Train Dreams: The Real "Wild" West in Novella Form

 

 

Train Dreams (2011)

By Denis Johnson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 116 pages.

★★★★

 

What a good idea! Farrar, Straus and Giroux has recently put a series of rebound novellas on the market in paperback and e-editions. Most of them are just under or just over a hundred pages, perfect for reading in the car or on the beach. You can zip through and not worry that you’ll put them down somewhere, get busy, and forget what you’ve read. 

 

 

 

Train Dreams feels like an old Wobbly tale from the early 20^th century. It takes us out West, mostly in Idaho and Washington State when civilization was still raw outside of the cities. Robert Grainer is a day laborer on the railroad. Ever see old black and white images of high rickety-looking railroad bridges that look like they were randomly constructed from two-by-fours that couldn’t possibly bear the weight of a steam locomotive? One over Robinson Gorge in Washington State was so scary no engineer would brave it. The engineer put a wedge on the throttle so it would cross slowly, waited for the train to get to the other side, and then walked across and caught up with his train. Grainer left Minnesota and repaired such structures.

 

In 1917, he was involved with a railroad crew that hated the Chinese and he nearly killed one. If you’ve ever heard any old Wobbly stories—Wobblies were members of the Industrial Workers f the World–the situation is akin to dozens of anti-Chinese riots that took place in the West. Grainer was shocked by his own behavior and decided to live in the boonies. This short novel from Denis (sic) Johnson tackles American individualism on the primal level. It is filled with rough loggers, bridge builders, waggoneers, prospectors, brothel women, carnival scam artists, and Indians friendly and not.

 

After leaving the railroad crew, Grainer meets an old coot named Arn Peeples. Arn is a waggoner and colorful doesn’t begin to describe the whoppers he tells. Arn claims to like hot weather, the hotter the better. In his telling Arn once worked on a peak that was “only eleven or twelves miles from the sun.” Arn also spins a yarn about a man (maybe him) who was shot by his own dog! When Arn dies, Grainer takes over his hauling business. He does well for a time, but things always turn slant for Grainer.

 

He eventually builds a rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere near the Kootenai River maybe in Idaho but perhaps in British Columbia; his crowd never paid much never mind to borders. He acquires a wife named Gladys and they have a daughter named Kate. He is a man of few words and his life takes another turn when he’s on a long haul and the cabin burns. He reckons that when the fire started Gladys tried to put it out with kerosene. So now he’s resigned to being a childless widower. 

 

Grainer roams anew and meets many more characters, though he always returns to the cabin site. His world is one of men who smell bad because they seldom wash (and never in the winter), swear, drink questionable liquor, tell crude jokes, and regale each other with stories that might (but probably don’t) contain a kernel of truth. Did you hear the one about the prospector whose dynamite froze, so he tried to thaw it out in his stove? Grainer goes to a carnival where some of the boys get it in their heads that the promised pulchritude of the women probably involved a lecture on sex. And maybe that’s not completely wrong.

 

In this passing-of-the-West novella, nothing is too outrageous. Grainer rebuilds his cabin and something quite eerie occurs. Somehow, Robert makes to 1968 before he dies. I emphasize that this is a very male-centric novel that is sometimes off-color. It might remind you of something from Wallace Stegner with his filters turned off. For me it both took the doilies off of American individualism and the American West. For every person who made it rich from mining, prospecting, ranching, hunting, or living amidst nature, there were scores of Robert Grainers.

 

Rob Weir