Kent Haruf - Plainsong

Pros: Simple and powerful language and style. Ordinary people made into fascinating characters. Seamless structure.

Cons: None for me. Some may not like the changing narrative focus or limitations.

The Bottom Line: Plainsong is a beautifully written, interesting read with memorable characters set in small town America.

Review: This book tricked me. It fooled me into thinking at first that it was about mostly small things, really not much more than brief glimpses into the lives of a few characters. I was also caught off guard by how carefully structured the novel is. The...

Pros: The stories are simple but meaningful. Stark but powerful prose.

Cons: I would have liked more stories, but that might have ruined the effect.

The Bottom Line: Plainsong is like a pot of vegetable soup. None of the ingredients stand out. It's the mixture that works.

Review: Kent Haruf defines plainsong as any simple and unadorned melody, and the description aptly captures the essence of his novel by the same name. This simple slice-of-life glimpse at a year in a small Colorado town is more cotton sheets than...

Pros: excellently portrayed characters, good organization, easy to catch symbolism, beautiful imagery

Cons: not long enough! ;)

Review: Plainsong is a joyful tale of an unexpected family of unrelated people bound together for their common need to love and be loved. The very small east Colorado town of Holt is the setting. All inhabitants know each other's histories and current...

Pros: memorable characters

Cons: story will feel monotonous to some

Review: Sure, "Plainsong" is about a small town and its inhabitants, but at its core this novel shows that people need to feel protected, loved, and, well, mothered. Written in the third person without quotation marks (a style that flows beautifully once...

Pros: Keeps you into the book by changing characters by each chapter.

Cons: Predictable in some areas.

The Bottom Line: Plainsong was a fantastic book written in a simple but tasteful way. It was a mind expanding read into a small but colorful community.

Review: Plainsong was an interesting book that captures the soft and harsh reality life in a small community. It ranges from different characters like, a young pregnate teenager to, two old isolated farmers. When reading this book you see the day to day...

Pros: Intricate writing, beautiful characters

Cons: slow beginning

Review: What I noticed from the very beginning of Plainsong was that Kent Haruf was an extremely talented writer. His words meld together and they flow so gently..it really feels as though you are just sitting back and watching the scenes unfold before you,...

Pros: Absorbing story, masterfully written

Cons: Nary a one

Review: According to the frontispiece, Plainsong is any simple and unadorned melody or air. Simple and unadorned are terms that perfectly describe this tale of rural/small town life in eastern Colorado. Unadorned not because the lives of its characters are...

Pros: beautiful writing

Cons: there's no punctuation marks, so be warned

Review: There have been many small towns that have been created in literature: Larry McMurtry's Thalia, James Wilcox's Tula Springs, Garrison Keilor's Lake Wobbegon Days. It's time to add another title to this list: Kent Haruf's Holt, Colorado.

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Pros: Easy to relate to the characters.

Cons: There isn't a sequel.

Review: I did not expect to read a book the author calls plain and find it so extraordinary I could no sooner put it down than stop thinking about it. The setting, characters and plot are in fact plain and simple, but Kent Haruf?s descriptions of each make...

Pros: Beautifully written. Simple and true.

Cons: none

Review: This is a spellbinding work. There are times when I found myself closing the book so I could take a break, afraid to read it all at once. It's that good. The writing is spare and fluid, eloquent even. I never thought I'd say this about a novel and...