Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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Happy May! This week, Frank and Rhonda check in with each other, as we pass the 1(~ish) month mark of podcasting while social distancing. We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. It's hard not to feel a little bit of cabin fever, especially as the weather warms. Do you find yourself dreaming of getting away? Get away for a bit with Rhonda and Frank as they discuss this month's pick from the NYPL's 125 Books We Love List, Denis Johnson's Train Dreams. 

Did you read along? (Or listen, like Rhonda?) If so ,don't forget to drop us a comment below with your thoughts or send us an email!
 

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

More things we talked about today:

• The audiobook verison of Train Dreams read by Will Patton
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Stoner by John Williams
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
   

"Train Tracks" photo is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Tell us what everybody's talking about in your world of books and libraries! Suggest Hot Topix(TM)! Send an email or voice memo to podcasts[at]nypl.org.

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Transcript

[Music]

[Frank] Hello, everybody and welcome to the Library is in. The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture and what to read next. I am Frank.

[Rhonda] And I'm Rhonda.

[Frank] And here we are, how are you, Rhonda?

[Rhonda] I am doing pretty good. You know we're in -- It's been what? A little over a month now that we've been doing the podcast from our respective homes. So, you know, kind of getting used to the situation. How are you doing?

[Frank] I'm doing okay. I mean, I guess as good as anybody can. I mean, better than some and I feel grateful and I don't know I find it interesting. I think I've probably said this before, but it's interesting with a different way of living to see how one evolves or how one changes or starts sensing change in one's own behavior and feelings. I don't know. It's interesting to me. Like the other day I had a flurry of cleaning and crazy cooking and just did so much. And then the next day I was like dead [laughter].

[Rhonda] I know. Yeah, some days -- that's good with the cooking and the cleaning. It's kind of a way of self-care. And then you know, even just the other way is relaxing. So, it's all good. Not too much judgment on our own behaviors during this time. I feel like, you know, there's a lot of pressure on people to be very productive or to even feel like they need to kind of just relax because they're at home. But you know, it's good to just kind of, you know, whatever you're feeling in the day. I feel like just go with it.

[Frank] Yeah, and actually I know this is probably dangerous to say because, you know, we are employed, but it -- and that luckily, so far so good that, you know, we're okay and feeling okay and never forget that other people are not doing so well. And every time I think about posting something to Instagram or doing something I don't want to be -- I feel like I'm walking that line between I don't want to be disrespectful to people who are just not having a good time with this or just not well. I sort of, but selfishly I feel like just -- it's interesting to have almost a global timeout, you know?

[Rhonda] Yeah, and I hear you.

[Frank] But that impulse to keep working. I mean, work is important and work is everything to me, honestly. So I guess maybe by that same token, not so called working -- I mean, I feel like I'm working all the time. I'm always thinking about -- because what I do with the library is very much core to me who I am. And I feel like oneself manifests in the programs and things we do with the library. You know, I guess it's, you know, seems lazy or self-indulgent to say -- I'm curious to see what living -- Oh, I'm shutting up. I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Rhonda] required of other people's lives. You know, so it's a really big adjustment to not kind of do the same thing every day and to kind of adjust to a new normal as the saying is now. And kind of find new ways to do your work and, you know. But I've also found like, you know, there's especially within the library community, there are -- people are kind of finding ways to kind of get together and kind of brainstorming and trying to figure out new ways of kind of doing the things that they've done before. So, you know, I found that very helpful to kind of find a way to connect with that, you know. Whatever your community is, your librarian community or whatever else, like, you know, people might have been into. So, you know, people kind of do those type of things.

[Frank] I mean, you know, there's some libraries in the system, our pals at Tompkins Square, the East Village library. They're doing online book discussions, and I jumped in on one but my connection wasn't that great. So I didn't actually participate as much as I wanted to. The children's library at Jefferson Market is doing multiple programs a week with her kids that she knows from the neighborhood and some of the schools. And they were doing books, reading-aloud books and stuff. And I'm really glad for them and it does make me feel like I haven't pulled it together to do myself. I'm so much about the physical space. I'm so much about bringing people into the library and seeing them and hugging them. And, you know, and saying hi to them and talking to them. And it's so much about the physical space for me. And what I was trying to say before about like non-work is that I'm always looking for meaning. I'm always looking for something that will make me realize something more about myself or the world in which I live. And always like eager to find even at my superannuated age to still learn something about myself or the world in which I live. And I guess what I was saying before about that was that it's if you are well luckily and gratefully to have this opportunity, this time to sort of see what might arise. Because it is such a radical change from before. And that's really all I guess I was saying. Anywho, speaking of finding meaning with things, we did read the same book this --

[Rhonda] W did.

