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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
I was disappointed with this Kellor book. I read "Wobegon Boy" a couple of years ago and was excited that my book club choose Lake Wobegon Days.
I did not find the book a compelling read. There were many little segments that were interesting, much like the length of a "News from Lake Wobegon" segment, but if you want to book you 'can't put down', you may need to think of something else.
I thought I would be accused of heresy when I expressed this opinion at my book club here in Minnesota, but the feeling was nearly unanimous. With that said, the book did prompt the members to reminisce about our childhoods.
I did not find the book a compelling read. There were many little segments that were interesting, much like the length of a "News from Lake Wobegon" segment, but if you want to book you 'can't put down', you may need to think of something else.
I thought I would be accused of heresy when I expressed this opinion at my book club here in Minnesota, but the feeling was nearly unanimous. With that said, the book did prompt the members to reminisce about our childhoods.
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When I was in 7th grade, my dad brought home a book called Lake Wobegon Days for me to read. We had been listening to A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday nights on public radio for some time, so I was familiar with Lake Wobegon, and now there was a whole book of stories. It’s been many years since I was first introduced to the mythical town where all the men are strong, the women good looking, and the children are above average, and I decided to revisit my well-worn copy of the book my dad gave to me in 1985.
If you want to get the full Lake Wobegon experience, I highly recommend the audiobook as a companion to the physical book. Garrison Keillor is a master storyteller, both in prose and in speaking, and some of the Lake Wobegon stories were recorded before a live audience, adding to the enjoyment of the stories. There’s a reason that this recording won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording when it was released.
There’s a sense of nostalgia when reading or listening to Lake Wobegon Days, of life in a small town decades ago. But that sense of nostalgia also hides the subtle darkness that Keillor explores in his stories. He’s seen as a humorist, but like Twain, there’s an exploration of the human psyche that seems to be forgotten when discussing his works. There’s a lot more depth to the stories than it seems on the surface.
It certainly helps the enjoyment of the book if you grew up in the Midwest during certain decades, but I think the Lake Wobegon stories transcend locale. If you grew up in a big city, then the stories are seen as a magical land, a bucolic look at life during another time. For some, life in a small town hasn’t changed that much, which makes this book a soothing balm.
When I was in 7th grade, my dad brought home a book called Lake Wobegon Days for me to read. We had been listening to A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday nights on public radio for some time, so I was familiar with Lake Wobegon, and now there was a whole book of stories. It’s been many years since I was first introduced to the mythical town where all the men are strong, the women good looking, and the children are above average, and I decided to revisit my well-worn copy of the book my dad gave to me in 1985.
If you want to get the full Lake Wobegon experience, I highly recommend the audiobook as a companion to the physical book. Garrison Keillor is a master storyteller, both in prose and in speaking, and some of the Lake Wobegon stories were recorded before a live audience, adding to the enjoyment of the stories. There’s a reason that this recording won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording when it was released.
There’s a sense of nostalgia when reading or listening to Lake Wobegon Days, of life in a small town decades ago. But that sense of nostalgia also hides the subtle darkness that Keillor explores in his stories. He’s seen as a humorist, but like Twain, there’s an exploration of the human psyche that seems to be forgotten when discussing his works. There’s a lot more depth to the stories than it seems on the surface.
It certainly helps the enjoyment of the book if you grew up in the Midwest during certain decades, but I think the Lake Wobegon stories transcend locale. If you grew up in a big city, then the stories are seen as a magical land, a bucolic look at life during another time. For some, life in a small town hasn’t changed that much, which makes this book a soothing balm.
I'm not a big fan of footnotes, but other than that, I liked it.
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Verdict: Every bit as entertaining as the radio programme I remember from childhood. Which is to say; not very.
I can probably speak for others when I tell you that my first experience of Lake Wobegon was gained second-hand from NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, specifically as dialled by my father on the way from Sunday Mass. A child at the time, I filed it away under ‘grown-up’ and didn’t bother too much about following what the man with the quiet drawl was on about. Still, I remember being pleasantly disposed to the programme as a whole. It made my dad laugh and every so often I was even able to catch a glimpse of the entertainment value. More than anything, though, was the distinctive narration which lodged in my mind and promised a rich potential source of amusement once I had exhausted the pleasures of the Ninja Turtles and grown up wise to the ways of the world.
