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Main-Travelled Roads
Main-Travelled Roads contains eleven stories in this expanded and revised 1922 edition of an undisputed American classic.Although Garland paints no pretty pictures, he offers exhilarating moments in the lives of these farm people and never ignores the strength of individual will.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1891
About the author
Hamlin Garland
301 books21 followersStories and novels of American writer Hannibal Hamlin Garland include the autobiographical
A Son of the Middle Border
and depict the hardships that Midwestern farmers endured.
People best know this American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer for his fiction, involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garlin of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock. The boy was named after Hannibal Hamlin, then candidate for vice-president under Abraham Lincoln. He lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. He read diligently in the public library there. His first success came in 1891 with Main-Traveled Roads, a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of Ulysses S. Grant in McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898. The same year, Garland traveled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired The Trail of the Gold Seekers (1899). He lived on a farm between Osage, and St. Ansgar, Iowa for quite some time. Many of his writings are based on this era of his life.
A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short fiction, and essays. In 1917, he published his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary. Garland naturally became quite well known during his lifetime and had many friends in literary circles. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918.
After moving to Hollywood, California, in 1929, he devoted his remaining years to investigating psychic phenomena, an enthusiasm he first undertook in 1891. In his final book, The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939), he tried to defend such phenomena and prove the legitimacy of psychic mediums.
A friend, Lee Shippey, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, recalled Garland's regular system of writing:
. . . he got up at half past five, brewed a pot of coffee and made toast on an electric gadget in his study and was at work by six. At nine o'clock he was through with work for the day. Then he breakfasted, read the morning paper and attended to his personal mail. . . . After luncheon he and Mrs. Garland would take a long drive . . . . Sometimes they would drop in on Will Rogers, Will Durant, Robert Benchley or even on me, for their range of friends was very wide. . . . After dinner they would go to a show if an exceptionally good one were in town, otherwise one of their daughters would read aloud.
Garland died at age 79, at his home in Hollywood on March 4, 1940. A memorial service was held three days later near his home in Glendale, California. His ashes were buried in Neshonoc Cemetery in West Salem, Wisconsin on March 14; his poem "The Cry of the Age" was read by Reverend John B. Fritz.
The Hamlin Garland House in West Salem is a historical site.
People best know this American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer for his fiction, involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garlin of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock. The boy was named after Hannibal Hamlin, then candidate for vice-president under Abraham Lincoln. He lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. He read diligently in the public library there. His first success came in 1891 with Main-Traveled Roads, a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of Ulysses S. Grant in McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898. The same year, Garland traveled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired The Trail of the Gold Seekers (1899). He lived on a farm between Osage, and St. Ansgar, Iowa for quite some time. Many of his writings are based on this era of his life.
A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short fiction, and essays. In 1917, he published his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary. Garland naturally became quite well known during his lifetime and had many friends in literary circles. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918.
After moving to Hollywood, California, in 1929, he devoted his remaining years to investigating psychic phenomena, an enthusiasm he first undertook in 1891. In his final book, The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939), he tried to defend such phenomena and prove the legitimacy of psychic mediums.
A friend, Lee Shippey, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, recalled Garland's regular system of writing:
. . . he got up at half past five, brewed a pot of coffee and made toast on an electric gadget in his study and was at work by six. At nine o'clock he was through with work for the day. Then he breakfasted, read the morning paper and attended to his personal mail. . . . After luncheon he and Mrs. Garland would take a long drive . . . . Sometimes they would drop in on Will Rogers, Will Durant, Robert Benchley or even on me, for their range of friends was very wide. . . . After dinner they would go to a show if an exceptionally good one were in town, otherwise one of their daughters would read aloud.
Garland died at age 79, at his home in Hollywood on March 4, 1940. A memorial service was held three days later near his home in Glendale, California. His ashes were buried in Neshonoc Cemetery in West Salem, Wisconsin on March 14; his poem "The Cry of the Age" was read by Reverend John B. Fritz.
The Hamlin Garland House in West Salem is a historical site.
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February 8, 2021
Hanging On, Hanging In, but not Hanging Out
The above pretty well describes my life for the past year. Due to some underlying health conditions, I have followed the health guidelines to the best of my ability. I wear a mask when I am in public places; I practice social distancing; and I avoid groups and public places when I can.
So I stay out of:
1) bars
2) barber shops
3) restaurants
The first was no problem. I wasn’t going to bars even before the pandemic. And to be truthful, I rarely go to barber shops. That leaves restaurants. And I confess that in the pre-pandemic era, when I would get tired of my own cooking and the mess that I always created, I would take the easy way out and go to a restaurant. But it has been a year since I resorted to that.
For years I have had a vegetable garden, but this past year, with the help of my daughter and son-in-law, we expanded. The garden produce not only helped to keep me out of restaurants, but it also sharply curtailed my trips to grocery stores, which is also a good thing.
We have hot summers where I live. Therefore, working in the yard and the garden during the summer is not only good exercise, it also allows me to shed some pounds that need to be shed. And eating even more out of the garden last year helped because my diet was much more nutritious than in prior years when I occasionally backslid and ate at a restaurant.
Mostly, however, this past year I just didn’t eat as much. The main reason for that is that I never go back for seconds when I cook. You wouldn’t either, assuming you could even make it through the firsts.
During the fall the garden was still producing and there were tons of leaves to be collected from the lawn and composted, but then came December. The leaves had been removed, the garden was no longer producing, and cold weather was making me more and more housebound.
Of course, being a reader that isn’t all bad either, but after a while the Puritan work ethic kicked in and I began to feel guilty that I was not doing some kind of “work,” beyond routine household tasks.
One day I went into my “library” looking for a book and after an hour of searching and not finding it I gave up in frustration and wrote it off as a lost cause. Unfortunately, this has happened on many occasions. Sometimes I did find the book, but only while I was looking for another book – that I didn’t find – and after I no longer needed the book that I did find.
Unorganized or Disorganized?
I’m not sure that I even had a library. And since I don’t think I had ever looked up the word in the dictionary, I did. According to Merriam-Webster it is:
1: a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (such as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale;
2: a collection resembling or suggesting a library;
3: a series of related books issued by a publisher;
4: a collection of cloned DNA fragments that are maintained in a suitable cellular environment and that usually represent the genetic material of a particular organism or tissue.
I am glad I looked up the word because imagine not being aware of library no. 4. But to be honest, I don’t think even no. 1 was a good description of my “library.”
It wasn’t so much that my book collection was unorganized, but that it was disorganized. According to Merriam-Webster that means that it lacked coherence, or system, or a central guiding agency, which was a perfect description of my “library.” I say was, because I decided that one way to satisfy that nagging work ethic was to do something about the disorganization.
