Nickel Mountain

by John Gardner, William H. Gass (Introduction)

John Gardner's most poignant novel of improbable love.

At the heart of John Gardner's Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story: when at 42, the obese, anxious and gentle Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells—who is pregnant with the child of a local boy—it is much more than years which define the gulf between them. But the beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation of the bond that develops as this unlikely couple experiences courtship and marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events—they might be accidents or they might be acts of will—involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames' quiet discovery of grace.

Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague of the author, has written an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised but often misunderstood John Gardner.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, American, Classics, Collections

314 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 1973

About the author

John Champlin Gardner was a well-known and controversial American novelist and university professor, best known for his novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth.

Gardner was born in Batavia, New York. His father was a lay preacher and dairy farmer, and his mother taught English at a local school. Both parents were fond of Shakespeare and often recited literature together. As a child, Gardner attended public school and worked on his father's farm, where, in April of 1945, his younger brother Gilbert was killed in an accident with a cultipacker. Gardner, who was driving the tractor during the fatal accident, carried guilt for his brother's death throughout his life, suffering nightmares and flashbacks. The incident informed much of Gardner's fiction and criticism — most directly in the 1977 short story "Redemption," which included a fictionalized recounting of the accident.

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gar...

Reviews

[AiK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Гарднер в названии дает уточнение, что это пасторальный роман. И действительно, этот роман о сельской глубинке, с описаниями природы и пейзажей, и где главными героями являются обычные люди, просто живущие на белом свете, ошибающиеся и сострадающие, радующиеся и огорчающиеся, словом, обычные. Сюжет разворачивается медленно и плавно, уделяя внимание мелким деталям. Главный герой Генри Сомс – немолодой уже человек, грузный, добрый, сентиментальный, в очках. Ему становится жаль соблазненную и брошенную шестнадцатилетнюю Кэлли, ждущую ребенка. И он женится на ней просто, чтобы люди ее молвой не заклевали, чтобы у ребенка был отец. Гарднер писал: «Мораль – слишком сложное понятие, чтобы быть познаваемым и сведенным к единому коду, именно поэтому она является идеальным предметом изображения в литературе». Вот именно об этих различных моральных аспектах и этот роман, и не только в вопросах беременности Кэлли и поступке Уилларда, но и множественные эпизоды романа, ставящие моральные дилеммы – и со старым упрямцем Саймоном Бейлом, упавшем с лестницы и убившемся насмерть после того, как на него накричал Генри, и поведение Джорджа Лумиса, наехавшего в темноте на Козью Леди. «Когда поступок совершен, человек оценивает свой поступок. Когда дело сделано, он может сказать «да» или «нет». Он может сказать «да, все правильно» независимо от того, с кем, когда и где это произошло, а может сказать «нет, не правильно». И говоря все это, ты будешь выглядеть, как удрученный бегемот. — Он понял вдруг, куда его заносит, подался еще больше вперед, чувствуя, как струйки пота жгут спину. — Наконец меня вдруг осенит, и я скажу: «Ты себя богом считаешь?» А ты ответишь: «Да, считаю». И тогда я уж совсем заткнусь. Что можно ответить человеку, который взялся быть богом? «
Этот роман соткан из мелочей, мелких деталей, мыслей, которые промелькивают и вроде служат фоном, но они побуждают задуматься. Вот, например, Джордж в разговоре с Генри говорит: «Там, в Корее, я, бывало, думал: «Вот пристрелит меня какой-нибудь бедолага, война эта нужна ему не больше, чем мне, просто кто-то выудил его фамилию из каких-то вшивых списков, сделал солдатом и кончен бал» или о склонности людей к предубеждениям: Козью Леди люди называли кто индеанкой, кто цыганкой, на первой же ферме хозяева вызвали полицию, хотя оказалось, что ее не за что арестовывать.
Гарднера интересует смерть – в романе много смертей, похорон и даже малыш Джимми пытается познать, что такое смерть поглаживая шерстку мертвого кролика, подстреленного отцом и наблюдая, как какие-то старики раскапывают могилу сына, умершего в юном возрасти, чтобы перевезти его прах на новое место, куда они переехали. Но все-таки это роман о жизни, о ее утверждении. Восприятие Сомса жизни и мира постепенно меняется – сначала мир представлялся семейным застольем, но с годами как богослужение, венчание или причастие. Жизнь и Кэлли изменили этого человека с устоявшимися привычками, что было странно для него самого, но, мне кажется, это стало своеобразной формулой счастья. Это принятие другого человека и сродство с ним. «…если Кэлли и переделала его по своему образу, то образ свой — не знакомый прежде ни ей самой, ни Генри — она нашла в нем, в Генри Сомсе, состоявшемся благодаря ей, Кэлли. Ощутив это однажды с полной ясностью, он уже ни на ноту не сомневался в том, что новая жизнь, которую она для него слепила, была его жизнью, она пришлась ему впору, как в один прекрасный день, к его удивлению, ему оказалось впору старое отцовское пальто, и с этого момента он уже не просто носил эту новую жизнь, он слился с ней. Он чувствовал себя так, будто родился заново, превратился в нечто совершенно непохожее на прежнего себя, и эта мысль так его потрясла, что он все время к ней возвращался, вертел в уме то так, то сяк, как вертят стодолларовую банкноту. Впрочем, новая жизнь, которую он в себе обнаружил, еще не устоялась; она была зыбкой, переливчатой, как сон.». И это счастье взаимно, поскольку Келли тоже изменилась, тоже сроднилась с ним. «Кэлли тоже изменилась. Она все равно была бы прекрасна, на тот ли, на иной ли лад, Генри знал это, но, выйдя замуж за него, она открыла не только в нем, но и в себе возможности, которых в другом случае могла бы не открыть. Она никогда не говорила ему о любви, но, случалось, брала его за руку, когда они вместе запирали ресторан, или, когда он читал Джимми вслух, усадив его к себе на колени, подходила и гладила его по лысине. И вот он размышлял, как в полусне, о браке, который был то же самое, что любовь или волшебство и вообще все, что могло прийти ему в голову (уловить различие между тем, что связывало его с женой, и тем, что связывало его с сыном, было для него так же трудно, как заметить разницу — разве что в степени — между его связью с близкими и теми переменами, которые он производил в ресторане, а ресторан — в нем),» Гарднер подытоживает, что так Генри проникся идеей магической перемены или познал святость всего сущего, по выражению его отца. Он понял отчего люди бывают религиозными: «Ведь религия — это просто форма, посредством которой выражаются присущие всем людям чувства: смутные страхи перед тем, чего ты не в силах предотвратить, смутная радость из-за того, к чему ты имеешь только косвенное отношение — святость.»

