Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

I’ve made quite the point recently about short books. Too many feel rushed and unfinished, the themes half-baked, the characters two-dimensional. But then along comes a book like Train Dreams, and you remember the power of an excellent novella. This one is about Robert Grainier, a jack-of-all-trades type of labourer living and working in early twentieth century in America. We follow him over the course of his long life, jumping back and forth between various episodes, coming to a rather breath-taking conclusion. At the same time, we witness the American West at one of its most transformative periods. This is one of those books where every word counts. No moment is insignificant, allowing this short novel to feel expansive and spacious. For that reason, I think it’s worth taking your time with this book and really allowing yourself to be absorbed into its world (though I’d also recommend one or two sittings as its power is cumulative). The best literature for me is one where you have to read between the lines and puzzle together the themes. I love when an author doesn’t explain too much, but if you know you don’t enjoy this kind of thing, then I think this one will probably not quite land for you.

The prose! It’s gorgeous. A sentence might start and you think you know where it’s going and then it will flip inside out, twisting its way into your heart. Johnson conjures up the landscape of the American West beautifully which we all know I’m a sucker for (if you read and loved In the Distance by Hernan Diaz, you’ll like this one, too). By picking a few episodes in Grainier’s life, Johnson shows us what constitutes a life; seemingly trivial events that nonetheless remain burned into one’s psyche, the heroic things we do, but also the most shameful. It’s about love and loss; it’s about the transformation of a landscape and a man’s inability to find a place either in nature or in society. But after all, “God needs the hermit in the woods as much as He needs the man in the pulpit.”