I had always attempted to catalogue my books on the basis of subject matter, which is a far from perfect method. Many books have overlapping subject matters and cataloguing fiction on that basis is particularly problematic.
So I decided to alphabetize my books by the name of the authors. How hard could that be? Yes, I do have in excess of 3000 books, but I decided that it shouldn’t take more than a week if I worked on the problem every day.
I began the first week in December. It took me longer than a week; it took me seven of them. But now my book collection has coherence, it has a system, and it has a central guiding agency.
It is a library.
Main-Travelled Roads
I know you couldn’t tell, but this is supposed to be a review of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland. However, if I had not reorganized my library, I would never have read the book.
While sorting and rearranging books I ran across several that I had not read and even some that I had even forgotten that I owned. Main-Travelled Roads had even fallen behind a row of other books and was totally hidden.
Although I had never read the book, I was aware of it and its author. What I knew about the book was that every American history textbook from high school through college always mentioned Garland and this book, as well as his A Son of the Middle Border, in their bibliographic references. But I never read the books. I still haven’t read A Son of the Middle Border, but now I have read Main-Travelled Roads.
Main-Travelled Roads was Garland’s first major success. It is a collection of short stories that were originally published in 1891 that focused on farm life in the upper Middle West. Garland knew about that region because that is where he was born and raised and he knew about farm life because his father was a farmer, who, according to Garland, was barely able to support his family.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the future greatness of the nation depended on the yeoman farmer for “those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people.” Garland, having labored in the earth alongside his father, thought that was a bunch of bunk.
In his stories he set out to demythologize the life of the yeoman farmer by documenting its dehumanizing, unromantic nature. The stories are for the most part somber tales about unrelenting struggles against nature and environment and economic forces, all of which were beyond the control of the farmer, leaving him with a feeling of helplessness.
The stories are set in the late 1880s, but they seem to have a more modern sensibility. They read as though they could have been written about the problems of farmers during the Great Depression or even later.
Garland’s dedication of the book reads:
The above pretty well describes my life for the past year. Due to some underlying health conditions, I have followed the health guidelines to the best of my ability. I wear a mask when I am in public places; I practice social distancing; and I avoid groups and public places when I can.
So I stay out of:
1) bars
2) barber shops
3) restaurants
The first was no problem. I wasn’t going to bars even before the pandemic. And to be truthful, I rarely go to barber shops. That leaves restaurants. And I confess that in the pre-pandemic era, when I would get tired of my own cooking and the mess that I always created, I would take the easy way out and go to a restaurant. But it has been a year since I resorted to that.
For years I have had a vegetable garden, but this past year, with the help of my daughter and son-in-law, we expanded. The garden produce not only helped to keep me out of restaurants, but it also sharply curtailed my trips to grocery stores, which is also a good thing.
We have hot summers where I live. Therefore, working in the yard and the garden during the summer is not only good exercise, it also allows me to shed some pounds that need to be shed. And eating even more out of the garden last year helped because my diet was much more nutritious than in prior years when I occasionally backslid and ate at a restaurant.
Mostly, however, this past year I just didn’t eat as much. The main reason for that is that I never go back for seconds when I cook. You wouldn’t either, assuming you could even make it through the firsts.
During the fall the garden was still producing and there were tons of leaves to be collected from the lawn and composted, but then came December. The leaves had been removed, the garden was no longer producing, and cold weather was making me more and more housebound.
Of course, being a reader that isn’t all bad either, but after a while the Puritan work ethic kicked in and I began to feel guilty that I was not doing some kind of “work,” beyond routine household tasks.
One day I went into my “library” looking for a book and after an hour of searching and not finding it I gave up in frustration and wrote it off as a lost cause. Unfortunately, this has happened on many occasions. Sometimes I did find the book, but only while I was looking for another book – that I didn’t find – and after I no longer needed the book that I did find.
Unorganized or Disorganized?
I’m not sure that I even had a library. And since I don’t think I had ever looked up the word in the dictionary, I did. According to Merriam-Webster it is:
1: a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (such as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale;
2: a collection resembling or suggesting a library;
3: a series of related books issued by a publisher;
4: a collection of cloned DNA fragments that are maintained in a suitable cellular environment and that usually represent the genetic material of a particular organism or tissue.
I am glad I looked up the word because imagine not being aware of library no. 4. But to be honest, I don’t think even no. 1 was a good description of my “library.”
It wasn’t so much that my book collection was unorganized, but that it was disorganized. According to Merriam-Webster that means that it lacked coherence, or system, or a central guiding agency, which was a perfect description of my “library.” I say was, because I decided that one way to satisfy that nagging work ethic was to do something about the disorganization.
I had always attempted to catalogue my books on the basis of subject matter, which is a far from perfect method. Many books have overlapping subject matters and cataloguing fiction on that basis is particularly problematic.
So I decided to alphabetize my books by the name of the authors. How hard could that be? Yes, I do have in excess of 3000 books, but I decided that it shouldn’t take more than a week if I worked on the problem every day.
I began the first week in December. It took me longer than a week; it took me seven of them. But now my book collection has coherence, it has a system, and it has a central guiding agency.
It is a library.
Main-Travelled Roads
I know you couldn’t tell, but this is supposed to be a review of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland. However, if I had not reorganized my library, I would never have read the book.
While sorting and rearranging books I ran across several that I had not read and even some that I had even forgotten that I owned. Main-Travelled Roads had even fallen behind a row of other books and was totally hidden.
Although I had never read the book, I was aware of it and its author. What I knew about the book was that every American history textbook from high school through college always mentioned Garland and this book, as well as his A Son of the Middle Border, in their bibliographic references. But I never read the books. I still haven’t read A Son of the Middle Border, but now I have read Main-Travelled Roads.
Main-Travelled Roads was Garland’s first major success. It is a collection of short stories that were originally published in 1891 that focused on farm life in the upper Middle West. Garland knew about that region because that is where he was born and raised and he knew about farm life because his father was a farmer, who, according to Garland, was barely able to support his family.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the future greatness of the nation depended on the yeoman farmer for “those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people.” Garland, having labored in the earth alongside his father, thought that was a bunch of bunk.
In his stories he set out to demythologize the life of the yeoman farmer by documenting its dehumanizing, unromantic nature. The stories are for the most part somber tales about unrelenting struggles against nature and environment and economic forces, all of which were beyond the control of the farmer, leaving him with a feeling of helplessness.