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited an old friend recently – John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain. I’ve been growing old waiting for the Gardner revival (the deceased literary novelist not likely to be confused with the living spy novelist John Gardner, although it bears mentioning), and was pleased to see October Light come back into print – a brilliant meta-novel fit to hold its own among the Lethems and Franzens and Safran Foers of today. Okay publishers: now it is time to reprint Nickel Mountain: A Pastoral Novel, a more subdued, realistic turn from the protean Gardner, and one of my favorite books of all time. Hell, it should be granted American Classic status by Modern Library or Everyman. (Gardner burned brightly indeed – it is astonishing to think that this novel was published in the same year as his Jason and Medeia – a classical verse epic set in a contemporary frame, and another fave of mine). Henry Soames runs the Stop-Off diner in the Catskills, on the dark edge of mortality. Morbidly obese, Soames has already had one heart attack and is just one heartbeat away from the void, which - combined with the stark isolation and treacherous indifference of the twisting mountain road and its hairpin car wreck deaths - has him thinking about what it all adds up to. Soames’s meditations and dialogs with the cynical George Loomis are wonderfully rich and thought provoking, as his conscience struggles with the transience, weaknesses and follies of himself and others, and the absurdity of existence. (Gardner is one of the few writers that really warrant pulling out a word like ‘existence,’ and yet he is very accessible, for all that). One other major note in Gardner’s rich polyphony is Soames’s relationship with young, vulnerable, pregnant waitress Callie, (wasn’t it fitting that the young saleslady at the used bookstore where I went to get a fresh reading copy was disarmingly beautiful in that unstudied, Lena Grove sort of way?), but that speaks for itself, as does the rest of the book, which deserves to be read and re-read, and will certainly please fans of Richard Russo, E. Annie Proulx, and just good meaty writers in general.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Low key novel about ordinary small-town life in the Catskills. Henry Soames is a good-hearted man with health issues. He owns a diner. He hires Callie Wells to work for him. She is seventeen and pregnant. Her boyfriend leaves for college. Though vastly different in age, Henry and Callie marry. She has the baby. They take in an odd evangelical man whose house has burned down. A good friend visits on occasion. A few deaths occur. There is little to no plot. It seems to be about living and dying. It has a melancholy tone. I cannot rave about it, but I enjoyed reading it.

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the years, I've encountered references to the late John Gardner & have had a copy of Nickel Mountain gathering dust for ages. In attempting to cull my shelves of surplus books, I began reading his novel & found it alternately quite interesting but also at times not so very well-developed. In reading about the author's life, I began to sense that some of the issues touched on within the tale and some of the characters he employed to tell the story might have been rather too close to home for comfort.


