Train Dreams: A Novella
Written by Denis Johnson
Narrated by Will Patton
4/5
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About this audiobook
A New York Times Notable Book for 2011
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011
From the National Book Award-winning author Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) comes Train Dreams, an epic in miniature, and one of Johnson's most evocative works of fiction.
Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.
It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
Denis Johnson
Denis Johnson is the author of The Name of the World, Already Dead, Jesus' Son, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Fiskadoro, The Stars at Noon, and Angels. His poetry has been collected in the volume The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly. He is the recipient of a Lannan Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award, among many other honors for his work. He lives in northern Idaho.
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Train Dreams and Jesus' Son Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Laughing Monsters: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for Train Dreams
653 ratings75 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every wolf's and lion's howlRaises from hell a human soul~ William Blake, from "Auguries of Innocence"A novella scarcely 100 pages on half-sized leaves, finished in little more than an hour, Train Dreams hauls boxcars of story that could fully load the most epic of tomes. Train Dreams is an epic yet terse tome tracking the eccentric lifetime of Robert Grainier from rustic outpost to wilderness depot. The cadence of Train Dreams over precipitous trestles and into tunnels keeps time to the timelessness of Grainier's memories and not the predictability of clocks, so that we know Grainier the railroad builder before we know him as an orphan; know the happy short-lived family man after the long-time hermit. We see the caboose quite often before the engine. Grainier's jobs seem to converge and become the singular preoccupations in his life, be it freight carrier or logger, salvager or log cabin architect, and memories (or were they dreams?) lingered in Grainier's consciousness. Despite its brevity, Train Dreams is no bullion cube of a book. It's chateaubriand. It communicates more not because of but in spite of conveying less. So maybe it is the microscopic mass of William Blake's "grain of sand" -- so what? Watch Denis Johnson make of it a world. Credit Denis Johnson's nonchalant style, his miniaturist's skills (he is also a poet, and it shows), who wrought each day of Grainier's life to make them count. Made each day count the way the best poetry makes each phoneme count. Frugal, but not poor man's prose. Granted, Johnson chose but a baker's dozen or so of Grainier's days to illuminate, but he chose the most poignant of his days. Milestone days or crossroad days when Grainier, a wanderer of the northwest, understandably let his losses determine course. Hard cargo he carried, not easily turned. Grief haunted him, but he remained busy in his solitude (not discounting his nightly howling ritual with packs of wolves) deep in the lonesome woods, and it helped him maintain some levity, some sanity, commiserating his existence with those wild though faithful hounds. Being preoccupied by his memories indistinguishable from his dreams, Grainier pretended not to notice the omnipresent heartache of the past gnawing on him. Train Dreams, thankfully, avoids the tragic melodrama of a made-for-TV train wreck because it's as tranquil as it is painful, and it does not blow smoke off even an inch of sentimental rails.There's one day in Train Dreams that's stuck with me the most. The day in 1917 when Robert Grainier, after nearly helping hurl a thieving "Chinaman" off a railroad bridge fifty feet above the Moyea River in Idaho's panhandle, walked two miles out of his way on his commute home from hard labor, to buy a bottle of Hood's Sarsaparilla for his wife, Gladys, whom he'd not seen in weeks. She was home in their idyllic meadow cabin nursing their four-month-old, Kate. Idyllic, that is, until Grainier's baby girl "did not seem to recognize him." As that ominous day lapsed seamlessly into years, and the random conflagrations of fate seared a bewildering estrangement between daughter and father that was the fault of neither, enter the unexpected forepaws of a fable and hind feet of a myth, that, thanks to Denis Johnson's imaginative gifts, crept aboard Train Dreams and helped it levitate off the tracks.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Another writer might have made this an epic but Johnson created a novella with huge impact. This is an account of Robert Grainier's tough, lonely life in the American Northwest early in the 20th century, although it gives the impression of an earlier pioneering time. The writing is poetic, the story haunting, surreal. But despite all that can be said in favour of Johnson's expertise, it is not an entirely pleasant read.I picked up this book because it is set in the area just south of the border where I live. Johnson mentions British Columbia, a similar landscape sharing the Kootenai River (Kootenay in Canada). The heartbreaking forest fire Grainier experienced can be appreciated after the devastating fires of 2015 in this area.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great story. We’ll delivered. Really loved this story it’s caused me to go in search of other books by the author.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It is understandable that The New Yorker, The LA Times, and others of that ilk gave this book a high rating - it was exotic, far from their everyday experiences, a glimpse of "raw" life. But it is a simple story, simply told, about a simple man who lived a hard-scrabble life in the northwestern USA from about 1910 to 1970 or so. Easy Sunday afternoon read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautifully written and read. The stories will stay in your mind.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Such a compact book with a lot to offer. Very well done.