Of course we now know that the joys brought by the Heroes in a Half Shell are inexhaustible, but I’ve managed to grow up nonetheless. So this year I decided to re-visit Lake Wobegon with my advanced wealth of life experience and seek for that untapped potential I had sensed as a child. To my dismay, despite the intervening march of years, I encountered no discernible difference.
I’ll elaborate, but first a little background for those of you without a father of my ilk. ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ is, as I understand it, a compilation of monologues from the Prairie Home Companion segment ‘News From Lake Wobegon’. Lake Wobegon is a tiny fictional town in Minnesota, which, despite its made-uped-ness, has roots deep in the autobiographical fact of Mid-West American pedigree. If you are from the great US of A and have, somewhere within your mongrel blood, strains of the Germanic and/or Scandinavian all that lies between you and Lake Wobegon is a smattering of generations. Read this and you will count each one as a blessing.
As is the case with all books trawled from the offerings of National Public Radio (probably) ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ does not boast the tightest of narrative structures. The beginning deals somewhat chronologically with the founding of the eponymous fictional town and the rest is divided into wide thematic chapters (i.e. ‘Spring’, ‘Winter’, ‘School Days’) and used to group together vaguely convergent stories about the vaguely humorous residents of Lake Wobegon. Despite this lack of any urgent literary thrust, the book reads easily enough with the exception of the sprawling footnotes, which I found distractingly excessive. I still don’t get it, though.
There is a contradictory intangible inherent to Lake Wobegon. Somehow it explicitly promises a hilarity it does not possess. As a child I assumed this incongruousness was down to my own nascent ignorance. I can no longer cling to this illusion. I won’t presume to rule out a personal lack of understanding as the reason this book falls for me, but if it is down to such, no further amount of growing up can remedy my reception of ‘Lake Wobegon Days’. The disconnect between actual and potential comedy runs deeper than I had previously conceived.
So it’s not all that funny. In fact, when I drop the inflated expectations set by the enigmatically riotous radio studio audience, take ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ at face value I actually find it rather melancholy. I am currently in the process of convincing my husband that we should take a break from the crushingly expensive jobless wasteland of the beautiful yet heartless London and give my TX homeland a go for a bit. For all my talk of steaks the size of overdue infants he remains wary of the American people. ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ reads like a compendium of all his worst fears. (which is why I’ve taken the precaution of ensconcing it within my drawer of feminine hygiene until suitable disposal steps can be taken). I can place the anecdotes of Lake Wobegon within their proper context but even so it does not make me miss my homeland.
The appeal is in nostalgia and the phenomenon whereby people mistake this for fondness. I’m halfway there in that I can glimpse the appeal of the news from Lake Wobegon but I cannot share in it. Gentle anecdotes cannot efface the bizarre phenomenon that is the small mid-west town with no real past and a dying future. There is value to here in the observation, in the story telling, in the capturing of character and especially with the child’s eye view. The ‘growing up’ in Lake Wobegon tales were my favourite, bringing in a contrast of an increasingly modern American to glare against the proprietary brand of Wobegon weirdness. A former inhabitant enumerated his own version of the 95 thesis and, despite their appearance in a particularly egregious footnote, this was the only bit of the book that made me crack a wide smile.
I think if I could have had it narrated aloud by Garrison Keller I could have seen my way to bumping ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ up to an average 3 stars. As the radio narration actually preceded the book perhaps we can consider it an honorary 3 stars. I still feel kindly towards it, you see. An honorary 3 stars, then, but an actual 2.
I can probably speak for others when I tell you that my first experience of Lake Wobegon was gained second-hand from NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, specifically as dialled by my father on the way from Sunday Mass. A child at the time, I filed it away under ‘grown-up’ and didn’t bother too much about following what the man with the quiet drawl was on about. Still, I remember being pleasantly disposed to the programme as a whole. It made my dad laugh and every so often I was even able to catch a glimpse of the entertainment value. More than anything, though, was the distinctive narration which lodged in my mind and promised a rich potential source of amusement once I had exhausted the pleasures of the Ninja Turtles and grown up wise to the ways of the world.
