an extreme aberration, the author’s use of Shakespeare’s King Lear as a matrix on which to frame her modern story suggests inter and intra generational struggles are universal and there is “nothing new under the sun” when it comes to the human heart.

Jane Smiley’s prose is a delight to read and a model for novel construction. While some critics were unimpressed by this modern Lear re-telling, I found her use of the “Elder sister” Ginny as narrator (That would be Goneril for those who don’t quite remember their Shakespeare), a most un-Shakespeare like treatment of Caroline (the Cordelia character), and a far more detailed and nuanced description of Daddy Cook (Lear) made this story fresh. I was aware of the matrix; it just didn’t matter.

I come from Midwestern farm stock(Iowa, actually) and found Smiley’s descriptions of people and places uncomfortably accurate. During the last thirty years the farm crises produced countless stories of suffering, culture destruction, and displacement. Without a doubt, this narrative documented the withering of many long-standing farm communities and represented a significant cultural loss. Although understandable, these same stories often reinforced many distorted small town myths, myths that might once have been true but no longer approximate the truth. Smiley’s novel suggests that small towns, family farms, and stable multi-generational communities are not now nor ever were protection against the human heart’s tendency toward self-seeking. This tale is replete with all too accurate descriptions of the tragic long-term consequences of sexual abuse, repressed hate, and vengeance.

New readers of A Thousand Acres may consider this narrative of family dysfunction, particularly the incest, represents a too-often trod path. It is well to remember Smiley’s book is now over twenty years old. When it was written, in the middle of the farm crisis, our culture’s sensitivity to sexual abuse was significantly less than our own. However, as Shakespeare’s continued popularity attests, good stories tell tales about the human heart—and these stories never get old.

However King Lear—often described as the most theological of Shakespeare’s plays—carries a hint of redemption or at least insight that is notably absent in Smiley’s novel. Lear, unlike the elder Cook, in the last act is able see Cordelia’s actions as gestures of love; the Shakespearian protagonist’s suicide would seem a sign of the old King’s acceptance of at least a degree of culpability and finitude. Smiley’s Ginny, unlike Goneril who when her evil plans failed killed herself, is blandly grateful that the attempted murder of her sister by poison was unsuccessful. The book ends with her noting, “. . . that a burden had been lifted.” But it is not clear if this expression simply reflects the reality that Rose was dying from cancer and Ginny’s homicidal actions were no longer needed, or if Ginny now saw her actions as evil and possessed a modicum of genuine remorse.

Smiley’s characters are thoroughly modern. They have, in ways Shakespeare’s characters have not, lost confidence in any outside standard of right or wrong. The inept interventions by the local pastor and inadequate cultural mores leave the inhabitants of A Thousand Acres adrift in a sort of existential narcissism.
The book comes to a close, as do many of the recent farm narratives, with a sterile farm sale, a prose image not dissimilar to Roman guards dividing the crucified Christ’s cloak. But, life does go on—in real life and in the novel. Unlike most TV dramas, Smiley leaves the reader unsettled and unresolved; Ginny and Rose’s two children simply survive and “move on.” Perhaps, like death camp survivors, Smiley suggests Ginny, Ty, and her nieces' triumph is the opportunity to try again.

In the novel's epilogue, it seems the only cost to the survivors is paying an estate-tax bill; an act Ginny can imagine only as a transaction--a most peculiar personal transaction. She reaches a deal with the IRS to pay her share of the tax over 14 years. To be sure, she notes that her act will keep Rose’s children from the burden, but she is “. . .glad to pay it,” but not as a gift or act of love; Ginny is glad to remit the money because it pays off “her regrets.” In this modern view, a view I think Shakespeare would have found strange, Ginny’s moral imagination—like all the other characters—is stunted, able only to process personal feelings and needs. In considering the legacy of her father, his lack of remorse, a memory Ginny will safeguard above all others, she remembers this deficit as, “. . .wrapping him in an impenetrable fog of self.”

