Book review: Train Dreams
[Ed. note: The first sentence of this review originally read, "Much like Terrance [sic] Malick’s cowardly omission of dinosaurs in trailers for Tree of Life, nowhere in Train Dreams’ marketing campaign are werewolves mentioned.” The original sentence and its change provide the context for the comment thread which follows.]
Much like the cowardly omission of dinosaurs in trailers for Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, nowhere in Train Dreams’ marketing campaign are werewolves mentioned. Yes, the dirty secret of this book is lycanthropy. I would accuse Johnson of trying cash in on some of that Twilight money but this is a hardback reissue of a novella originally published in the Paris Review in 2003.
Train Dreams concerns Robert Grainier, an average Joe by early 20th century standards. He doesn’t read a lot but he works hard logging in the American West. After a horrific tragedy, he decides to live alone though not in complete isolation. He is forced to ask himself unsurely, “Am I a hermit?” His dreams, memories, and reality become similarly fuzzy. His fears and hopes bleed into his everyday field of vision. Nothing short of The Optimist’s Daughter West, Train Dreams demands us to ask what propels us through the stream of time: our inner life, or the objective events that have shaped it?
Johnson wins again.
- Bryan
Themocracy
Do you think Malick actually made/had final say on the trailer? Perhaps it isn’t his fault.
And at least spell his name right, Bryan.
Clint – I worked so hard on “Denis Johnson” you know?
Brad – Malick strikes me as the kind of guy that cuts his own trailers but I really have no idea. Clint would know. I enjoyed this book far more than I enjoyed that movie, but I think the simile carries. The inclusion of dinos or were-mammals would put a big grease stain on their high art aspirations.
After I posted that, I knew that you would correct the error so that now it looks like I was talking about “Denis.” Funny.
If any of our readers are Paleontologists, I know that there heads have exploded by the time they finished that first paragraph. Their beloved (and real) dinos being equated with the (not so real) werewolves.
I don’t buy the whole “cowardly omission” angle. Every film nerd who was interested in the Tree of Life knew that dinosaurs would be a part of the film for over two years and anyone who didn’t know would have been intrigued at what part dinosaurs played in the narrative. If old man Malick was worried about the ol’ proverbial grease spot, then he would have just cut those scenes from the film altogether, as that’s what everyone will remember in the end. I saw the trailer a couple of times six months ago and didn’t even remember that it lacked our dear extinct friends until you brought it up. The poster did have a picture of a dinosaur, so take that for what you will. If I accuse Malick of anything, it’s not listening to his inner Roger Corman and having dinosaurs running around for most of the trailer. Just think of the box office. Also, think of all the cries of cowardice over that.
I would buy the argument that Malick only had one brief shot of the beach scene in the trailer because he thought that more shots would lead people to think that Tree of Life was a Frankie Avalon\Annette Funicello beach romp. Think about it.
I think there is a misconception that I was accusing Terrence Malick (whose name I spelled wrong) of cowardice. Terrence Malick is brave and insightful film maker. I meant that whoever was responsible for the film’s marketing intentionally left out the dinosaurs, not the director. When I read the sentence back, I see how it reads that way. And if there was a dino in poster, I really have no argument. It was a poorly constructed sentence AND there were dinosaurs in the marketing.
Despite my shooting from the hip, the nod to Tree of Life was intentional. It and Train Dreams share a lot of thematic material; e.g., how does one get from A>B>C… X>Y>Z in life, what events shape those turns, and how many elements can’t be explained by reason. In the back of my mind too was the knowledge that Tree of Life was very popular with audiences in Nashville so I wanted to use that as a hook.
Any spelling trickery is pure paranoia. I have a very gestalt mind [ed. note: Isn't everyone one's?], a name like “Denis Johnson” seriously trips me up and all my Internet-sapped attention went into making sure I got that one right and I ended up spelling Malick’s wrong. I’m one of few librarian’s on earth stinks at Scrabble, Boggle, crosswords, etc.
I changed that sentence. Someone delete all these comments.
Wow, we got deleted. I knew I should have put a smiley face on that last tongue in cheek paragraph.
Many would say (and I wouldn’t argue with them) that the dinosaurs were not in the trailer because of the mediocre computer animation. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I hope a few years down the road, when computer animation is all but perfected, Malick goes all George Lucas and redoes those dino scenes so they don’t stand out so much. If he would’ve just went stop motion from the get go, then I would be a happy man.
I look forward to checking out Train Dreams. It certainly looks right up my alley. I read Jesus’ Son in the late 90′s and absolutely loved it. I tried reading another of his novels, The Stars at Noon, but was let down that it didn’t have the same concise, lucid dream like prose as Jesus’ Son. I’ve also had his first novel, Angels, in “to read” pile for a while now. I should jump on that.