When one picks up Kent Haruf's novel, Plainsong, the title may be misleading. While the meaning of plainsong is "any simple and unadorned melody or air", the novel is far from plain. In fact, it is intriguing and demonstrates a depth of complexity in the characters and the storyline.
The book offers us a glimpse of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the mundane coupled with the heroic. We are presented with real characters living real lives in ordinary ways. Yet this book illustrates the extraordinary; the effect and impact that each of us can have on another person.
While the book may appear fragmented in the beginning, you soon come to realize that there is interdependency amongst the storylines. Though separate narratives, the lives of the characters later become weaved together in various ways. There is the mother who emotionally and then physically abandons her husband and two young sons, the pregnant teenager deserted by her mother and boyfriend and the two elderly brothers contentedly living an existence of solitude and unattachment.
The theme of desertion is a recurrent one in the novel. Yet what stands out is the way in which the lives of the characters in the novel are intertwined, entangled, and intricately interwoven together. At its very core, it is not desertion but interconnectedness as a theme that weaves the parallel stories together.
This is also an illustrative depiction of small-town America. While it identifies the small-mindedness of some, it also demonstrates the unifying nature of community and of coming together for the greater good of others. It also shows the depth of inter-human relations. In the face of adversity, when family fails you or abandons you, it is the relations we turn to who can sustain us even more.
No where is this more evident than in the example of the two old brothers, who are more connected to mother earth than to others in their community. While they are naïve to the ways of the world, they open up their home and heart to a young pregnant teenager. In the end, the reader is left questioning who has benefited most from this unique arrangement. It serves to illustrate that what we think we need is not always in our best interest.
As a caution, there is some sexual content in the novel. While not gratuitous in nature, it helps the characters on their journey of discovery and maturation. Our sexuality is one component that comprises our nature.
No man is an island and no where is this truer than in Holt County.
Since 1999, Shawn B. has been working on his book review website. While there, make sure to check out the book review of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and the one for Welcome to Your Crisis.
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