Gardner spent well over a decade fine-tuning the novel, while also teaching & working on other stories but with the result that Nickel Mountain at times still resembled a work-in-progress, at least for me.

What Gardner does quite well is to frame the story, set in a combination small-town Catskills diner with a gas pump outside & a lean-to add-on as living quarters to the rear for Henry Soames, the proprietor. Henry is lonely, weary, obese & has a bad heart, a forlorn character who feels "old as the world" & who might have been lifted from some Edward Hopper painting, with the Stop-Off diner the only thing providing his life with any meaning.

However, improbably the 45 year old Henry hires a 16 year old girl, Callie Wells, who appears at the diner "as if by magic, like a crocus where yesterday there had been snow", even though he requires no help at the down-at-the-heels place he manages. The diner becomes a kind of lifeline for both Callie & Henry and learning that Callie is pregnant by a boy who has gone off to college, Henry decides to marry her in spite of a 25 year age difference.


I once heard of a town described as being "on the far margins of yesterday" and that would seem to describe the 1954 hardscrabble setting for Nickel Mountain, with the town 50 miles from Utica.

I felt that Gardner seemed unable to develop the emotional underpinning that might have made the characters more palpable, something Edward Hopper was not called upon to do with his atmospheric paintings. Interestingly, I also kept thinking of various Harry Chapin songs, many of which seemed like parables, sung by someone who lived not so very far from John Gardner's roots & who often identified with similar down & out folks in his ballads.

The comparison may not be completely apt but I felt that Chapin could have animated the woebegone characters in Nickel Mountain, including George Loomis who was injured by machinery ages ago & frequently limps into Henry's diner but who lives in a darkened 15 room house, someone whose seemingly ominous background story is alluded to but never really illuminated.

There is also Simon Bale, A fire-breathing Jehovah's Witness who also frequents the diner but who few take seriously, except that later in the novel, his spirit becomes a kind of specter haunting the area. Most of all however, we are faced with interpreting the relationship between Henry Soames & his young wife Callie, someone who finds Henry "gross" but who also is said to love him, perhaps because he rescued her, or as they used to phrase it "made an honest woman of her".


Meanwhile, a bit like Ben Bulben, prevailing over the County Sligo town where W.B. Yeats grew up, Nickel Mountain looms in the background of the diner, almost like a character whose force is felt but never really delineated. There seemed too many pieces that failed to connect, not that they do completely in anyone's life.

For example, there is the mysterious "Goat Lady" who seems to emerge from the shadows & then disappears without a trace, though there is a suggestion that she met an untimely death, perhaps at the hands of George Loomis. In time, Callie does become more of a force, causing Henry Soames to enlarge & upgrade the diner, renaming it "The Maples".

And, unlike the novels of Richard Russo, also set in upstate New York, there is a complete absence of humor, a quality that might have served to make at least one of Gardner's characters more tangible. However, what moved me to give the novel 4 stars & to follow Nickel Mountain to its endpoint was the quality of so much of the writing. Here is just one sample:

They sat like people precariously balanced over a chasm & everything depended on what George decided. Henry sat blankly, pulling at the fat below his chin, not eating the cookie he held in his left hand. George Loomis stared at his cigarette.

He could tell them & be free but then he would never be free again, because there would be someone else who knew his guilt, shame, embarrassment, whatever it was. Except that maybe that was what it was to be free: to abandon all shame, all dignity, real or imagined. At last George said (speaking of the Goat Lady), "No, I never saw her."

Henry looked at him, pitying him, George Loomis no more free than a river or a wind, & as if unaware that he was doing it, Henry broke the cookie in his hand & let the pieces fall. Callie realized with a start that it was final: George had saved them after all. The room was suddenly filled with ghosts...

John Gardner was definitely a master literary craftsman & there are other very memorable passages in Nickel Mountain. In reconsidering the novel, perhaps much more difficult than painting a canvas with broad strokes, is to somehow convey words that go unspoken, the occasional unbridgeable chasms within relationships within each of us.


*Included within Gardner's novel are some very atmospheric etchings by Thomas O'Donohue. **Two inserted photo images (#s 1 & 4) are of the author, John Gardner, with the 3rd of a typical Catskills diner and the 4th of the novel's namesake mountain.

[Robert Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first read this book, as a college freshman in 1982, it moved me very deeply for reasons I still don't understand. Little did I know that at the very same time I was reading this book, its author died in a motorcycle crash. I went on to read Gardner's other fiction, as well as his two books on writing fiction, and appreciated all of them. Looking back, I probably read Nickel Mountain because it was by the same author as Grendel, the retelling of Beowulf that Gardner wrote from the point of the view of the monster. We read Grendel as college freshmen and Gardner really got me to thinking about my own writing at the time. Anwyay, I picked this up again recently and started reading it again. Twenty-six years later, it's still haunting.