The stories are set in the late 1880s, but they seem to have a more modern sensibility. They read as though they could have been written about the problems of farmers during the Great Depression or even later.
Garland’s dedication of the book reads:
To MY FATHER AND MOTHER
whose half-century pilgrimage on the main-travelled road of life has brought them only toil and deprivation, this book of stories is dedicated by a son to whom every day brings a deepening sense of his parents’ silent heroism
May 15, 2023
Hannibal Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) is sometimes referred to as the Thomas Hardy of the West, a self-educated author able to evoke memorable Midwestern American characters & scenes, highlighting the cadences of people at a particular time & place, while interweaving them with the sounds of birds, cicadas and wind through the trees & wheat fields.
Garland's Main Traveled Roads offers the reader 11 vignettes of life in the author's native Wisconsin & elsewhere in the upper Midwest in the period after America's Civil War, well before the onset of large-scale industry & automobiles, a time when many midwesterners lived on small family homesteads, away from urban centers, with the dirt roads connecting small towns & farms eventually replaced by well-traveled highways.
There are hard times aplenty portrayed and while Hamlin Garland has the largely poor & often immigrant folks who people his stories speak in vernacular voices, he is careful to give almost all of the them a soulful & upright demeanor, echoing Walt Whitman who influenced the writer & who advised: "Don't depict evil for its own sake but instead make it a foil for purity, as Shakespeare did, somewhere in your story letting the sun shine in."
Unusual for its time, in a Good Fellow's Wife, Garland has the wife of a small town banker named Jim Sanford, who has staked the savings of many relatively poor people on the copper market & lost, essentially bail out her bankrupted mate by nurturing a business of her own. After the debts to the townsfolk are eventually paid off, she suggests that in future they will act as equals within the marriage, rather than her merely being content to cook, sew & take care of their children.
In God's Ravens, a man who becomes discontented with the pace & grime of city life in Chicago, moves to the country but is dismissive of the seemingly bumbling people there who seem "foreign" to him & who naturally resent his superior attitude. However, when they come to his aid in a time of need, he is chastened & declares that they will never again seem like caricatures.
As a part of Among the Corn Rows, a young jr. editor named Seagraves, working for a small town paper, while feeling essentially anonymous, rebels against the concept of caste, prejudice, privilege & those who live off the labor of others. He declares that he has "exposed the native spring of the emigrant", uttering that "it is better to be an equal among peasants than a servant before nobles".
At times, Garland's stories resemble small scale morality tales, often with an edge to them, as with The Return of a Private, where a soldier comes home to his family from Louisiana, first by train & then via endless miles walking with his knapsack on country roads, after serving the Union Army in the Civil War. He is facing an uncertain future & sick at heart from the bloodshed he has witnessed, "like a man caught in a dream". With his farm facing foreclosure due to his long absence, he declares that "the war with the south was over & his daily running fight with nature, uncertain crops & the injustice of his fellow man was just beginning."
There is a contrasting of urban & rural lifestyles that often set brother against brother, as when one departs the farm to go off to college or to seek a trade in Chicago, Boston or New York, leaving the farm's fortunes in the hands of those left behind, creating both resentment & a desire to make amends depending on the role played within the family drama.
This is the case in my favorite tale, Up the Coolly, with a "coully" being a deep ravine formed by rainstorms or melting snow, often dry in summer. One brother returns from a long period in the east confronting his younger brother working in the fields who barely recognizes him:
To the contrary, Garland saw himself as an apostle of realism, telling his tales of prairie life with colorful phrasing & exceedingly memorable tableaus.
*Among the images within my review are Hamlin Garland; an atmospheric painting by Thomas Hart Benton, whose craft & palette seem especially appropriate to Garland's tales; a turn-of-the century photo of a farming family tending to a wheat harvest; the author reading to his grandchildren.
Garland's Main Traveled Roads offers the reader 11 vignettes of life in the author's native Wisconsin & elsewhere in the upper Midwest in the period after America's Civil War, well before the onset of large-scale industry & automobiles, a time when many midwesterners lived on small family homesteads, away from urban centers, with the dirt roads connecting small towns & farms eventually replaced by well-traveled highways.
There are hard times aplenty portrayed and while Hamlin Garland has the largely poor & often immigrant folks who people his stories speak in vernacular voices, he is careful to give almost all of the them a soulful & upright demeanor, echoing Walt Whitman who influenced the writer & who advised: "Don't depict evil for its own sake but instead make it a foil for purity, as Shakespeare did, somewhere in your story letting the sun shine in."
Unusual for its time, in a Good Fellow's Wife, Garland has the wife of a small town banker named Jim Sanford, who has staked the savings of many relatively poor people on the copper market & lost, essentially bail out her bankrupted mate by nurturing a business of her own. After the debts to the townsfolk are eventually paid off, she suggests that in future they will act as equals within the marriage, rather than her merely being content to cook, sew & take care of their children.
In God's Ravens, a man who becomes discontented with the pace & grime of city life in Chicago, moves to the country but is dismissive of the seemingly bumbling people there who seem "foreign" to him & who naturally resent his superior attitude. However, when they come to his aid in a time of need, he is chastened & declares that they will never again seem like caricatures.
As a part of Among the Corn Rows, a young jr. editor named Seagraves, working for a small town paper, while feeling essentially anonymous, rebels against the concept of caste, prejudice, privilege & those who live off the labor of others. He declares that he has "exposed the native spring of the emigrant", uttering that "it is better to be an equal among peasants than a servant before nobles".
At times, Garland's stories resemble small scale morality tales, often with an edge to them, as with The Return of a Private, where a soldier comes home to his family from Louisiana, first by train & then via endless miles walking with his knapsack on country roads, after serving the Union Army in the Civil War. He is facing an uncertain future & sick at heart from the bloodshed he has witnessed, "like a man caught in a dream". With his farm facing foreclosure due to his long absence, he declares that "the war with the south was over & his daily running fight with nature, uncertain crops & the injustice of his fellow man was just beginning."
There is a contrasting of urban & rural lifestyles that often set brother against brother, as when one departs the farm to go off to college or to seek a trade in Chicago, Boston or New York, leaving the farm's fortunes in the hands of those left behind, creating both resentment & a desire to make amends depending on the role played within the family drama.
This is the case in my favorite tale, Up the Coolly, with a "coully" being a deep ravine formed by rainstorms or melting snow, often dry in summer. One brother returns from a long period in the east confronting his younger brother working in the fields who barely recognizes him:
Don't you know me Grant? I'm your brother Howard. Grant responds: well, I'm glad to see you but I can't shake hands. That damned cow has laid down in the mud.Later, Howard encounters his widowed mother, who seems not to recognize her own son & who rests on the porch in something resembling a comatose state, a shell of her former exuberant self, seemingly broken by years of toil in dealing with every aspect of farm life. Howard offers to help his brother Grant financially with the burden of the heavily-mortgaged family farm, as a way to forgive him for his long absence. But as Grant slowly begins to accept his brother's presence...
