Scan barcode
jfranco77's review against another edition
3.0
Klosterman has always been a tough guy for me to read. We're close in age, and we have a lot of the same interests, so he's someone that I really should like. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I can barely tolerate him.
Downtown Owl is his first attempt at a novel, though it's still pretty non-fictional, given how much it is based on where and when he grew up. Klosterman spends about 80% of the book setting things up for the anticipated snowstorm, and the setup is pretty interesting. He takes his time describing the characters well. And then the last 20% of the book, the actual snowstorm, comes quickly and feels rushed. Maybe that's intentional - it could be compared to the suddenness of the actual storm - but it felt more like Klosterman got to the point where he needed to wrap things up quickly, so he did.
Downtown Owl was a fine airplane read, but other than raving fans of Klosterman, I'm not sure who I'd really recommend it to.
Downtown Owl is his first attempt at a novel, though it's still pretty non-fictional, given how much it is based on where and when he grew up. Klosterman spends about 80% of the book setting things up for the anticipated snowstorm, and the setup is pretty interesting. He takes his time describing the characters well. And then the last 20% of the book, the actual snowstorm, comes quickly and feels rushed. Maybe that's intentional - it could be compared to the suddenness of the actual storm - but it felt more like Klosterman got to the point where he needed to wrap things up quickly, so he did.
Downtown Owl was a fine airplane read, but other than raving fans of Klosterman, I'm not sure who I'd really recommend it to.
lindage's review against another edition
2.0
I think it's time for me to give up on Klosterman. His writing is just not for me. This was an easy read/listen but the characters fell flat, were mostly annoying, uninteresting (except for Horace, at points) and they had no journeys, emotional or otherwise. I thought it was all a slow-build towards something, but there was nothing there, in the end.
kelseyreadingstuff's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this book! I don't know what I thought about the ending. I think it might have been unnecessary, but at the same time, I liked it. I also love when a book is so character driven! I could totally relate too, coming from such a small town in Wisconsin.
"I just think it's idiotic that we don't get mail today, simply because Columbus was a bad explorer. You do realize he discovered America by accident, right? He thought the Indians were pygmies."
"Why do we get out of bed?" Mitch wondered. "Is there any feeling better than being in bed? What could possibly feel better than this? What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?" Every day, Mitch awoke to this line of reasoning: Every day, the first move he made outside his sheets immediately destroyed the only flawless part of his existence.
"Sometimes you think, Hey, maybe there's something else out there. But there really isn't. This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live."
"I just think it's idiotic that we don't get mail today, simply because Columbus was a bad explorer. You do realize he discovered America by accident, right? He thought the Indians were pygmies."
"Why do we get out of bed?" Mitch wondered. "Is there any feeling better than being in bed? What could possibly feel better than this? What is going to happen in the course of my day that will be an improvement over lying on something very soft, underneath something very warm, wearing only underwear, doing absolutely nothing, all by myself?" Every day, Mitch awoke to this line of reasoning: Every day, the first move he made outside his sheets immediately destroyed the only flawless part of his existence.
"Sometimes you think, Hey, maybe there's something else out there. But there really isn't. This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live."
kaitwalla's review against another edition
4.0
It's not usually a hard question: "What are you reading about?" Most books helpfully even give you clues on the back cover, with a quick summation you can offer up. "The history of the original Dream Team in 1992." "Jonathan Franzen didn't feel like enough people were paying attention to him so he wrote the same book three times."
When I got that this time, I hesitated. "It's about ... a small town in North Dakota, I guess?" Which is true, but it's not really about the town, it's about the people. And while that seems like the same thing, it's not. You're not reading the detailed history since its founding, you're getting a small snapshot of a few lives. The best description I could come up with was, "It's the story of a small North Dakota town in the 80s. The events that happen are fairly normal for a small town, or at least that would be, individually. Your average small town would have one or zero of these events happening. That four or five of them are happening is nonsense, but that's kind of immaterial."
I am not a great person to be asking for book recommendations.
The author, Chuck Klosterman, like him or love him, studies people. Profiling, describing and intuiting their reasons for existing, most of his authorial life revolved around trying to explain someone (or a group of someones).
So you can understand why, when he's trying to set a scene, it's a bit like listening to a German opera — intellectually, you understand that it's probably very beautiful, but in the moment it sounds like large bears mating. And, given that the novel takes place in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota, it's not even a very interesting German opera (or ursine copulation, depending on where you were in the metaphor).
The first third of the book is dull. A slog. I tell you this so you can prepare for it — gird yourself, lay in provisions, whatever you need to do to get through it. Because it's worth it. I've seen the other side, and it is sublime.
Because Klosterman eventually gets around to what he does best — explaining people. These characters are so vivid their mood swings started affecting how I was doing in the real world. Their actions and reactions and emotions are authentic, to themselves and to human nature. Even the most unbelievable, freakish characters are eventually explained and vindicated, even if that explanation is completely batshit crazy.
Explaining any of the plot seems simultaneously like cheating you and utterly pointless — without the connecting web, plucking at any individual strand leaves you wanting for the whole. It's raw, it's gritty, it's real, and it's definitely worth a read.
When I got that this time, I hesitated. "It's about ... a small town in North Dakota, I guess?" Which is true, but it's not really about the town, it's about the people. And while that seems like the same thing, it's not. You're not reading the detailed history since its founding, you're getting a small snapshot of a few lives. The best description I could come up with was, "It's the story of a small North Dakota town in the 80s. The events that happen are fairly normal for a small town, or at least that would be, individually. Your average small town would have one or zero of these events happening. That four or five of them are happening is nonsense, but that's kind of immaterial."