[S. G. R.]

Perhaps our postmodern treasure hunter Nathan "N.R" Gaddis can explain to me what it is in me that makes me discard volume 22 of A Dance to the Music of Time, four charmingly comic and light volumes away from major literary street cred, to start consuming the moldering and clotted corpus of John Gardner? I seem to have the same affliction as him, a love for the obscure writers of the 20th century, the suspicion they are virtuoso somehow so virtuosic they somehow can't ascend into everyone's bookshelves - but for the opposite set of forgotten authors, the aesthetic conservatives, the realists. Seriously - put before me a signed copy of Frederick Barthelme's Moon Deluxe and a signed copy of Updike's short fiction, but for financial considerations, I'll take the Barthelme. Give me Yvor Winters, Louise Bogan...give me Henry Green...

But this is a review of Nickel Mountain. Nickel Mountain, I'll be straight, probably should be either twice as long, or a quarter as long. To make a case for the latter, the first quarter of the book - Henry Soames minding his diner, gas-station combo, musing on his obesity induced heart condition and memories of his families, until his habits are interrupted by a young waitress hired at the request of a friend - is some of the most accurate writing I've read describing loneliness. There's the nihilism you come to in it, the self-absorption, the strange sentimentality - and when you lose it, the sudden realization you also liked it. Callie's pregnancy induced marriage, written judiciously in Callie's perspective, followed by the birth of the child and the emotional consequences of that, form the natural conclusion, reckless loneliness abolished and replaced with responsibility and companionship. The wedding itself is the high point of the book's writing, hitting what I've come to think of as the F. Scott Fitzgerald-ratio of lyricism to realism. It's some of the best writing, period, I've read. I don't want to say much about it: pick up the book and read until it's over then put it down when the baby's born. You won't be disappointed.

But after that, the book starts to wander. (How many great short stories, I wonder, are locked inside wandering books?) Compared to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Under The Volcano, etc, it never really digs into the problems that lie under Soame's eating addiction. It's just "a demon." There are a few crackling conversations that go at it, which are wonderful, but which aren't up to the task of a novel. The novel never really gets at the suffering of living with an addict, despite having Callie's perspective at its disposal.

It doesn't, alternatively, and like another obscure realist, Frederick Barthelme, dig into the marriage. Barthelme's odd virtue is his ability to set up a problem and then meander through daily life until it, somehow, through minute adjustments of feeling and through the simple passage of time, come to a conclusion. Here, everyday life is merely elided in expositionary descriptions. Henry changed this way over time... I'm spoiled by Barthelme. I would love more of the marriage. I'm interested in Callie and Soames' love. Their circumstance, half-necessity, has a lot to teach and to interest. How to behave in such a situation, how it doubt flickers in it, would help teach us "values that sustain" as Garnder cries out for in his critical work.

Instead what the book does it start to wander into the lives of people who come into the diner. Soames' best friend, George Loomis, a baptist Soames takes in, The Goat Lady. This feels amateur. Addition instead of multiplication of what's already potential in the novel. One wonders if Gardner wasn't ready to confront his own thoughts on marriage, or on addiction. (Divorced twice, killed in an alcohol related biking accident.) The added story-lines DO add up. There is a sort of thematic statement about chance at the end of the novel. But it feels underdone. Each of these storylines themselves could have been extended, the view Gardner tries to paint made broad enough to stun with true sublimity. There could have been a topical novel or a thematic novel much greater.

Nevertheless, I'm going to be reading more of Garner. The potential of this proves his ability. I have high hopes for Mickelsson's Ghosts, which promises to dig, and The Sunlight Dialogues, which promises to sweep. But I'm going to start with the popular one, Grendel.

[Sallie Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Set in the early 50’s in the Catskill Mountains, this novel is peppered with misfits and eccentrics. The protagonist, Henry Soames, is 42, obese with a heart condition and living a largely lonely life running the Stop-Off cafe living in a lean-to attached to the back. His customers are truckers and a few farming friends who are pretty much as lonely as he is. The story takes a turn when he hires Callie Wells. The book is a series of episodes which mostly center around Henry, and it’s sort of a love story as well. This book would be an excellent choice for book clubs despite its having been published in 1973. Lots of fuel for thought and discussion here.

