Nature Literature discussion

We have a tie for the October book of the month! Since October's read is fiction, and we only read novels twice a year, I'm going to include both books for October. You can choose one, or both, or none! :)

But please add your comments about Train Dreams here.

I thought this looked like an interesting book, but I am not sure I will have time to read it in October- but I will check in to see what folks think about the book!

Train Dreams is a novella, less than 200 pages, a quick read. As the story opens, Grainier is one of a group of men trying to kill a Chinese man by throwing him off a bridge they are building. It seemed a jarring way to introduce a protagonist, and Grainier didn’t elicit any empathy in me until later when he faced the loss of his wife and child. As the world is modernizing with bridges, railroads and automobiles, Grainier seems to move in the opposite direction, driving a horse-drawn wagon and making a home in the woods. This passage haunts me:
“By now it no longer disturbed him to understand that the valley wouldn’t slowly, eventually resume its condition from before the great fire. Though the signs of destruction were fading, it was a very different place now, with different plants and therefore with different animals. The gorgeous spruce had gone. Now came almost exclusively jack pine, which tended to grow up scraggly and mean. He’d been hearing the wolves less and less often, from farther and farther away. The coyotes grew numerous, the rabbits increasingly scarce. From long stretches of the Moyea River through the burn, the trout had gone.”
This material may be protected by copyright.

Excerpt From
Train Dreams
Denis Johnson
https://books.apple.com/us/book/train...
This material may be protected by copyright.

Excerpt From
Train Dreams
Denis Johnson
https://books.apple.com/us/book/train...
This material may be protected by copyright.

I was interested to read your comments about Train Dreams Iris. I hope to start it in the next week or so.