They stood & looked at each other. Howard's cuffs, collar, & shirt, alien in their elegance, showed through the dusk & a glint of light shot out from the jewel of his necktie, as the light from a house caught it at a right angle. As they gazed at each other in silence, Howard divined something of the hard bitter life that came into Grant's heart, as he stood there, ragged, ankle deep in muck, his sleeves rolled up, a shapeless old straw hat on his head.
Well, go on in & set down. I'll be in as soon as I strain the milk & wash the dirt off my hands.
He squeezes his brother's hand & responds: Money can't give me a chance now. Life ain't worth much to me. I'm too old to take a fresh start. I'm a dead failure. I've come to the conclusion that life's a failure for 99% of us. It's too late to help me now Howard.In Nobel laureate, Knut Hamsun's world, the growth of the soil causes growth of the soul. In Hamlin Garland's recounting, a life of farming is hardly idyllic & those who paint it as so, haven't really experienced the long, backbreaking hours of drudgery in spring & summer, the uncertain harvests in fall, the bitter & desolate cold of a prairie winter.
The two men stood there, face to face, hands clasped, the one fair-skinned, full-lipped, handsome in his neat suit; the other tragic, sombre in his softened mood, his large, long Scotch face bronzed with sun & scarred with wrinkles that had histories, like sabre-cuts on a veteran, the record of his battles.
To the contrary, Garland saw himself as an apostle of realism, telling his tales of prairie life with colorful phrasing & exceedingly memorable tableaus.
*Among the images within my review are Hamlin Garland; an atmospheric painting by Thomas Hart Benton, whose craft & palette seem especially appropriate to Garland's tales; a turn-of-the century photo of a farming family tending to a wheat harvest; the author reading to his grandchildren.
March 25, 2008
Garland (who wrote in the tradition of regionalist Realism) was a master of short fiction, and these 11 stories demonstrate it. A strong concern for social justice, which he saw denied to the family farmers he wrote about (as it still is to their descendants), and a compassion for his subject's poverty and its debilitating consequences, is evident in many of these stories, esp. "Under the Lion's Paw" and "Up the Cooly." But his characters are not simply whining, passive victims of fate and society; they tend to be strong, hard-working, indomitable people who wrest the best that they can from life, and care about others along the way. Nor was he simply a writer of large-scale social commentary; his topic is often the everyday human relationships of marriage, family and community, treated with a good deal of psychological insight. These are stories that will touch your heart!
February 20, 2020
Sono rimasto davvero colpito da questi racconti: scritti alla fine del diciannovesimo secolo, riescono a farci immergere in un tempo e un luogo al tempo stesso unici e universali.
In queste pagine Garland riesce a ricreare tutta la poesia dei paesaggi rurali dell'America. Mississippi, Wisconsin, Midwest.
I colori del cielo e del grano, gli odori dei campi, i suoni della natura: gli stessi personaggi spesso rimangono immobili a fissare tutto questo, innamorati di ciò che vedono.
Al tempo stesso, la dura realtà della vita. Il lavoro infinito e massacrante nei campi, la lotta costante contro le avversità climatiche, contro i risvolti della fortuna e contro i ricchi che sfruttano fino all'estremo il lavoro dei contadini nei campi. Una vita di fatica e di sudore e di povertà, esistenze spese a cercare di rimanere a galla senza neppure la speranza di un futuro migliore, di qualcosa di diverso.
E comunque, tra sogni giovanili e disillusione, una rete di affetti sinceri, di onestà.
In mezzo a rivalità, a meschinità, a lazzi, certo. A sfiducia e invidia nei confronti di chi studia, di chi fugge in città lasciando i campi per tentare la fortuna. A imbruttimenti e a bassezze.
Una visione estremamente realistica di quel che è stato quel periodo, con i suoi difetti e con i suoi lati quasi romantici.
Un libro che non avrei neanche mai avvicinato, non conoscendo l'autore, il titolo né altro.
Un libro preso perché allo stand dell'editore, dopo averci chiacchierato per un po', ho chiesto quali libri del suo catalogo mi consigliasse.
Posso dire di aver trovato una piccola pepita!
In queste pagine Garland riesce a ricreare tutta la poesia dei paesaggi rurali dell'America. Mississippi, Wisconsin, Midwest.
I colori del cielo e del grano, gli odori dei campi, i suoni della natura: gli stessi personaggi spesso rimangono immobili a fissare tutto questo, innamorati di ciò che vedono.
Al tempo stesso, la dura realtà della vita. Il lavoro infinito e massacrante nei campi, la lotta costante contro le avversità climatiche, contro i risvolti della fortuna e contro i ricchi che sfruttano fino all'estremo il lavoro dei contadini nei campi. Una vita di fatica e di sudore e di povertà, esistenze spese a cercare di rimanere a galla senza neppure la speranza di un futuro migliore, di qualcosa di diverso.
E comunque, tra sogni giovanili e disillusione, una rete di affetti sinceri, di onestà.
In mezzo a rivalità, a meschinità, a lazzi, certo. A sfiducia e invidia nei confronti di chi studia, di chi fugge in città lasciando i campi per tentare la fortuna. A imbruttimenti e a bassezze.
Una visione estremamente realistica di quel che è stato quel periodo, con i suoi difetti e con i suoi lati quasi romantici.
Un libro che non avrei neanche mai avvicinato, non conoscendo l'autore, il titolo né altro.
Un libro preso perché allo stand dell'editore, dopo averci chiacchierato per un po', ho chiesto quali libri del suo catalogo mi consigliasse.
Posso dire di aver trovato una piccola pepita!
July 25, 2019
Reading about American history and specifically about the settling of the West, I come In this excellent collection of short stories that portray the lives of those people who have chosen to live in this environment. The author, using his excellent writing, takes us to this unforgiving wild environment and realistically describes the lives of these people, with the enormous difficulties, the extremely poor living and the apparent lack of any prospect for the future, situations in which has lived them close. But this writer's perspective is not pessimistic, anything else, he is praising the determination of these people, their adaptivity, their strength, and their firm belief that these efforts will result in something positive. Of course they face many difficulties and things often go bad but in the end, they always go on and the writer takes care of rewarding them without going to the other end. So without expecting it, this collection moved me and was the perfect complement to my historical readings.
