The journey
Part of the America 1850 reading journey
How it got on the shelf
This book was brought to my attention by a
friend (and blog follower) who had seen it described by David Nicholls as his
best read of 2012 and thought it might just fit into the reading journey. Looking
on Amazon the reviews were mixed – ranging from “the epic American novel in
miniature” to “the most un-eventful and boring book ever read”. At only116
pages and (at the time) £1.39 for a Kindle download it was worth a punt to form
my own opinion.
The Review
The novel covers the life and times of Robert
Grainier from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries in the North
Western USA working on the construction of the railroads, in the timber mills
and as a haulier.
Told in the third person, in a style and
language befitting its period (think Garrison Keillor doing Lake Wobegon Days)
the narrative is simple but evocative. The hardships of the frontier life are
laid out to see as Grainier subsists between the twin soundtracks of the passing
locomotives and the howling of the wolves.
The book has a chronology that hops about
from pivotal incident to pivotal incident, which I found unhelpful but
manageable. The incidents themselves are affecting and string together to
present a picture of a man moulded by his environment and its sometimes tragic forces.
Overall a short read that holds the
attention and gives an insight into life in a particular place during a
formative period.
So for me not the great American novel (I
would go for Tom Wolfe or John Irving for that), nor the most boring book ever
(my short list, exclusively nautical, is: “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”; “The Riddle
of the Sands”; and heresy of heresies “Moby Dick”).
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