Eventide

I’ve been awfully negligent about posting lately. I feel bad, but I think I’m going through a little bit of a reading drought. Maybe it’s the post-holiday coma I’ve been in, I'm sure it has to do with being on a business trip for the last 4 days, and maybe it’s also the promise of all my favorite TV shows coming back any day now, but reading’s been put on the back burner for now. That said, I still have a review that I owe you for Eventide, which I read over the holidays. So here goes:

For those of you who aren’t a giant Kent Haruf fan like I am, Eventide is a semi-sequel to Plainsong. I read Plainsong last year and I would rank it in my top 5 of 2008 (read my review here). I actually tried to read Eventide in October on my trip to New York. Some of you may remember that I accidentally left it at my friends’ house in Brooklyn after reading only a chapter or two. I think they meant to mail it back to me, but given that they have a 1 year-old, and jobs and all that, I’m pretty sure I need to forgive them. So when my friend Darrah (who originally loaned me Plainsong) gave me Eventide for Christmas this year, I was super excited. I couldn’t really remember how much I’d read on my trip to New York, so I started from the beginning.

Eventide picks up the story of the McPheron brothers who were my favorite characters in Plainsong. The McPheron’s are basically two crusty bachelor ranchers who took in a young pregnant girl in trouble during Plainsong. In this book, the girl is leaving for college with her daughter and the brothers have to figure out how to live alone again. There are also a few new story lines added to Eventide and some characters that were followed in the first book are dropped in this one. Per usual, Haruf has a heartwarming and honest way of writing that totally sucked me in. I balled like a baby at times and smiled to myself numerous times. It’s a great book that I think men and women would like equally. I wish Kent Haruf was my Grandpa.

Since finishing Eventide, I’ve dabbled in a few books but nothing is sticking. Instead of soldiering trough and reading books when I’m not in the mood, I’m going to take it easy. When I feel like reading, I’ll read. When I don’t, I won’t. If you notice less frequent posting here in the next few weeks, but you still need something to read during your lunch break, you’re welcome to cruise my non-book blog (link is in the sidebar) where I will likely post updates about my horrible taste in television.

Gilead

A coworker loaned this to me in order to help me finish the New Classics Challenge. Considering the NEVER ENDING snow storm Seattle is currently experiencing, you'd think I'd have finished it sooner. But the truth is that Gilead is a slow moving book and it took some time to read. So despite the pajama-clad lifestyle I've been leading the last 4 days, I just finally finished it this morning.

Gilead is narrated by a 77 year old pastor in Gilead, Iowa in the 1950s. The entire book is a letter written to his 7 year old son before the old man dies from a recently diagnosed heart condition. The story meanders a bit to tell the story of his upbringing, but for me the real focus was on his love for his wife and son. You learn that his first wife died in childbirth (along with the child) and after living alone for many years he falls in love with Lilla, who is roughly 40 years his junior and they get married and have a child late in his life.

The pace is verrrrrry slow, but the writing is really beautiful. I will confess to moments of boredom, but not because it isn't a good book. It's a book full of good quotes about love and pondering the meaning and purpose of life. Knowing that he'll die soon, the way he describes his young son and their interactions is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking.

So while I respected this book, I can't say that I found it particularly enjoyable. The simple but eloquent prose bore occasional resemblance to Plainsong, which is still one of my favorite books read this year (reviewed here) but I enjoyed the reading of Plainsong ten times as much as Gilead. Sorry, Gilead.

Now that I've completed The NCC, I'd like to read a book or two that might be classified by my friend Maggie as a GP. This stands for Guilty Pleasure. The problem? I'm effing snowed in! For reals! I guess I could walk somewhere to get a book, but my options are limited by 1. how lazy I am and 2. by how cold it is and 3. by the fact that the nearest bookstore is about a 4 mile round trip walk and lastly, 4. going outside would involve changing out of the pajamas I've had on all day. I'm considering walking the 1/2 mile to the nearest grocery store to see if they have any interesting trashy books in the card aisle. Although considering my grocery shopping experience yesterday, which was something akin to the Y2K panic of 1999, I'm not sure I'm up for it.

Plainsong

Let me start this review by thanking my friend Darrah, for loaning me this book. Because if she hadn't loaned it to me, I probably never would have read it. I've walked by this book in various bookstores many times without picking it up because somehow, I had it confused with This House of Sky by Ivan Doig.

I read This House of Sky for a class in college about 10 years ago and HATED it. It was all about horses and the old timey Midwest and I just remember being bored to tears (for those who don’t know me, I have a strange, but strong aversion to everything horse related). The cover photos for the two books are vaguely similar, so I always avoided picking this book up thinking I’d already read it (and hated it). Then last week, I was at Darrah’s house and she loaned me a few books and at the last minute added Plainsong to the pile. And thank God she did because this might be one of the best books I’ve ever read. I truly loved it. It was really beautifully written and so timeless. And best of all, it wasn’t about horses at all! I mean, there was like one page about a horse, but I will easily forgive Kent Haruf that one page, because the rest of the book is sooo good.

You know how so many movies these days are like 2 or 3 hours long? It’s like a movie can’t be considered legit unless it’s long. It’s gotten so that all movies are longer than they need to be just to seem substantial. Sometimes I think books are headed the same way. I know that I’ve sometimes found myself discrediting skinny books recently. Like the quality of the story is somehow linked to the heft of the book. Plainsong is relatively short, only 301 pages, but I felt like it packed a similar punch as East of Eden, which was twice as long.

Here’s the description from the back of the book:

“Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace…”

The characters are so endearing. I can’t even tell you how much I loved Raymond and Harold. Really, I loved all the characters in this book. So much. I teared up like 5 times, but not because it’s so sad, although parts of it are. I mostly cried because it’s so heartwarming. I can’t believe I just typed heartwarming, but I DID. And I MEANT IT. I think I’m going to immediately start one of his other novels that Darrah also loaned me – Where You Once Belonged.