Διαβάζοντας για την αμερικανική ιστορία και συγκεκριμένα για τον αποικισμό της Δύσης έφτασα σε αυτή την εξαιρετική συλλογή διηγημάτων που απεικονίζει τη ζωή αυτών των ανθρώπων που επέλεξαν να ζήσουν σε αυτό το περιβάλλον. Ο συγγραφέας χρησιμοποιώντας την εξαιρετική γραφή του μας μεταφέρει σε αυτό το άγριο περιβάλλον που δεν συγχωρεί και μας περιγράφει με ρεαλισμό τη ζωή αυτών των ανθρώπων, με τις τεράστιες δυσκολίες, την εξαιρετικά φτωχή διαβίωση και τη φαινομενική απουσία οποιασδήποτε προοπτικής για το μέλλον, καταστάσεις στις οποίες τις έχει ζήσει από κοντά. Δεν είναι, όμως, αυτή η οπτική γωνία του συγγραφέα απαισιόδοξη, κάθε άλλο, πάνω από όλα υμνεί την αποφασιστικότητα αυτών των ανθρώπων, την προσαρμοστικότητά τους, τη δύναμή τους και την ακλόνητη πίστη τους ότι από αυτές τους τις προσπάθειες θα προκύψει κάτι θετικό. Φυσικά αντιμετωπίζουν πολλές δυσκολίες και τα πράγματα πολλές φορές πάνε τρομερά στραβά αλλά στο τέλος πάντα συνεχίζουν και ο συγγραφέας φροντίζει να τους ανταμείψει, χωρίς, όμως, να πηγαίνει στο άλλο άκρο. Έτσι χωρίς να το περιμένω αυτή η συλλογή με συγκίνησε και αποτέλεσε το ιδανικό συμπλήρωμα των σχετικών ιστορικών μου αναγνωσμάτων.
Διαβάζοντας για την αμερικανική ιστορία και συγκεκριμένα για τον αποικισμό της Δύσης έφτασα σε αυτή την εξαιρετική συλλογή διηγημάτων που απεικονίζει τη ζωή αυτών των ανθρώπων που επέλεξαν να ζήσουν σε αυτό το περιβάλλον. Ο συγγραφέας χρησιμοποιώντας την εξαιρετική γραφή του μας μεταφέρει σε αυτό το άγριο περιβάλλον που δεν συγχωρεί και μας περιγράφει με ρεαλισμό τη ζωή αυτών των ανθρώπων, με τις τεράστιες δυσκολίες, την εξαιρετικά φτωχή διαβίωση και τη φαινομενική απουσία οποιασδήποτε προοπτικής για το μέλλον, καταστάσεις στις οποίες τις έχει ζήσει από κοντά. Δεν είναι, όμως, αυτή η οπτική γωνία του συγγραφέα απαισιόδοξη, κάθε άλλο, πάνω από όλα υμνεί την αποφασιστικότητα αυτών των ανθρώπων, την προσαρμοστικότητά τους, τη δύναμή τους και την ακλόνητη πίστη τους ότι από αυτές τους τις προσπάθειες θα προκύψει κάτι θετικό. Φυσικά αντιμετωπίζουν πολλές δυσκολίες και τα πράγματα πολλές φορές πάνε τρομερά στραβά αλλά στο τέλος πάντα συνεχίζουν και ο συγγραφέας φροντίζει να τους ανταμείψει, χωρίς, όμως, να πηγαίνει στο άλλο άκρο. Έτσι χωρίς να το περιμένω αυτή η συλλογή με συγκίνησε και αποτέλεσε το ιδανικό συμπλήρωμα των σχετικών ιστορικών μου αναγνωσμάτων.
August 29, 2014
This was a truly beautiful piece of work from someone that intimately knew and loved the prairie. His words paint vivid beautiful pictures of not only golden flecks of sunlight bouncing through the leaves but also of the pain and suffering that goes from being tied to your land. Hamlin won the Pulitzer for Daughter of a Middle Road which I have just started reading, but Main Travelled Roads was definitely better in my opinion than Son of a Middle Border. He absolutely captured the moments that I see when walking through the fields early that take my breath away, the feeling of infiniteness of the prairie sky, the song that the lands sings as wind whistles through the corn and the grasshoppers string.
Its not just the beautiful imagery though, he also captured the people well, and not in a demeaning way. He wanted to show that people on the prairie could be genius, loyal to a fault, kind and giving, and utter scoundrels. He showed them as people rather than as idealistic farmers that were in the propaganda at the time,. (I would like to mention here that as a woman married to farmer I found truck commercials almost deeply insulting in their desperate ass-sucking attempts to glorify modern day midwesterners, the commercial writers could learn a thing or two from Hamlin). He demonstrated the almost death defying work of the farmers, the tenacity and perserverance of their women, and the deep pains of farming and homesteading. He showed the needs of young women, love that knows no times, desperation, fear, and courage. He captured it all in this wonderful collection of short stories.
You wont walk away from this novel without learning something.
Its not just the beautiful imagery though, he also captured the people well, and not in a demeaning way. He wanted to show that people on the prairie could be genius, loyal to a fault, kind and giving, and utter scoundrels. He showed them as people rather than as idealistic farmers that were in the propaganda at the time,. (I would like to mention here that as a woman married to farmer I found truck commercials almost deeply insulting in their desperate ass-sucking attempts to glorify modern day midwesterners, the commercial writers could learn a thing or two from Hamlin). He demonstrated the almost death defying work of the farmers, the tenacity and perserverance of their women, and the deep pains of farming and homesteading. He showed the needs of young women, love that knows no times, desperation, fear, and courage. He captured it all in this wonderful collection of short stories.
You wont walk away from this novel without learning something.
October 8, 2021
This 11-short story collection from Hamlin Garland, first published in 1891, is a reflection of farm life on the Western prairies of South Dakota and Wisconsin. Families that moved to the frontier in 1870s and 1880s faced lives of stark poverty and loneliness despite their attempts to strike out for their personal freedom and independence. Their struggles were often grim and stoic. Garland's stories are poignant and sentimental and sometimes heartbreaking, but they portray the American character as it developed in the push westward. I liked his writing overall, his poetic descriptions of the prairie landscape in contrast to the never-ending drudgery on a farm. Perhaps some of the tales came across as too sentimental, but they were also very moving. A worthwhile read.
April 12, 2018
Poverta, disillusione e tanta fatica. Questo ci racconta Garland nei suoi racconti. C'è la gente semplice del Midwest americano, c'è una terra sconfinata e c'è la vita, che arranca tra problemi e dolori. Tra questi si insinua fortemente la speranza che ci trascina lungo le pagine di questa stupenda raccolta di vite.