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This novella, originally published in the Paris Review in 2002, tells the story of Robert Grainier, an orphan born in either Utah or Canada – he’s not sure which – around 1886. Grainier lives most of his eighty years on a single acre near Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. His life mirrors the struggles and growing pains of the American West early in the 20th century. Grainier wrestles with loneliness and the social changes surrounding him. He endures the loss of his wife and daughter in a fire that sweeps through the area, and although he rebuilds and carries on, Grainer never really recovers the spark and promise of life in the transforming nation. Train Dreams feels much bigger in scope and ambition than its length would indicate.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great storytelling and equally matched narration. I’m so glad I found this recommendation from the Scribd blog post. I want more recommendations from that editor!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a big jewel in a little package made of matter-of-fact details. Johnson tells a tale of a man who faces life’s challenges and wins despite having lost almost everything. Robert Grainier endures in his fight against nature and we are blessed who can read this transcendent story of his triumph.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poignant writing - it’s like seeing a black and white Western in an altered dream state and feeling like secret forces are calling you to hop on that train too and surrender your fate. It is so dense with meaning yet an easy read - somber yet hilarious. I absolutely loved it. Fabulous narration - couldn’t get any better than this.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is a deceptively simple novella, a moving story of Robert Granier, who watches the dawn of the twentieth century and the passing of its first half. Trying to describe any of the individual elements is difficult, as Johnson does so with such precise elegance and emotion that any synopsis easily pales by comparison. The book is full of moments, scenes from Granier's life, that together do in fact seem like a hazy but wonderful dream. This is the second book by Johnson that I've read, and I'm already started on my third. An excellent author that deserves all the praise he's gotten.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robert Grainier lived a life. And this was his story. The words of Train Dreams ring like those chords that have an unexplainable ability to bend time, or at least how we feel its passing. In its short 116 pages lays writing as rich as Thomas Savage’s Power of the Dog and as moving as Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. Though a quick read, I found it intensely powerful and yearning. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Now he slept soundly through the nights, and often he dreamed of trains, and often of one particular train: He was on it; he could smell the coal smoke; a world went by. And then he was standing in that world as the sound of the train died away.”
A novella that reads like a series of short stories about the life of protagonist Robert Granier, born in the 1880s, living in upper peninsula Idaho near the Canadian border. The storyline follows the trajectory of his life. He works on in logging and railroad construction, before settling into hauling loads. He experiences tragedy and tries to adapt the best he can. He is a decent man leading a simple life surrounded by nature.
This book is beautifully and atmospherically written. The descriptions of visions and the natural world make it feel almost mystical. It may also be taken as what could happen to the mind if a person lives in solitude for a long time. It is both a meditation on grief and a glimpse of a bygone era. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great first chapter! And pretty good stuff in the eight that follow! A dog that shoots its owner, a wolf-girl, and poor old Kootenai Bob. The whole book is about Robert Grainier - his life, his love, his labor. How he goes from a working, family man, to a hermit like creature living outside of town. It's well written and interesting, though I didn't like the ending. And it made me look up a meaning of a word - pulchritude! Dang word came up so much in chapter nine, I just had to find out what it meant! Thanks Mr. Johnson!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved all but two pages of this novella--unfortunately it was the last two that let me down. Still worth the read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The writing in this powerful novella is reminiscent of John Steinbeck. The author captures the transition to an industrial economy in the Western United States in this portrait of one man's life. The protagonist, a day laborer, experiences a tragic loss and then has to rebuild a new life. Meanwhile, trains and planes appear as a new world is being built, post WWI. Will Patton is an excellent reader, which enhances the experience as well. Denis Johnson had such a masterful use of prose, conveying a series of vivid, intense scenes. Excellent read!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I picked this one up in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Idaho. The slim novella is set there but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was surprised by the heartbreaking picture of grief and loneliness that I found. Robert Grainier, a railroad worker in the early 1900s, loses his wife and daughter in a fire and the rest of the book paints a picture of his quiet life through the decades. It reminded me a bit of The Searcher and The Dog Stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mostly style, this is the life story of a man who never had much, lost what he had and continued on, in the Idaho mountains.