I left the book with a a profound sadness. Smiley has beautifully articulated the peculiar modern infatuation with self. This is an infatuation that corrodes all possibility of human relationships; an infatuation that by its pervasiveness allows survivors to see others looking into Narcissus’ mirror but makes them blind to the mirror before their own eyes. However, a reader looking for a hope greater than simple existence will need to look elsewhere. Indeed, A Thousand Acres is a modern tragedy. (less)

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Jan 09, 2013 Janet rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a wonderful book. I remember it got great reviews, won awards when it first came out in 1991. I put it on my 'to read' booklist but in those days my list was scribbled on random pieces of paper and I guess it never got moved to my final booklist. Even so I am amazed that I have never read it. I am so glad that I finally did; I consider it a good omen that this is my first book of the new year.

This is a book dependent on the characters and the superb way they are written. Every character...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dyanamics of disfunctional family relationship in context of a contested family farm inheritence. The clash sets sister against sister and dredges up forgotten painful memories. The narrator, Ginny, ultimately decides she cannot continue to live an existence based on lies and conformance to other's expectations.

Few quotes / excerpts:

Cancer: I was depressed but that was a side issue. This was more like having a garage sale where you look at everything you've bought in your life and remember how...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Ajay R rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An ageing person decides to split his possessions among his 3 daughters. Two of them agree to it, but one seems against it. Wait a second here. Does this sound familiar. Even those who haven't read the unabridged versions of the bard (like me) would have probably heard/read in some form the story of King Lear, the poor man who split his kingdom among his daughters and then suffered at their ungratefulness. Jane Smiley takes the story of King Lear and provides us a revisionist version of the work...more An ageing person decides to split his possessions among his 3 daughters. Two of them agree to it, but one seems against it. Wait a second here. Does this sound familiar. Even those who haven't read the unabridged versions of the bard (like me) would have probably heard/read in some form the story of King Lear, the poor man who split his kingdom among his daughters and then suffered at their ungratefulness. Jane Smiley takes the story of King Lear and provides us a revisionist version of the work from the perspective of the 2 daughters in 'A Thousand Acres'.

In place of Lear we have 'Larry Cook'. He is not a king sure, but is a farmer who owns about 1000 acres. Two daughters Ginny, the eldest and Rose the middle one are married and live with their husbands on the farm helping their father. The third daughter Caroline is a lawyer working elsewhere. When Larry decides, seemingly on a whim to split his farm among his daughters at a family get together, Ginny and Rose agree but Caroline voices her concern at such a move. This results in Larry cutting her off from the inheritance. What follows is a family tragedy as the lives of everyone involved, Larry, Ginny/Rose and their husbands unravels and the entire family spirals towards destruction. With the story told from the point of view of Ginny/Rose and narrated only by Ginny, Smiley brings about a paradigm shift in the way we look at the characters and their motivations. It's necessary to have read the original/abridged 'King Lear' to get the shifts she brings in, but even otherwise this could be read as an independent story. Telling anymore about what happens would be a spoiler and I will desist from it.

There is a sense of uneasiness pervading the entire novel right from the beginning, a feeling that there is being something left unsaid, a feeling that not everything is as normal/fine as it seems. It's not as if Smiley only implies that there is something huge secret hidden, yes there is that too, but what we get is a sense of claustrophobia among the characters which is ironical considering they story takes place in 1000 odd acres of huge space. For instance, early in the novel there is a scene where Ginny and her husband are having dinner, undressing and going to bed. They have a conversation during dinner, in their bed and Ginny's husband goes to sleep. It seems normal expect for the fact is that their conversation seems more like between 2 persons in an inn who have been put together by chance and are pleasant to each other, that's all. The conversations are perfunctory and there is no sign of intimacy that we expect from a couple married for more than 15 years. Here again, Smiley doesn't indicate that the couple hate each other or have problems but there is an implicit suggestion that their relationship has become one of routine more than anything else. When we come to know a bit later in the novel that Ginny has had many miscarriages, her husband deciding not to have kids after that (resulting in protected or no sex at all), Ginny still wants to have kids, then the earlier moments make sense. Similarly there is moment when another farm lady in their area sees Ginny and mentions in passing about something that Ginny's mother had said to her before she passed away. It's something that Ginny doesn't think about much and we as a reader too could miss it. But even that passing statement has an ominous ring to it. Smiley makes sure that these incidents are subtle enough to be glossed over in a quick reading (unlike in some other works where paradoxically, the novel/story cries out aloud that it being subtle, thus defeating the entire purpose of subtlety) . She perfectly sets up the atmosphere for the revelation that lies at the core of the novel. Smiley makes sure that there is no emotional manipulation of the readers based on it, but doesn't shy away from telling the bestiality that happened, succinctly in a few paragraphs sprinkled over several pages/chapters so there is a progression from when we get the initial sense of the issue, the doubt as to whether it actually happened, the impending realization that it could have happened and the confirmation from Ginny that our worst fears have come true.