Io e i racconti non andiamo d'accordo, anzi tutt'altro. Ma "Racconti dal Mississippi" mi ha stregato, forse perché in un certo qual senso, con le dovute differenze, Garland mi ricorda Steinbeck. Lo amato follemente. Complimenti a D Editore che ha portato in Italia questo splendore. Ottima la traduzione. Se vi fidate di quello che vi dico, il consiglio è uno: recuperatelo e leggetelo. Da 5 stelle.
Io e i racconti non andiamo d'accordo, anzi tutt'altro. Ma "Racconti dal Mississippi" mi ha stregato, forse perché in un certo qual senso, con le dovute differenze, Garland mi ricorda Steinbeck. Lo amato follemente. Complimenti a D Editore che ha portato in Italia questo splendore. Ottima la traduzione. Se vi fidate di quello che vi dico, il consiglio è uno: recuperatelo e leggetelo. Da 5 stelle.
December 28, 2019
Garland's stories can feel a little rawboned, where the impression of the writer is nearly visible under the skin of the narrative, but for all that, these stories had a charm that I enjoyed. There is sentimentality too, but it's layered with the fairly grim reality of what farm life was like in the late 19th century in middle America--no 'good old days' about this.
Thomas Bledsoe's introduction, which functions as a critique of Garland's career, was excellent, I thought, for contextualizing these stories, and gave me an insight toward them so that as I read the stories, I felt I was able to focus on the high points and let the polemic not overpower them. Not that I disagree with Garland's sympathies--but if one is looking to read stories, one doesn't want to read tracts.
There are six stories here--I suppose my favorite was The Return of the Private, about a man returning to his Wisconsin farm after being mustered out of the Union Army. This is a story that could have been too sentimental, too treacly, but what was interesting to me was the subject of a returning soldier as a character who did not represent anything other than a man coming home after being away a long time. He was not a symbol of victory or defeat, nor was he a motif for any other political purpose other than the long waste of time he spent away when he would have been better off at home. I was reminded of a story I read many years ago by Heinrich Böll, who had a secondary character who was a German soldier returned home after WWII. To Böll, a figure like that would have been very common, though to me, he seemed rather exotic, and it was a surprise to see Böll treat him not as an abstraction, or a plot device, but simply as a figure in the background. I can't say Garland's character was exactly like that, just that I was reminded of one by the other.
Another aspect of the stories that intrigued me was the relationship between men and women. Garland certainly saw how difficult the lives of these women were, and he takes pains to point it out. But I thought the emotional interaction between the sexes to be fascinating. Sometimes it took on an almost contractual edge, which makes sense--a no-nonsense partnership. That doesn't mean there wasn't an affection--but one based on the realities of life at the time.
While the specific situations that Garland aimed his progressive zeal and anger at are too far removed in time to be recognizable today, as local color, I think they would still be worthwhile to those with an interest in understanding the reality of what it meant to be a subsistence farmer at the time, as well as being charming stories in their own right.
Thomas Bledsoe's introduction, which functions as a critique of Garland's career, was excellent, I thought, for contextualizing these stories, and gave me an insight toward them so that as I read the stories, I felt I was able to focus on the high points and let the polemic not overpower them. Not that I disagree with Garland's sympathies--but if one is looking to read stories, one doesn't want to read tracts.
There are six stories here--I suppose my favorite was The Return of the Private, about a man returning to his Wisconsin farm after being mustered out of the Union Army. This is a story that could have been too sentimental, too treacly, but what was interesting to me was the subject of a returning soldier as a character who did not represent anything other than a man coming home after being away a long time. He was not a symbol of victory or defeat, nor was he a motif for any other political purpose other than the long waste of time he spent away when he would have been better off at home. I was reminded of a story I read many years ago by Heinrich Böll, who had a secondary character who was a German soldier returned home after WWII. To Böll, a figure like that would have been very common, though to me, he seemed rather exotic, and it was a surprise to see Böll treat him not as an abstraction, or a plot device, but simply as a figure in the background. I can't say Garland's character was exactly like that, just that I was reminded of one by the other.
Another aspect of the stories that intrigued me was the relationship between men and women. Garland certainly saw how difficult the lives of these women were, and he takes pains to point it out. But I thought the emotional interaction between the sexes to be fascinating. Sometimes it took on an almost contractual edge, which makes sense--a no-nonsense partnership. That doesn't mean there wasn't an affection--but one based on the realities of life at the time.
While the specific situations that Garland aimed his progressive zeal and anger at are too far removed in time to be recognizable today, as local color, I think they would still be worthwhile to those with an interest in understanding the reality of what it meant to be a subsistence farmer at the time, as well as being charming stories in their own right.
March 31, 2016
Clarence Darrow said of Hamlin Garland that he seemed to approach the world with a sneer, but often it is a protective covering against the pain and anguish suffered by the man who feels the sorrows of the world. Of course he joked and laughed and sneered in his deepest miseries... And from this book, I agree with Darrow.
October 21, 2023
A beautiful book of stories that are tender and touch on small themes that touch is deeply. This is a book of deeply Midwestern stories written at a time when the Midwest was the West. Garland was a great during his life though he seems mostly forgotten.
April 5, 2020
Wonderful collection of stories of hardscrabble farmers, set mostly in rural Wisconsin. It was interesting to read this at the same time as David Rhodes’ novel Driftless, which is set in the same general area as Garland’s collection (though 100+ years later) and depicting similar struggles. Garland��s book is the better of the two, because I sensed that he truly lived his stories, versus Rhodes’ more distant vantage point.
January 13, 2018
p.23 On the sky, where great fleets of clouds were sailing on the rising wind, like merchantmen bound to some land of love and plenty.
p.70 Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In living there are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its flight through abysses-and then there come times of trial and time of struggle when we grow old without knowing it. Body and soul change appallingly.
p.103 She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't the power to look forward at all.
p.226 She didn't know that the struggle for a place to stand on this planet was eating the heart and soul out of men and women in the city, just as in the country.
p.363 The common soldier of the American volunteer army had returned. His war with the South was over, and his fight, his daily running fight, with nature and against the injustice of his fellow men was begun again.
p.630 She conquered her little weakness and went on to the end firmly.
This intriguing collection of short stories includes the classic Hamlin Garland story "Under the Lion's Paw". In addition the standard for the writer, there are a myriad of other fascinating stories from different decades and different states. However, all of the stories are set in the midwest. This anchor throughout the collection serves to increase the feel for the times and the place.