[Tracie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The language of Nickel Mountain by John Gardner is absolutely beautiful, but if you're looking for a book with a plot, skip this one. Obese, middle aged Henry Soames is content in his life running a diner in the Catskills until he hires 17 year old Callie to help him. Callie is in a doomed affair and winds up pregnant. Henry marries her. I have seen Nickel Mountain touted as a love story, but I don't see much love in it, except perhaps for the love both Henry and Callie have for the child. Henry offers Callie security, but she offers no love in return. Some interesting accidents happen in the story, but there is no follow up. Some interesting characters are introduced, but they fade away as I'm sure this book will from my memory.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Soames--the morbidly obese owner of a truckstop diner in the Catskills, an angelic but tragically inarticulate soul--proposes marriage to his pregnant, teen waitress when the girl's boyfriend leaves town. Gardner was a medievalist and philosopher at heart, and this story represents perhaps his most successful blending of those passions with his high ideals about the modern novel. Must love always evolve into a decision--or could the decision, and a grotesque pairing, ever reverse that dynamic?

[David Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the title page...NICKEL MOUNTAIN A Pastoral Novel

A different book, a pastoral novel inded, but my review brings me back to my own bucket of reviewer cliches. I love this book, but I could see how others would think it slow, stupid and plain silly, or that the people not realistic..I understand, I guess.

But dang it, if you feel that way about this book, what is the point of living?

OK, I may be exaggerating, but it is for a good cause.

Consider these quotes from the book (another of my reviewer cliches)...

Drunk. Maybe they were right. Not drunk from whiskey, but drunk from something else, maybe. Drunk from the huge, stupid Love of Man that moved through his mind on its heels, empty and meaningless as fog...Pg. 31

“anything you make at all has got to be finding out what you want to make. I mean, finding out what you are…..- I don’t know. I mean it’s love, it’s like every kind of love you ever felt and the sum total of every love you ever felt. It’s what poor old Kuzitski used to say: It’s finding something to be crucified for. That’s what a man has to have. I mean it. Crucifixion.” His voice cracked – stupid sentimental. Pg. 42

I adore this, but if you are not so emotionally inclined I bet you think it is just plain dumb.

So again I wonder “why does this author so different from me, seem to be addressing all my emotional , psychological and spiritual longings?” Well, he just does.


Henry Soames is an over weight, sentimental, sometimes angry, always questioning, often confused middle aged man...Hey wait, maybe I now realized why this novel speaks to me so much.

Anyway, this is the story of his, and mine, and your, redemption.

Jumping to the end of the book…

He had grown mystical, or, as Callie said, odd. He had no words for his thoughts; the very separateness of words was contrary to what he seemed to know. Pg. 301

This reminds me of a saying about Zen

"do not establish words and letters", attributed in this period to Bodhidharma

The thing is Henry had discovered the connected-ness of all creation and by trying to talk about it you apply abstract concepts. Sort of like killing something to dissect it. This is of course me just pulling an opinion out of somewhere.

An analogy might be from looking at paintings. You can look and any classic representational painting, renaissance maybe, or perhaps even impressionism, and you see the story and are often moved by the concepts you see presented so well.

But some can look at something more abstract or maybe Rothko paintings where emotions can scream at you from the canvas (again if you are so emotionally inclined), but others see just messy blocks of colors. My point is Gardner is somewhere in-between that Michelangelo – Rothko range in a literary sense. Well that was a messy way of saying it. Not accurate. I should just cut my losses and shut up.

[Phillip Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just finished Nickel Mountain by John Gardner, one of those books where 'nothing' happens, just imagination at play on the characters' emotions. It's set in the Catskills which reads as very beautiful. Gardner is supposed to be one of those 'good' writers who are hard to read. I really like his prose, and this novel was accessible, like a soap opera with soul. It was particularly good on the difficult, compromised, disappointed and yet fulfilling ways in which people relate to one another. Another book by him I liked was The Wreckage of Agathon, based on the totally imaginary memories of one of the great ancient Greek dramatists. That was sooo different, a rambunctious freeform excursion into metaphysics and memory. A third book I read but couldn't finish was Grendel, the story of the monster from Beowulf. His best know work I believe is The Sunlight Dialogues.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been a favorite of mine for many years. It's not on my goodreads list of twenty favorites posted years ago, but it could come close. I've read it twice, maybe twenty and ten years ago. Liked it not quite so much second time, but have good vivid memories of the characters, the pathos, the generosity of course, the atmosphere of western Catskills. I owe it another reading.

[Rod Raglin]

...and those who can't, teach.



I began reading Nickel Mountain by John Gardner because I wanted to see if one of the most renown teachers of fiction could actually write as well as he expected others to.

Gardner felt that aspiring to be an author was almost akin to a "higher calling" and required rigorous study and practice. As well as hard work and sacrifice such a career choice came with duties and responsibilities.