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Train Dreams by Denis Johnson is a novella that packs quite a punch. It is the life story of Robert Grainier, an American railroad laborer and captures both a specific time in American history and paints a vivid description of this small corner of the United States where it is set. The time period is the early 20th century and the place is the northern panhandle of Idaho. The building of the railroad and the trains that travelled through are the stepping stones that this story is built upon.Robert comes to northern Idaho on the train in 1886, a foundling sent to be raised by his aunt and uncle. He works on the railroad and even after marriage, he travels the railroad seeking work. He arrives home after an absence of some months in 1920, only to find that a huge fire has consumed the valley and his home destroyed. He finds no trace of his wife or small daughter. He eventually rebuilds his cabin and remains on the property until his death in 1968. By the end of his life, he had never travelled very far from his home and what travelling he did, was done by train.This is a deceptively simple story. It details the life of one man who lives a quiet life, but has suffered a huge tragedy. Set in rural Idaho and Washington, this portrait allows us to feel the depth of emotion that is hovering just under the surface. For such a short book it is packed with events from Grainer’s life and always in the background is the mythology of the railroad which anchors the story and supplies pictures of the slow progression of history. Written in sparse but beautifully descriptive prose, Train Dreams is a small gem of a book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reminded me a little bit of A Whole Life in the lonely man vs. environment scenario. Here it is the Northwest (Idaho panhandle and eastern Washington) in 1917 and Robert Granier is a logger and itinerant worker following the next big project with the Spokane International Railway in order to provide for his wife Gladys and baby daughter Kate back home in Bonners Ferry ID. He returns after a summer of work to find the whole area blackened by forest fire and no sign of his family. Thus begins a solitary lifetime of grief and hard work and returning to the land to rebuild. The country is unforgiving and it is a true battle to try to reclaim what was his. The novel is not so much linear as episodic - random incidents and characters come and go and it is more to draw out the personality of Robert who is steady and unassuming and simple, rather than to have any major events. Running through it all are the sounds of the train whistle and howling wolves. Progress and modernization are relentless and Robert witnesses a lot of change in his 80 years, but more as observation than taking part. This book really recaptures a time and place in American life where working the land was essential and so was trusting your neighbor. There is a thread of the mythical and supernatural too. Thoughtful and reflective, this book says way more in what doesn't happen than what does.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One man's life, told in episodic fashion, by a master. This short novel packs more truth and wonder into a little over 100 pages than most authors manage in a 1,000 page doorstopper. The story is at once realistic and mysterious. Like life itself. I highly recommend the audiobook version, read by Will Patton.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I listened to the audio book read by Will Patton. Patton does such a good job with Johnson's beautiful prose it made me want to listen to everything he has narrated.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5a wonderful, sad, beautiful story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The excellent novella recounts the life of Robert Grainier, a worker in the Northwest United States during the 20's and 30's. The story is a Western in the sense of setting and the "rugged" individual although Johnson stripes away the layers of this man and leaves you, the reader, left to muse on this era that has been completely obliterated by the progress of society.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Certainly a very interesting read. I don't really know what to say about it, except that it gave me a glimpse into life in the 20th centuriy USA.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I have loved every Denis Johnson book I've read. TRAIN DREAMS is my sixth, and yes, I was immediately caught up in this deceptively simple story of the life of orphaned Robert Grainier in frontier Idaho. It is a story filled with loneliness, sadness, humor, tragic events, and, finally, acceptance. I was reminded of a few other books I've read in recent years - by Amanda Coplin (THE ORCHARDIST), Molly Gloss (THE JUMP-OFF CREEK and THE HEARTS OF HORSES), Shann Ray (AMERICAN COPPER) and Gil Adamson (THE OUTLANDER). But Johnson's unique accomplishment is that he manages to create his own magically realistic world in barely a hundred pages. An entire long life is compressed into this shining gem of frontier fiction. I can't figure out how he does it, but I'm still thinking about it. This is simply a beautiful little book. My highest recommendation.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Just started. Enjoying. And then when it went all magical realism suddenly I no longer did.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A spare, stark novel about the American mountain west in the first half of the 20th century with bits of historical research and magical realism dashed in. Impressed with how Johnson can make Robert Grainier's life so mundane and unimportant and singular and fascinating at the same time. Very good.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I hadn't reread this fabulous little book in some time, but I have always kept it handy, knowing I would want to return to its words. Walking past it the other day, I knew it was time to reread. Yet, always, in the back of my mind there's a little voice saying over and over, will it be as good this time?, and it truly was, in a major way. I marvel at how well this is written, just how much he can do, can express, with a few words ... it's masterful.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This very short novella is a dreamlike look back at a drifter's life building train tracks, logging, and delivering largely in the Pacific Northwest, largely in the 1920s and 1930s (although some of the episodes are from when he was a child at the turn of the century or as late as the 1960s when he died). It transports you right into the world it describes: you can almost hear the clattering of the railroad, smell the sap from the trees and see the wildfires spreading up the mountain. There's not really anything in the way of plot and the other characters are not drawn particularly sharply, but that is not much of a hindrance in a work this length.