I am not a great person to be asking for book recommendations.
The author, Chuck Klosterman, like him or love him, studies people. Profiling, describing and intuiting their reasons for existing, most of his authorial life revolved around trying to explain someone (or a group of someones).
So you can understand why, when he's trying to set a scene, it's a bit like listening to a German opera — intellectually, you understand that it's probably very beautiful, but in the moment it sounds like large bears mating. And, given that the novel takes place in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota, it's not even a very interesting German opera (or ursine copulation, depending on where you were in the metaphor).
The first third of the book is dull. A slog. I tell you this so you can prepare for it — gird yourself, lay in provisions, whatever you need to do to get through it. Because it's worth it. I've seen the other side, and it is sublime.
Because Klosterman eventually gets around to what he does best — explaining people. These characters are so vivid their mood swings started affecting how I was doing in the real world. Their actions and reactions and emotions are authentic, to themselves and to human nature. Even the most unbelievable, freakish characters are eventually explained and vindicated, even if that explanation is completely batshit crazy.
Explaining any of the plot seems simultaneously like cheating you and utterly pointless — without the connecting web, plucking at any individual strand leaves you wanting for the whole. It's raw, it's gritty, it's real, and it's definitely worth a read.
lindzee's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to finish it, mostly because I thought it was going to get better. It was well-written prose, but just not that interesting.
jgregg42's review against another edition
3.0
"Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route."
That is the quote by Steven Wright that I kept thinking of during this entire book. I loved Klosterman's voice and how the description of the characters flowed. I loved the the dialog between the characters. But we went nowhere during the entire story.
I grew up in a small town in Iowa and can relate to a lot of what Klosterman writes about. The characters all made sense to me even if I didn't know why I was reading about them.
This would be a good book for anyone that grew up in a small town or who wants a view of what people are like in a small fictional town in North Dakota. All blended with a healthy mix of pop culture references.
That is the quote by Steven Wright that I kept thinking of during this entire book. I loved Klosterman's voice and how the description of the characters flowed. I loved the the dialog between the characters. But we went nowhere during the entire story.
I grew up in a small town in Iowa and can relate to a lot of what Klosterman writes about. The characters all made sense to me even if I didn't know why I was reading about them.
This would be a good book for anyone that grew up in a small town or who wants a view of what people are like in a small fictional town in North Dakota. All blended with a healthy mix of pop culture references.
gwimo's review against another edition
4.0
While I expected to encompass everything thing about Klosterman that I've come to love, I was worried that it might not hold on to my attention. Klosterman, for me, is still very much the music critic - how can he write about a small town in North Dakota and quite possibly make it interesting? Well, he managed to hold onto it. He managed more than that.
While reading the novel, I kept getting various songs stuck in my head, leaving me wonder if he listened to them while writing. It's not that he retold stories from those songs in his book, but they seemed to fit the mood. One of those songs would No Children by The Mountain Goats - but that was just for a brief moment while reading the novel.
And even though his wit and wisdom of popular culture - again, namely music - still graces the novel and that it still read like something Klosterman wrote (because, let's face it, if he wrote any other way, I don't think I've would've made it passed page two), the storyline seemed a little too down slope for me. There wasn't really anything that I could take from this novel like I have from others that I've read. Klosterman also remarked about this sort of reader: John Laidlaw, football coach and English teacher, read books only to imagine he was reading about himself.
What I do gather, and that's only if I read it right - yes, there is a wrong way to read a book - is that this isn't a novel in the most conventional sort. Character development happens and there's sort of a beginning, middle and end, but it feels more like a sketch. A slice of life of in the small town of Owl, North Dakota. And reading it that way, makes the book slightly more realistic.
While reading the novel, I kept getting various songs stuck in my head, leaving me wonder if he listened to them while writing. It's not that he retold stories from those songs in his book, but they seemed to fit the mood. One of those songs would No Children by The Mountain Goats - but that was just for a brief moment while reading the novel.
And even though his wit and wisdom of popular culture - again, namely music - still graces the novel and that it still read like something Klosterman wrote (because, let's face it, if he wrote any other way, I don't think I've would've made it passed page two), the storyline seemed a little too down slope for me. There wasn't really anything that I could take from this novel like I have from others that I've read. Klosterman also remarked about this sort of reader: John Laidlaw, football coach and English teacher, read books only to imagine he was reading about himself.
What I do gather, and that's only if I read it right - yes, there is a wrong way to read a book - is that this isn't a novel in the most conventional sort. Character development happens and there's sort of a beginning, middle and end, but it feels more like a sketch. A slice of life of in the small town of Owl, North Dakota. And reading it that way, makes the book slightly more realistic.
csprfamily's review against another edition
4.0
This is my first Klosterman read and I found that I really enjoyed it. This is the story of a small North Dakota town as told by the residence in the 1980s. A fictional story around a factual event. Anyone who has lived a small town life would enjoy this and probably see at least one of these people. And for those of us who were teens in the 80s, the references to music and the reading of 1984 are going to bring at least a chuckle or two every now and then.
theartolater's review against another edition
3.0
It’s a Chuck Klosterman column with fictional characters reading his rants. It works, and it doesn’t. It took me forever to really get into it, and then it was done, and even then it was one of those ensemble-style reads where you don’t care about all the characters, invariably causing the book to focus too much on them. Ah well?
bstratton's review against another edition
4.0
Full of fantastic moments and brilliant local color, but it never quite builds to anything or comes together. Well worth the read, as long as you go into it expecting nothing more than several dozen excellent vignettes.