One of the most important aspects of the texts is perspective. Story upon story is packed with the drudgery of farm life in era with few mechanical helpers. The reader is shown again and again the monumental task of scratching out a living on the upper plains of America. Yet all of the characters participate in the narratives. The writing is constantly presenting the story through the thoughts and worldview of the women in the novel. We learn of their trials and their struggles. The perspective of the husbands and men are included as well, Garland repeatedly employs an omniscient narrator, but the thoughts and feelings of the women is a particular highlight in a collection filled with highlights. The marriage dynamic and the woman's central place as a leader in the frontier family is a recurring motif throughout a majority of the stories. By expanding the perspective and moving away from the male viewpoint, the reader is shown a more rich and thorough landscape of the intimate social structure of the era. In short, the focus upon perspectives, other than a strictly male worldview, is a strength of the many strong stories in this collection.
p.70 Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In living there are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its flight through abysses-and then there come times of trial and time of struggle when we grow old without knowing it. Body and soul change appallingly.
p.103 She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't the power to look forward at all.
p.226 She didn't know that the struggle for a place to stand on this planet was eating the heart and soul out of men and women in the city, just as in the country.
p.363 The common soldier of the American volunteer army had returned. His war with the South was over, and his fight, his daily running fight, with nature and against the injustice of his fellow men was begun again.
p.630 She conquered her little weakness and went on to the end firmly.
This intriguing collection of short stories includes the classic Hamlin Garland story "Under the Lion's Paw". In addition the standard for the writer, there are a myriad of other fascinating stories from different decades and different states. However, all of the stories are set in the midwest. This anchor throughout the collection serves to increase the feel for the times and the place.
One of the most important aspects of the texts is perspective. Story upon story is packed with the drudgery of farm life in era with few mechanical helpers. The reader is shown again and again the monumental task of scratching out a living on the upper plains of America. Yet all of the characters participate in the narratives. The writing is constantly presenting the story through the thoughts and worldview of the women in the novel. We learn of their trials and their struggles. The perspective of the husbands and men are included as well, Garland repeatedly employs an omniscient narrator, but the thoughts and feelings of the women is a particular highlight in a collection filled with highlights. The marriage dynamic and the woman's central place as a leader in the frontier family is a recurring motif throughout a majority of the stories. By expanding the perspective and moving away from the male viewpoint, the reader is shown a more rich and thorough landscape of the intimate social structure of the era. In short, the focus upon perspectives, other than a strictly male worldview, is a strength of the many strong stories in this collection.
July 27, 2018
This was an interesting book. I don't think I'd have found it if I hadn't happened upon a review of it at the end of a recent episode of Fresh Air on NPR. It was written in the 1890's and is a collection of short stories about rural life, primarily in Wisconsin if I remember correctly. The stories all seemed to have a sort of bleakness to them, but a few have what could possibly be considered happy endings, if you squint hard and force yourself to think past the actual end of the story. Still, they're interesting, well written and give a good view of what rural life was like in the upper mid-west 100+ years ago: so much work and not a lot of beauty or fun. A couple things to consider... Much of the dialogue throughout the book is written in a strong vernacular dialect that can be hard to grasp at first. It took a while before I was able to read it without having to think too hard about translating the words I was reading. Finally, the free Kindle edition I read contained so many typos that it actually started to make me cross by the end. I get that it's a free book, but it's pretty obvious that whoever did the proofing wasn't really reading or they'd have caught most of the errors. Anyway, it was interesting and I'm glad I read it.
October 25, 2020
This collection of short stories by Hamlin Garland is his best known work of fiction in our time. Published in 1898, it contains the much-anthologized story, “Under the Lion’s Paw” and the almost as frequently anthologized piece, “Up the Coulè.” Garland was among that generation of American fiction writer’s that brought Realism into play as a much needed corrective to the sentimentality and melodrama of the Romantic era, along with William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Garland has much more in common with Howells than with Twain or James, and these stories focus on portraying scenes from life as people actually experience it, as Howells promoted, both in its troubles and in what Howells called “the smiling aspects of life.” Indeed, out of the six tales included, two demonstrate pure troubles, one other focuses on a problematic peace-making between brothers, and the other three are actually rather hopeful moments of reunion between individuals or family members. All told a rather enjoyable collection.
Unfortunately, the 1922 revised and expanded edition has five more stories, and I was not aware of this until I had already purchased this edition. If I had been aware of this, I would not have purchased this edition.
Unfortunately, the 1922 revised and expanded edition has five more stories, and I was not aware of this until I had already purchased this edition. If I had been aware of this, I would not have purchased this edition.
February 7, 2019
This book informed a lot of Sherwood Anderson's works, specifically, "Winesburg, Ohio," the topic of my MFA lecture. Anderson wrote of the horror, the "grotesque," beneath the surface in small-town America, while Garland's stories are a bit tamer. That said, there is a pure, pained, less-tortured (as opposed to Anderson) voice in many of the narratives that evoked my compassion, especially since I understand that it's a thinly veiled memoir. The descriptions of the bucolic, lonesome landscape allowed me to escape from the steel and noise of the city. It was a balm of sorts and presented the last glimpse of some parts of pre-industrialized America. Some of the characters lived in awful, dirty houses and were so vivid that in some cases I actually felt dirty myself. Overall, there was a lot of scenes of the trees, birds, flowers and rivers, which was peaceful to read and reminded me a bit of the long narratives in "Madame Bovary" that chronicled the French countryside. This would not be the first book I would recommend to someone, but it was informative and I'm glad I read it.
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May 8, 2024Hamlin Garland writes of the people from the Wisconsin and Dakotas midwest. And moreso, he writes about the land there. Are the people too exemplary, in either kindness, or coarseness? Are the prose descriptions of the mountains, fields, towns, and “coollies”, too elaborate or ornate? Yeah, you could make the case for that, or the other.
Garland’s stories do capture a time where things might have been just as he describes. The writing is dated to that time as well. Garland does not glorify or dismiss the hard work of the farmers,at least.
I liked that, in his preface, the author gives the exact Jamaica Plain, MA address where he wrote these stories of his midwestern home. Garland was accomplished as a writer, winning a Pulitzer and writing screenplays in Hollywood. I’m grateful to Belt Publishers for reviving this faded American author
August 30, 2017
Detailed Prose that left something lacking
The details of the landscape was detailed to the point of dragging down the story, though it did paint a beautiful picture through words. For me, however, I prefer stories to be complete, even if the ending isn't a happy one. Many of these short stories ended so abruptly that it made me think it was unfinished. That need for finality was left unsated.
It's worth the read, but it most definitely isn't one of my favorites.