The most important of which is telling the truth, and not just getting facts right, but making sure your fiction is believable and not perceived by the reader as a lie. Foremost it must "affirm moral truths about human existence".

Well, okay. That's quite a tall order so I was curious to see if his fiction reflected all that high-minded stuff.

Henry Soames is middle-aged but acts and thinks like an old man. He runs a truck stop restaurant by himself on a lonely highway. Everything about him is depressing; he's morbidly overweight, he's got a bad heart, he's filled with self-pity and shows it, he blames his overbearing mother and failure father for his station in life. This guy is your classic victim and one of the most unsympathetic protagonists I've ever encountered.

When an acquaintance suggests Soames hire his teenage daughter to help run the place he agrees. Why does he agree when there's no indication he needs help and is about as misanthropic as a person can be? Gardner doesn't tell the reader.

Which is interesting because the relationship between Henry Soames and Callie, his sixteen year-old employee is at the crux of the story.

Technically, Gardner starts with promise - his opening sentence is brilliant. However, he delays the inciting incident until it's almost too late, and when it is revealed it's tepid.

Good fiction according to Gardner "creates a vivid and continuous dream" for the reader, but his writing is difficult and complicated not at all vivid and continuous.

Since I abandoned Nickel Mountain at page 33, I can't say whether moral truths about human existence were ever affirmed, but for the pages I did read I can affirm the story was depressing and monotonous, filled with insignificant details I imagine the reader was supposed to infuse with meaning, meaning which bordered on creepy.

My conclusion is that rigorous study and endless practice is indeed necessary for an author, but it's obviously not a guarantee he'll write a good book.

[Robert Nolin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Back in the early 1970's, Time magazine reviewed this book when it came out, raved about it and its author, college professor John Gardner. My naive teenage self read "Nickel Mountain" and thought it was one of the best books I'd ever read. Time magazine is never wrong.

Fifty years on, and things have changed. Time magazine is on life-support. Gardner has been revealed to be a bitter crank who killed himself with alcohol and who really didn't understand what makes fiction work. I've written some novels, I'm an old man now, and took a chance. Would the magic of this childhood favorite still be there?

Um, no. My younger self brought a lot to the reading, apparently, because the text, as it lays, is dull as dirt and passionless. It is typical writing of the period, weighted down with description. Gardner's famous "fictive dream" is a fire hose of details, whereas good writing gives just enough for the reader to take it and run. I found myself skimming a lot towards the end. An accumulation of details doesn't form vivid, living pictures in the reader's mind; it just clogs up the story.

The book is structured into parts, each assigned to a different character's point-of-view, in third person. In several, we are in the main character's (Henry's) head. Other parts are like short stories about friends of the main character, the quirky characters who will become John Irving's stock in trade. It may seem there's a lack of plot, but what's missing is resolution. During Callie's one part, instead of showing Henry from her point of view, we get the wedding. In other words, Gardner doesn't take on the hard work of showing us how these two thrown together by fate manage to build a life together. At the end of the novel, I had no idea what Callie felt about Henry. Was there love? No idea, we're over here watching George Loomis get his arm hacked off by a combine. In Gardner's "Art of Fiction," this sort of failure is labeled "frigidity." Whatever you call it, the novel fails to imagine and show us the conflict we were promised. It's kind of shocking to find one's hero guilty of the very sin he warned about.

The final chapter, bizarrely, has Henry and his adopted son watch the exhumation of a body. This need to inject tragedy and death is a hallmark of "serious fiction" of the period. Gardner was writing about death here, not love. He presents us with a life-changing event for both Henry and Callie, but he doesn't show us how they learn to live together and raise a child. The baby may as well have died a stillbirth; Jimmy is a plot device, not a person. I would not recommend this to anyone. It's worldview is bleak and barren. And gray (the word appears over and over...was this book edited?).

How did I ever think this was good? Yeesh.

[Sondra Wolferman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot is almost non-existent, and the characters failed to sustain my interest until the very end---in the interior monologues of George Loomis and William Freund---but by then it was too late. The relationship between Henry Soames and his teenage bride is never fully explored, even though the first half of the book is preoccupied almost exclusively with these two characters. The novel is set in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York which is one of the most scenic places in the eastern United States, and yet the author somehow manages to make the setting seem as drab as his characters' lives. Every now and then the morbidly obese 'hero' goes out of his home to shoot small animals such as rabbits and squirrels with a high-powered rifle. Whether he does this for food, sport, or simply to compensate for his own inadequacies, is never made clear, but it does nothing to make the character more interesting or more sympathetic. Having said that, the author's impeccable prose shines through it all, and there are many beautifully written passages within the novel.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is one that I wish I had read years ago as I'm not sure it weathered the test of time all that well. It's beautifully written but staid, and subsequent similar type books have perhaps done this better. Admittedly, many passages are delightful to read both providing wonderful visuals and evoking emotions. However the characters aren't terribly interesting and once Gardner moves from one to another the reader is often ready to simply leave them behind. There's not much plot and the book largely rests on descriptions and interaction between the characters in the present moment of the book. Reading it I felt a sense of melancholy that had descended on the setting as well as all the characters and it just never lifted from them or the story line enough to keep it moving.