Of course we now know that the joys brought by the Heroes in a Half Shell are inexhaustible, but I’ve managed to grow up nonetheless. So this year I decided to re-visit Lake Wobegon with my advanced wealth of life experience and seek for that untapped potential I had sensed as a child. To my dismay, despite the intervening march of years, I encountered no discernible difference.
I’ll elaborate, but first a little background for those of you without a father of my ilk. ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ is, as I understand it, a compilation of monologues from the Prairie Home Companion segment ‘News From Lake Wobegon’. Lake Wobegon is a tiny fictional town in Minnesota, which, despite its made-uped-ness, has roots deep in the autobiographical fact of Mid-West American pedigree. If you are from the great US of A and have, somewhere within your mongrel blood, strains of the Germanic and/or Scandinavian all that lies between you and Lake Wobegon is a smattering of generations. Read this and you will count each one as a blessing.
As is the case with all books trawled from the offerings of National Public Radio (probably) ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ does not boast the tightest of narrative structures. The beginning deals somewhat chronologically with the founding of the eponymous fictional town and the rest is divided into wide thematic chapters (i.e. ‘Spring’, ‘Winter’, ‘School Days’) and used to group together vaguely convergent stories about the vaguely humorous residents of Lake Wobegon. Despite this lack of any urgent literary thrust, the book reads easily enough with the exception of the sprawling footnotes, which I found distractingly excessive. I still don’t get it, though.
There is a contradictory intangible inherent to Lake Wobegon. Somehow it explicitly promises a hilarity it does not possess. As a child I assumed this incongruousness was down to my own nascent ignorance. I can no longer cling to this illusion. I won’t presume to rule out a personal lack of understanding as the reason this book falls for me, but if it is down to such, no further amount of growing up can remedy my reception of ‘Lake Wobegon Days’. The disconnect between actual and potential comedy runs deeper than I had previously conceived.
So it’s not all that funny. In fact, when I drop the inflated expectations set by the enigmatically riotous radio studio audience, take ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ at face value I actually find it rather melancholy. I am currently in the process of convincing my husband that we should take a break from the crushingly expensive jobless wasteland of the beautiful yet heartless London and give my TX homeland a go for a bit. For all my talk of steaks the size of overdue infants he remains wary of the American people. ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ reads like a compendium of all his worst fears. (which is why I’ve taken the precaution of ensconcing it within my drawer of feminine hygiene until suitable disposal steps can be taken). I can place the anecdotes of Lake Wobegon within their proper context but even so it does not make me miss my homeland.
The appeal is in nostalgia and the phenomenon whereby people mistake this for fondness. I’m halfway there in that I can glimpse the appeal of the news from Lake Wobegon but I cannot share in it. Gentle anecdotes cannot efface the bizarre phenomenon that is the small mid-west town with no real past and a dying future. There is value to here in the observation, in the story telling, in the capturing of character and especially with the child’s eye view. The ‘growing up’ in Lake Wobegon tales were my favourite, bringing in a contrast of an increasingly modern American to glare against the proprietary brand of Wobegon weirdness. A former inhabitant enumerated his own version of the 95 thesis and, despite their appearance in a particularly egregious footnote, this was the only bit of the book that made me crack a wide smile.
I think if I could have had it narrated aloud by Garrison Keller I could have seen my way to bumping ‘Lake Wobegon Days’ up to an average 3 stars. As the radio narration actually preceded the book perhaps we can consider it an honorary 3 stars. I still feel kindly towards it, you see. An honorary 3 stars, then, but an actual 2.
As a former listener to his Prairie Hime Companion show, it’s embarrassing to me to not realize his written stories of his fictional hometown. This group of stories is a basis for many of my favorite renditions from listening to NPR as a kid. It’s not the most refined version, but to paraphrase at the beginning of this book, no piece is ever really done and a writer can refine at every opportunity.
These stories remind me of my parents, and sitting on our deck on summer evenings listening to the radio and swatting at mosquitoes.
I too wanted to like this more. I think the religious parts were the most yawn.
It was a struggle for me to get all the way through this, but i found it quite entertaining and humorous.
i have to say that out of the 3 books i've read by keillor this is certainly my least favorite. it just seemed like his attempt to exercise the demons of his childhood and it was less then entertaining to me.