PDF Download Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman
Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman In fact, book is actually a home window to the globe. Even lots of people could not appreciate reading publications; guides will certainly always provide the exact details regarding fact, fiction, encounter, experience, politic, faith, and more. We are below a website that offers collections of publications more than guide store. Why? We provide you bunches of varieties of connect to obtain the book Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman On is as you require this Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman You could find this book conveniently right here.
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman
PDF Download Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman
New upgraded! The Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman from the best author as well as publisher is currently readily available below. This is the book Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman that will make your day checking out comes to be finished. When you are trying to find the printed book Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman of this title in guide store, you might not find it. The troubles can be the limited editions Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman that are given in guide store.
As one of the book compilations to suggest, this Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman has some strong reasons for you to check out. This book is quite appropriate with what you need currently. Besides, you will additionally enjoy this book Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman to review because this is among your referred publications to read. When going to get something brand-new based on experience, home entertainment, as well as various other lesson, you can use this publication Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman as the bridge. Starting to have reading practice can be undertaken from numerous means and also from alternative types of books
In checking out Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman, now you could not additionally do traditionally. In this modern-day age, device and computer system will certainly assist you so much. This is the moment for you to open the device as well as stay in this site. It is the appropriate doing. You could see the connect to download this Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman here, cannot you? Merely click the web link and negotiate to download it. You could reach acquire guide Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman by online and also ready to download. It is really various with the typical way by gong to the book store around your city.
Nonetheless, checking out the book Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman in this site will lead you not to bring the published book almost everywhere you go. Just save the book in MMC or computer system disk and they are readily available to review whenever. The thriving heating and cooling unit by reading this soft data of the Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman can be introduced something brand-new practice. So now, this is time to prove if reading could enhance your life or not. Make Downtown Owl: A Novel, By Chuck Klosterman it surely function and get all benefits.
New York Times bestselling author and “oneofAmerica’stop cultural critics” (Entertainment Weekly) Chuck Klosterman’s debut novel brilliantly captures the charm and dread of small town life—now available in trade paperback. Somewhere in rural North Dakota, there is a fictional town called Owl. They don’t have cable. They don’t really have pop culture, but they do have grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. But that’s not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it’s perfect. Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. A history teacher, she gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer. Widower and local conversationalist Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. They all know each other completely, except that they’ve never met. But when a deadly blizzard— based on an actual storm that occurred in 1984—hits the area, their lives are derailed in unex- pected and powerful ways. An unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where local mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing, Downtown Owl is “a satisfying character study and strikes a perfect balance between the funny and the pro- found” (Publishers Weekly).
- Sales Rank: #664652 in Books
- Brand: Klosterman, Chuck
- Published on: 2009-06-23
- Released on: 2009-06-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.44" h x .80" w x 5.50" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 275 pages
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Klosterman, who has made a name for himself as an idiosyncratic pop-cultural commentator on rock music and sports, proves just as entertaining in his first novel. In or on the edge of nondescript Owl, North Dakota, live laid-back high-school football player Mitch Hrlicka, who stands out from his peers by being exceedingly normal; teacher Julia Rabia, who has fallen in love with buffalo farmer and Rolling Stones–exclusivist Vance Druid; and old Horace Jones, who mourns his wife and has a few painful secrets. Klosterman doesn’t follow them in a conventional narrative manner. Gifted with a superb ear for dialogue, a kind of perfect pitch for the way ordinary people talk, Klosterman is also capable of fine word-portraits of the three principals and the folks orbiting them in a town whose residents have nicknames like Vanna White, Bull Calf, Grendel, and Little Stevie Horse ’n’ Phone, and time exists on its own odd terms rather than those of the novel’s setting, the 1980s. Despite their eccentricities, or maybe because of them, one believes in these people and their often improbable yet always credible stories. Think of this as a literary relative of the movies Fargo and American Graffiti, sans the latter’s cruising Main Street and warm weather, with a poignant and tragic edge to it, conferred by a paralyzing and deadly blizzard in February 1984. --June Sawyers
Review
"An astonishingly moving book, a minor masterpiece in the genre we might call small-town quirkiana." -- The Boston Globe
"It's tempting to compare this novel with Sherwood Anderson's classic portrait of small-town American life, Winesburg, Ohio. But no one in Winesburg listened to Ozzy Osbourne. And Klosterman is much funnier than Anderson." -- The Washington Post
Review
"An astonishingly moving book, a minor masterpiece in the genre we might call small-town quirkiana." -- The Boston Globe
"It's tempting to compare this novel with Sherwood Anderson's classic portrait of small-town American life, Winesburg, Ohio. But no one in Winesburg listened to Ozzy Osbourne. And Klosterman is much funnier than Anderson." -- The Washington Post
Most helpful customer reviews
54 of 62 people found the following review helpful.
A Spade is a Spade
By L. Cunningham
I was hesitant to post a review of Downtown Owl, because I'm somewhat partial to the works of the author. I've loved all of Klosterman's books, and have always thought that his essays deserve their place alongside the finer works of the past ten years. However, if no one else is going to say it, I will--this book was simply okay. For a first stab at fiction, I would say it was just `good.'
People--myself included--are fast to rave about Klosterman's work, and one previous review even said that the writer `wouldn't have known it was Klosterman had the name not been listed on the cover. Really? The mentioning of obscure eighties rock songs, deep debate over the creative merits of the Rolling Stones, and Black Sabbath/heavy metal references didn't remind you of any certain author's favorite topics? To me it was obvious, but I confess that it didn't bother me. That's who Klosterman is and it's natural to think that some of his music essay writings would bleed into his fictional work. In my opinion, it doesn't discredit the work at all--in fact I welcome it--but to say it doesn't exist is ridiculous.