[40 Forte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy it as much as Mickelsson's Ghosts, but that's no slight to this work.

A character piece of the highest quality, I don't know why more people don't know/appreciate Gardner's work.

Human realtionships of all kinds are potrayed poignantly, and sometimes absurdly-but they always feel real.

-40

[Robert Jacoby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another 5-star book in my shelf.

Gardner not only preached superior writing but also excelled at the practice. I read this work with awe and wonder at what Mr. Gardner achieved with his prose. I agree with the Chicago Sun-Times reviewer who wrote: "There is enough life here for several novels." Mr. Gardner's prose is full of life. This is a wonderful American work by an American master.

[Wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

While his writing is superb at painting mental pictures and flushing out total characterizations, the plot plods so slowly it is tough to stay with it without breezing past paragraph after paragraph in an attempt to keep up your concentration. It would be better to just read parts of it aloud,let the beauty of the descriptions soak in, and let it go at that.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Nickel Mountain better than Grendel which was too odd a modern fairytale for me at the time. Nickel Mountain was closer in spirit to The Sunlight Dialogues.

[Laurel Simon-Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

What depressed people! Not a book to read during a lockdown.

[Luke Sherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the outset of John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain, Henry Soames owns and runs a diner by the side of a Catskills highway. He does a better job of that than of controlling his own giving heart; because of his charitable nature, he ends up not only married to a young woman who is pregnant with someone else’s baby, but also opens his home to a Jehovah’s Witness no one likes or trusts, and who may be an arsonist. The novel’s events swirl around Henry, its enigmatically passive-active agent at the center, and through it all the locals for better or for ill, prove that in Gardner’s hands, human nature is endlessly fascinating.

Also as fascinating are the apparent machinations of the gods, or impersonal forces with which humans must contend. A young would-be car designer and racer throws his dreams away and attends Cornell Ag school, as coerced by his businessman father. Henry’s bride finds him impossible to live with part of the time, but also unalterably admires his good acts. Other regulars come to Henry’s roadside diner and complain or shake their heads about nature, or the follies of their fellow characters, and nothing apparently changes over time. The town’s doctor, who doubles as its justice of the peace, carries around and expresses the anger and confusion for everyone’s benefit.

The tides of fortune and folly pursue all; no one is immune. Some suffer more than others, as usual, but through all the health challenges and commercial difficulties Henry wrestles with, his surprising wife and child turn out t be improbable blessings, even to the point of a comprehensive upgrade of his business. Gardner prepares us for certain confrontations which end up occurring outside the narrative, and it’s hard to find the purpose in some of the conflict on offer.

But the direct, persuasive, effective passage is always within the author’s repertoire: early on (at p. 66 of 454), as Henry emphatically blubbers on on some subject or other:

“But was he saying anything at all? he wondered. All so hopelessly confused. And yet he knew. He couldn’t do it and maybe never could have, but he knew. He was a fat, blubbering Holy Jesus, or anyway one half of him was, loving hell out of truckers and drunks and Willards and Callies—ready to be nailed for them. Eager. More heart than he knew how to spend.”

A constitutional inarticulateness afflicts the hero Henry: his compelling ideas, in the midst of his trying to express them, become amorphous as he loses his way. In spite of the mental and emotional challenges, he blunders ahead anyway, and comes out somehow ahead of the game. This, and the plain, direct, and vivid descriptions the author gives the other characters and their misadventures, drive the narrative, and attract and reward the reader. It’s all a mystery, and the Henry Soameses of the world, for all their difficulty in expressing it, know it better than the rest of us.

https://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2...

[Steve Kruppa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Pastoral Novel, indeed. Basically a snapshot of life in small town upstate New York. I grew up in upstate New York and a really related to these characters. I could see people I know and lived with. The characters are well developed and I found myself relating to them and really understanding their points of views, emotions, and struggles.

If Gardner wanted to give people an idea what it was like to live in upstate NY, he did. The plot is lacking however. This book just seemed to start and finish showing people during a piece of time.

The only plot I could think of was Henry’s change from someone who just goes through life waiting for it to happen to him to someone who understand that he has find something to love and believe in. Fate gave him the opportunity to have a family and love and he reluctantly took it. Only at the end does he realize what a gift it was.

