BookTalk introduces readers to a carefully chosen, provocative selection of novels for reading and informal discussion, considering the author’s writing techniques and the character’s personal journeys. Readings include translations of books from other countries and cultures in the search for fictions that illuminate the lives and understanding of those from all across the globe.
This class focuses on Train Dreams (2011) by Denis Johnson. Recently made into a major motion picture, Denis Johnson’s novella won several literary prizes and was a Pulitzer finalist in a year when no award for fiction was bestowed. Through the life of protagonist Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker during a period of rapid industrial change, the novella captures the vanishing way of life in the American West from the turn of the twentieth century up until the late 1960s. Johnson manages to convey an epic mythical story through concise, economical yet beautifully descriptive prose.
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