The details of the landscape was detailed to the point of dragging down the story, though it did paint a beautiful picture through words. For me, however, I prefer stories to be complete, even if the ending isn't a happy one. Many of these short stories ended so abruptly that it made me think it was unfinished. That need for finality was left unsated.
It's worth the read, but it most definitely isn't one of my favorites.
September 6, 2017
Garland's vision of American farm life in the mid-West during the later years of the 19th century is -both harsh and captivating. His characters are well-drawn and believable, even if Garland's prose is a bit dated, and the support they demonstrate for one another in the hard scrabble life they have chosen is - like the hurricane in Houston - a reminder that in difficult times people sometimes overcome their selfish proclivities and reach out to one another as human beings.
February 1, 2021
A fan of American realism, I enjoyed the gritty presentations of rural life in the West during the latter half of the 19th century. The endings included both positive and less positive, but wholly believable and informative depictions. As WD Howells wrote of these stories, "If anyone is still at a loss to account for that uprising of the farmers in the West which is the translation of the Peasants' War into modern and republican terms, let him read Main-Travelled Roads...."
April 5, 2018
Kind of depressing, but yet interesting read because of the time period it was written. He clearly did not like the farming community, and explains that in the forward of the book. Ended on a bright note though
March 3, 2019
An excellent writer, leaving me with a much clearer image and grasp of late 19th century farm life in the U.S. -- bleak, unrewarding, never-ending toil, little time or money for pleasures. Garland came to resent cities -- their snobbery, dog-eat-dogness, classism.
December 18, 2019
A series of short stories about farm life in Wisconsin in the late 19th century. Some stories are quite good, most are average. Garland spends most of his time focusing on the bleakness of farm life, and a recurring theme is remembering good olds days of youth, which no longer exist.
July 5, 2018
I don't usually enjoy short stories. This book was okay. I enjoyed some of the stories more than others. That's probably typical.
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August 5, 2021read in: sophomore year
April 13, 2022
silly little stories about love, work, money, and family in the midwest
July 31, 2012
In The American 1890s, a book I'm also working through, Larzer Ziff states that Hamlin Garland considered himself more a reformer than a writer of prose. While I agree that readers are more likely to remember these stories for their unflinching depictions of the United States' rural poor than for their lovely imagery and figurative language, I think it'd be unfair to say they aren't well-written.
The standouts are "Up the Coulee," in which a New York actor returns to the family farm after several years away; "Under the Lion's Paw," in which Garland finally dramatizes the kind of morally bankrupt mortgage man his other stories had condemned only abstractly; and "Mrs. Ripley's Trip" and "Uncle Ethan Ripley," in which we meet the book's most endearing pair of rough-skinned midwestern spouses. These stories, which the author intended to do for the country's agrarian poor (his parents included) what Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives had done for the residents of urban tenements, remind us that even today there are actual people who sweat over the crisp apples we city-dwellers chomp and the ethanol we pump into our SUVs. They remind us that poverty wears many guises.
That said, however, Garland's cultural superiority, which comes through most obviously in his rendering of poor Scandinavian farmers as inevitably dumber, meaner, and smellier than the naturalized Americans who live around them, makes even strong story-telling uncomfortable. I'd recommend the stories I mentioned above to anybody, and the whole book for readers looking for a glimpse into the hardships and prejudices of the late nineteenth-century American farmer.
The standouts are "Up the Coulee," in which a New York actor returns to the family farm after several years away; "Under the Lion's Paw," in which Garland finally dramatizes the kind of morally bankrupt mortgage man his other stories had condemned only abstractly; and "Mrs. Ripley's Trip" and "Uncle Ethan Ripley," in which we meet the book's most endearing pair of rough-skinned midwestern spouses. These stories, which the author intended to do for the country's agrarian poor (his parents included) what Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives had done for the residents of urban tenements, remind us that even today there are actual people who sweat over the crisp apples we city-dwellers chomp and the ethanol we pump into our SUVs. They remind us that poverty wears many guises.
That said, however, Garland's cultural superiority, which comes through most obviously in his rendering of poor Scandinavian farmers as inevitably dumber, meaner, and smellier than the naturalized Americans who live around them, makes even strong story-telling uncomfortable. I'd recommend the stories I mentioned above to anybody, and the whole book for readers looking for a glimpse into the hardships and prejudices of the late nineteenth-century American farmer.
May 22, 2010
Main-travelled roads was one of the better books I have read. Of all the aspects of the novel, I love the realistic viewpoint of the novel. For example, in the short story, Up in the Coolly, Garland does not portray the life of the farmer as glorious, describing the individuality of the farmer; rather, in the story Garland portrays the life of the farm and Grant, the farmer, as a toilsome, underpaid and underappreciated job like many of the midwestern farms in the late-eighteenth century. I also like the short-story format of the novel where every story focuses on midwestern farmers and farms but every short story streamlines its focus. For example, in the short story Up in the Coolly, Garland focuses on the cities' lack of interest and help toward the deteriorating condition of the farm while Garland focuses on the hardlife and the tenant farming effects during the short story Under the Lion's Paw. I thought Garland's novel is a great attempt to debunk the myth that farms were always glorious and expose the toil and hardship faced by American farmers at the turn of the nineteenth century. I personally like Garland's streamlined approach with every short story, and I also enjoy realistic novels. It was a very good book overall, and I would recommend it.
July 29, 2019
Glad to have finally read this. There are a couple impressive stories in here: Up the Coolly and A Branch Road in particular (Under the Lion's Paw and The Creamery Man are pretty good too). The themes that run throughout the collection - the brutal hardships of rural life, the cruel circumstances that bind individuals to such a life and the conflict between duty and dreams - are brought out most fully here. The stories that follow these first two certainly aren't bad; they read well and often reveal interesting aspects of rural life on the eve of the twentieth century, but they feel rather ordinary in comparison. Garland's picture of life in the rural midwest - especially the 'coolly'/coulee region - is a dark one, but even so he never ceases to point out the beauty of nature and the kindness of the people.
July 24, 2014
First published in 1891, this collection of stories challenges beliefs about life on the frontier that persist in the collective imagination still today. Set variously in the upper Mississippi Valley and as far west as Dakota, they cast the homesteading farm family in a harsh light robbed of any myth or romance.
While modernization in later years may remove some of the back-breaking labor of working the soil and tending livestock, Garland portrays the grim reality of daily toil for the first generation of homesteaders who settled on the land following the Civil War.
More at my blog.
While modernization in later years may remove some of the back-breaking labor of working the soil and tending livestock, Garland portrays the grim reality of daily toil for the first generation of homesteaders who settled on the land following the Civil War.
More at my blog.
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