Well written book. I kept reading it because I became so interested in these characters and their rather ordinary lives. Ordinary can be beautiful.

[Christian Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far from a perfect novel. The last 1/3rd clearly drops off in quality, as the development of early characters is halted in order to introduce newer, more cartoonish characters. Still, Henry Soames, Callie Wells, and George Loomis are some of the most memorable and believable characters I’ve ever read in a novel. They really stick with you. It’s just a shame I felt like I wasn’t spending much time with them over the last 100 pages or so.

But to the book’s credit, for the first 2/3rds of Nickel Mountain there’s beauty on damn near every page. Ever though it ultimately loses its focus (latter portions of it seem very much unfinished), I found the last chapter to be staggering enough in its beauty to excuse the book’s other transgressions. Still highly enjoyable, very touching, and relevant to today’s world in its deliberations on grace, human worth, and the fleeting nature of all things. Recommended.

[Susan Coleman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had picked this up in a used book shop because it was set in the Catskills, and I love a story with a really strong sense of place. But, the towns are mostly fictional, and the geography is actually at best not much of a consideration and at worst all wrong (he mentions entering the mountain region on a train from Albany to Utica, which isn't accurate), which left me disappointed. Having lived in the Catskills region for some time, I was left thinking how wonderfully the landscape could have figured into the story, could have shaped the characters and their actions, but that wasn't the case. Instead, the story could really have taken place in any northern farming community.

That being said, there were some lovely passages. I found some of the main characters a bit too stereotypical (country doctor, damaged young man home from the war), while some of the side characters that had more interesting motivations (Willard Freund) weren't given much air time.

[Martha Alami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised by some of the lower reviews here. I thought John Gardner’s story of Henry Soames was a masterpiece. No it is not fast moving and it is not packed with actions and thrills. It is just an honest and realistic story of a lonely man who unexpectedly finds love thru a young girl and her unfortunate pregnancy. The book examines loneliness and love thru Henry’s perspective and the perspective of the rural area in which he lives, the people in that area and the mundane events of everyday life. To me, having grown up in a rural area, all of the characters were typical and true to life. I would have given it five stars if the ending had been better. I felt Gardner just wanted to wrap it up and I wanted more, some real answers to some things. This is my first Gardner novel, having had him on my “to read” list for some time. I will definitely try another.

[Beer Bolwijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say? This novel delicately touches on the potential for human change, resistance to such change and compassionate mercy.

Somewhere in the Catskills (did I pick this up to read up on pre-Woodstock history? I don't recall.) a very humane society exist, in diametric opposition to life in the city. Travelers passing through are taken up instantly, occupying a seat in most folks' minds. Henry Soames, running a shabby little diner, just can't bring himself to stop being the most helpful, self-sacrificing guy around, even though he neglects his physique enormously.

There's a lot to love in this book. I had to deduct a star because I felt there were one too many premature deaths (2) that heighten suspense disconsonantly. Besides a few climactic moments it was a perfect ``uneventful'' (yet full of shimmering dialogue) novel to read with my cluttered mind.

[Lloyd Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a heartfelt love story, but not of the corny type, this work has realism and literary chops shown throughout. The main story follows Henry Soames, but features a pageant of other strange country folk.

The book is at times poetic, at times humorous, and at times serious, while never feeling overtly about romance. However, at its core, this story is one of love- romantic and spiritual- love with another and the love of a small town and the generations of connections all the people share.

Although I enjoyed Gardners’s October Light and The Sunlight Dialogues more than this work, I was pleasantly surprised at the heartfelt, and sometimes tragic, beauty I found in this piece, although not much happens per say, there is a immense weight of feeling in each page.

[Charlie De kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book; time, growing awareness and changing ethics have sapped it of its goodness. Casual and callous use of the "n" word and likewise derogatory terms for gays (even it could be argued the omniscient narration emerges in the heads of deeply flawed characters) spoil the illusion of timelessness and virtue. And still, that it strives for holiness, while rolling in the muck of its times, is somehow gloriously if unintentionally resonant.
I wish this literary genius of my youth were better than this; I wish we were all better than this. If we were to suggest, for instance, that a stench clings to this book, it is an American air.

[Carolyn Strong · Rating 3 out of 5]

A character study, not a story with action

While I recognize the author as an award-earning writer, the style and content of this book did not appeal to me. The characters were well described but they seemed to have no natural interaction and depth of feelings among them. I found it slow reading. Yet, I will wonder about how Jimmy turns out as he grows up. Odd, that Jimmy’s central placement in the “family” yields no family ties.