Even after the revelation and the downward spiral of the characters, at the end of the novel we still feel that there is one more door to be opened, one more page to be turned in the lives of the characters. We feel that there is something left unsaid, maybe there are things that could be seen in a different light by us if they are told in someone else's perspective other than Ginny's (like Caroline's actions). Isn't that the whole idea of writing or any art, to show us there could be multiple perspectives to anything and that there is no ultimate single truth. This multiple perspective doesn't mean that one sits in the middle and says that every POV is correct and that we condone anything that anyone does. No, this is to take a definite steady stand on one side, while making sure that the other side is heard even though we may hate it. Like we do not know Larry's motivations and definitely do not agree with his actions, his arrogance, his need to dominate others always. But we never get to know what drives him and while it is not something that will absolve him of everything he did, it could at least make us understand why he did them. Smiley gives this leeway to all the characters in the novel, not offering a hope of redemption but one of understanding. And considering the family tragedy, an understanding could be helpful for the characters to live with, not reconcile to it.

I had some issues in the novel. The first one is purely subjective. Any opinion is always subjective, but this one is purely based what sort of writing style I tend to favor. Smiley's writing could be termed as detailed realism, with many introspective moments descriptive of the minute things. This is fine, but I always get the sense that the flow is stagnating and you want to say 'get on with it'. This is not just in this novel, but also in her 'Moo'. I have the same feeling with Updike too, I am fully invested in the story, the characters, the events but seem to get these moments where I just hope for some thing to move forward. This is my reaction to a certain narrative technique which is why I term as a completely subjective opinion. The second issue I had is with what lies at core of the novel. It's something that can be guessed at quite easily. But to be fair to Smiley, I think the reason why we could guess it is also due to the fact that we are now exposed to all sorts of things these days and even inured to it. Nothing really shocks us anymore as it probably would have done say 20-30 years ago and we tend to expect the worst imaginable possibility and not be surprised by it. The relationship between Jess Clark and the 2 sisters was the only thing in the novel that seemed an explicit set piece, one that sticks out uncomfortably as a forced addition, in contrast to the rest of the novel which follows naturally. This again seems to have been done to get a parallel with King Lear.

None of the above issues make the novel a less engaging or inferior read. Smiley's control over her craft is total and she never lets things to run out of control, if anything she is in a bit too much control for my liking :). In fact the reason I mentioned them was that I liked the novel quite a bit. When you hate a work, you do not even mention about it, just carry on with the next reading. But in a perverse manner, when you read something that is good, very good then even small issues tend to get magnified because without them the work would have been much much greater.That's why for all the issues I have provided a justification, a la devil's advocate. It's like you can be critical and frank with only those people you love and care for, the other's you just leave them to their own devices. Purists may have problem with this retelling of King Lear, but taken as a stand alone novel this should allay your concerns. Even otherwise, isn't it great that we get to see a different perspective on a widely acclaimed work, indeed a holy cow among works. I would highly recommend this and also her 'Moo' a delightful campus novel.(less)

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Nov 11, 2012 Abby rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I could give this a zero I would for so many reason-

1) The book is poorly written- Smiley is way to enamored of her own writing. She goes on and on for pages with superfluous and irrelevant information that slow down the novel without adding anything. If she was a good writer, I could forgive her as I forgive Hugo and Dickens, but she is not.

2) I hated every single character. The only one who I "kinda sorta" felt for was Jess. I especially hated her two supposed protagonists, Rose and Ginny....more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
can children read it?	7	46	Mar 12, 2013 01:53pm
worth it?	4	28	Oct 22, 2012 11:11am

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