Downtown Owl's most powerful feature may be Klosterman's characters and their introspective dialogue. Such self-reflective accounts allow readers to develop a connection to each one, even if they are have nothing in common. Also, the pace of the book--though this may be idiotic to say--sort of mirrors the pace of life in small towns like Owl. Life moves a bit slower there, and the pace of the book stays congruent with that.
The main flaw of the book, in my opinion, is the latter part of the book where the storm begins to move in. Mitch, for example, is blown backwards--with apparently no idea of what just hit him. I feared it might be a supernatural force or an atomic bomb, only to find out . . it's a storm? I'm not familiar with weather patterns in North Dakota, but most storms I've witnessed can be seen at least a minute or two in advance. The speed at which the fierce weather enters, surrounds, and confines the characters is beyond unrealistic, and comes across as if (a) the author grew tired of writing or (b) his car was double parked while scratching out the last few chapters.
Overall, it's a good book. And yes, I liked it. But let's just leave it at that, and not inflate the book's significance or gravity just because we are so used to the author's previous--and more superior--pieces of work.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Stunning. More than 5 stars
By Sandy Kay
This review is of the unabridged audio CD of the novel.
If I could give this book & the audio production more than 5 stars, I would. I don't know if it resonated so strongly with me because I grew up in a town not much larger than Owl. I don't know if the author was trying to make social commentary about life in rural small towns or human nature. All I know is that I started the final disc in my car on the way to a party an hour's drive out into the country and was so absorbed by and emotionally involved in the unfolding events that I worried I'd arrive before the book was done. Then I'd have to decide whether or not to sit in the car and finish the book as my friends waited inside.
The audio production is excellent. The story is told through the lives of several residents of Owl. The three main characters, Mitch Hrlicka (a high school junior), Julia Rabia (a young schoolteacher new to Owl), and Horace Jones (a 73-year old widower and lifelong resident of Owl). Each of these characters has its own narrator. This is one of the best aspects of the production. The different narrators make it easier for the listener to remember whose chapter it is and, more importantly, to connect with the character as a person. The voices seemed to suit the characters very well. At first I was annoyed by the Horace narrator's voice because his reading was very sibilant, much like an old preacher I had whose teeth didn't fit well. After a while, I realized that voice fit Horace perfectly. A couple other people have small sections either narrated by different people or by one of the other narrators using a different vocal inflection. The author also reads some parts.
The book starts with a news clipping about a blizzard in early February, 1984. (An actual blizzard, which explains why the author chose to set the story in 1983-84.) But the story unfolds starting at the beginning of the school year in 1983 and paints a picture of the daily lives of the three main characters and the others in their social spheres. The details of everyday life in Owl are fairly mundane but the gradual accumulation made me care about Mitch, Julia and Horace. The author blends in real life events such as references to Gordon Kahl, a former North Dakota resident who shot federal agents trying to arrest him for tax evasion. After several disks, I had all but forgotten the blizzard noted at the beginning of the book.
The author has a sly sense of humor and a talented way with words. One of Horace's coffee drinking buddies is named Marvin Windows, which is the name of a large window manufacturer near the Minnesota/North Dakota border. And many of his descriptions of Owl and daily life there made me laugh out loud
The end of the book was simply stunning. I don't want to give anything away, but the blizzard I had nearly forgotten stikes suddenly and terrifyingly. If I had been reading a paper copy of the book, I would have been turning the pages as fast as I could read and trying not to flip ahead to the end to see what happened.
This was one of the best audio books I've listened to for a long time. If you enjoy audio books, I highly recommend this one. If you prefer your books in print or Kindle, get it that way. But whatever you do, read this book.
46 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
The Klosterman Blizzard
By Jeremy J. Parker
Guess what? Chuck Klosterman wrote a novel and it's good and it's nothing like his non-fiction pop culture essays. In fact, were I given the book not knowing the author, I would never have guessed.
After I saw an advertisement for a Klosterman event calling him "the next Hunter S. Thompson," I got very upset because, Klosterman, Hunter S. Thompson, you are not. I suddenly had a very irrational hatred for Klosterman. I thought Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs was pretty good. I didn't always agree with him, but at least when he was wrong, he was entertainingly wrong. Suddenly I hated that book and thought he was incredibly stupid and not very clever at all in retrospect. This novel, Downtown Owl, changed my mind. Klosterman is cool once more.
Downtown Owl reminds me in tone and texture of a Mark Haddon novel or David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. It has the same humor as Franzen's The Corrections with less resolution. Chuck does an amazing job with the small-town Midwest and most amazingly - he somehow writes the early-to-mid 80's without seeming nostalgic or silly or even dated. Chuck displays his encyclopedic knowledge of film and music throughout but manages to make the release of E.T. seem current. The real trick, the real page-turner is that the struggles of his characters are as universal today as they were over twenty years ago. Downtown Owl lacks the rough edges and narrative mistakes of many first novels and rolls heavy with both wit and tragedy.
The one critique I see coming for this novel is that it could be argued that there is a lack of plot. This novel could be Dazed and Confused if that film was spliced with extra narratives, one from a teacher at the school and another from an old man who spends his afternoons talking in a cafe with other elderly farmers. The novel covers August of '83 through February of '84, but it is never more than "This is what happened to these people." One could argue there is no resolution because there were never any conflicts to resolve, and the few that did exist were sidestepped.
Ultimately, this comes down to the question, "Is it the journey or the destination?" Your enjoyment of this book may very well depend on your answer.
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman PDF
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman EPub
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman Doc
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman iBooks
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman rtf
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman Mobipocket
Downtown Owl: A Novel, by Chuck Klosterman Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar