Plainsong
by Kent Haruf
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kent HarufEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-22
ISBN: 0375705856
Number of pages: 301
Publisher: Vintage
Product features:
- National Book Award Finalist
- National Best Seller
Book Reviews of Plainsong
Book Review: Simplicity of Style
Summary: 5 Stars
From the age of five when we learn to read, to the age of six when we learn to write, to the age of eight when we learn to write with plots, we know to use quotation marks when someone speaks. "Yes," said the cat."No," said the dog.
Moreover, we are taught vocabulary, and encouraged to use "big words" in our writing. The lethargic woman opted to reside in her domicile while her vigorous spouse desired to trek throughout the globe. However, Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong follows the message of the title: describing the intricacy of human nature by illustrating its simplicity. He does this by abandoning quotation marks and using vocabulary a fourth-grader could follow. Haruf uses style in order to show the theme of Plainsong, because he shows complexity masked by simplicity.
I logged on to amazon.com in order to find out what my fellow readers thought about Haruf's unsophisticated style. October 23, 2000, someone named janmcalex said, "[Plainsong's] simplicity of style gives the reader the opportunity to emotionally participate in the lives of the characters." However, I do not think that Haruf's style has to do with emotion; it has more to do with the theme, which is how it is human nature to hold a careful, straightforward façade while deep, complex needs are hurting inside. This façade can even fool the one hiding behind it. Haruf's easygoing writing style masks the complex needs of the characters inside it. True, there is no excess of punctuation or verbiage to get in the way of one's understanding of the characters. Another reviewer, skoneill, wrote, "... my heart aches for his protagonists..." I felt this way as well, but I think this simplicity of style is a kind of metaphor for the human ability to seem simple and carefree while unknown intricacies are brewing inside.
Later in the review, however, janmcalex touches on the theme. "Such simple gifts to salve over deep needs." Simple gifts, in this story, are the influence of other people. Old bachelors, the MacPheron brothers, need the touch of a young lady in their neglected home and graceful teenager Victoria Roubideaux comes to stay with them. Tom Guthrie and his two sons need a mother figure in their lives and then they meet Maggie Jones, a lovable and strong woman. They live in a small town called Holt, where nothing puts it on a map. Even the town they live in seems like what some might call a "hick town," but the relationships of the characters are so complex that as I was reading the book, I forgot the setting was in a place where the population was no more than 5,000 people. By omitting quotation marks that the most elegant of authors would use, Kent Haruf conveys a sense of simplicity in the beginning. I found, though, that I forgot about the simple vocabulary and punctuation; I concentrated on the far-reaching needs of the plausible characters in which everyone can find characteristics of him or herself. Both skoneill and janmcalex agree, saying, "... [the characters] are human and recognizable archetypes who might well live next door" and "...in these misfits, we find elements of ourselves."
On the other hand, a person called rhymeswithorange wrote a review on June 11, 2003, and said, "While I did enjoy some aspects of the plot, other storylines annoyed and distracted me from my overall satisfaction." However, I completely disagree. Haruf hid the true intricacy of the plot and characters behind his simplistic style. Perhaps he hid this intention too well for rhymeswithorange. Having multiple storylines shows that even in an uncomplicated town with uncomplicated dialogue, unbelievably complicated things could be happening. rhymeswithorange also stated that, "Overall, I believe that if Plainsong lacked the storyline of Victoria it would have been much better." Then again, Victoria's story was the most telling plotline in this book. She acted strong even though she was pregnant, homeless, and unemployed. Maggie Jones healed her needs by giving her a mother figure to look up to and by delivering her to the door of the MacPheron brothers, who seemed like typical old ranchers. On the contrary, as Victoria's story developed, they turn out to be generous, wise, and almost saintly. They give Victoria everything she wants, material to the simplest gift, rebuilding her trust in men, when in the past the men she knew had practically no redeeming qualities.
Haruf's simple style puts up its own façade around the intricacy of the characters and plot beyond. It is similar to human nature, the nature of those characters with which we can identify. A reviewer called spencer625 said, "...I'd like to read it again some day." I agree, and I cannot wait for what reviewer nashvillebear said on July 31, 2003: "CBS plans to present Plainsong as a Hallmark Hall of Fame film."
Summary of Plainsong
"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--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground."-FROM THE CITATION FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Plainsong, according to Kent Haruf's epigraph, is "any simple and unadorned melody or air." It's a perfect description of this lovely, rough-edged book, set on the very edge of the Colorado plains. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher whose wife can't--or won't--get out of bed; the McPherons are two bachelor brothers who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn. Their lives parallel each other in much the same way any small-town lives would--until Maggie Jones, another teacher, makes them intersect. Even as she tries to draw Guthrie out of his black cloud, she sends Victoria to live with the two elderly McPheron brothers, who know far more about cattle than about teenage girls. Trying to console her when she think she's hurt her baby, the best lie they can come up with is this: "I knew of a heifer we had one time that was carrying a calf, and she got a length of fencewire down her some way and it never hurt her or the calf."
Holt, Colorado, is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone's business before that business even happens. In a way, that's true of the book, too. There's not a lot of suspense here, plotwise; you can see each narrative twist and turn coming several miles down the pike. What Plainsong has instead is note-perfect dialogue, surrounded by prose that's straightforward yet rich in particulars: "a woman walking a white lapdog on a piece of ribbon," glimpsed from a car window; the boys' mother, her face "as pale as schoolhouse chalk"; the smells of hay and manure, the variations of prairie light. Even the novel's larger questions are sized to a domestic scale. Will Guthrie find love? Will Victoria run away with the father of her baby? Will the McPherons learn to hold a conversation? But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Plainsong manages to capture nothing less than an entire world--fencing pliers, calf-pullers, and all. Kent Haruf has a gorgeous ear, and a knack for rendering the simple complex. --Mary Park
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