[Frank] -- this [multiple speakers]. The book Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. And it's one of the books on the 125th New York Public Library anniversary list, books we love list. And as people listening know, we're going to be reading books from that list throughout the year. And this is the next one. We've read Flannery O'Connor. We've read James Baldwin. And now we decided to read Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. I'd never read Denis Johnson. This is a novella. It's short. It's 116 pages if that means something.

[Rhonda] Or two hours and 20 minutes if you're listening.

[Frank] [chuckles] Oh, you listen to it?

[Rhonda] I listen to it. Yes.

[Frank] Oh, that's cool. We can talk about that later about. We could talk about that later, Rhonda.

[Rhonda] Well, I think it's good to talk about it kind of after we talk about [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Yeah, because that has got to be a different experience, obviously. So Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. I don't know where you want to start?

[Rhonda] -- book that we read also. This was 2011 and all of our other the other two were 50s and 60s. So, well, you know, this is the most recent one. I guess kind of just like, you know, just the basic facts. As you know, we're talking about the main characters, a man named Robert Grainier. And it kind of takes place mostly in the 19th -- early 1970s 1920s. And mostly in the Northwest. So I mean, I guess we can kind of just start -- well, I'll tell you what I think is interesting. I thought the way that we were introduced to the character, Robert Grainier was, I don't know, I thought, what a unique way to kind of bring this character to us. Because his morality and his choices to me like we're automatically in question. So I'm kind of like who is this person that kind of, you know, we don't want to really spoil but for those who --

[Frank] But we are. This is part of the deal. So [multiple speakers] I think we would have listened. Okay. I would have read the book. Yeah.

[Rhonda] Right. Right. And so kind of the way we were introduced to this character is, you know, he's, I believe, is he working on the railroad at the time. And he sees a group of men pulling a Chinese worker to throw him off of this cliff, basically. And he doesn't really know what the circumstances are at first. But he jumps in to kind of help these guys, you know, take this worker and throw him off the cliff. And because of that -- the man gets away, luckily. But he this kind of his choice kind of impacts a lot of you know, how he views the rest of his life. And I don't know. I kind of thought about like, well, I wonder what that is all about? I wonder why that's the first choice of his that we get to see. I don't know. What did you think of that, Frank? Did that kind of like brain -- it's like that first moment kind of make you think of anything about him, or?

[Frank] Interesting, because he does -- like you said it's the early 1900s like 1917 in the Pacific Northwest. And he's a labor in the logging industry, or he's working on the bridge. He's at labor. He's almost a laborer for hire. He'll work where the work is needed and he lands in different jobs throughout the book. Interestingly, as a side note, it does say he would join any neat team that needed day labor or labor. The team usually led by more entrepreneurial, innovative men like indicating he wasn't one of those men. He wasn't one of those men who could fulfill his life or was ambitious enough to sort of make something different of his life. He was just going to join whatever team that needed help working in the culture of America in the 19 teens. But you're right when you first meet him, there is a group of guys who have -- to indicate that this Chinese man has stolen from the company's store. And basically they're going to kill him. They're going to throw him off the bridge. And so Robert Grainier joins the group almost as like a masculine maybe, you know, join the white guys against the Chinese.

[Rhonda] Yeah. That's kind of like how it kind of came across a little bit.

[Frank] And said, he does have a quote he says something like, "Yeah, I'm your man. Like I'll help you." Sight unseen without knowing what the guy did. And the struggle of the man, the Chinese man is vividly described. And also how he gets away is vividly described. And also the emotions of some of the men. Because the book is in the third person, which you get. So it gets more complex that some of the men are sort of glad he got away because they didn't want to fulfill almost what they were going to do, what their masculinity was pushing them to do. Like that sort of group male, sort of, "Hell, yeah, let's do this." And, you know, the complexity might come in where that, you know, they're not willing to really see it through to the end. And the event does play out in Robert's mind throughout the rest of his long life, which of regrets. He does actually have feelings of regret that he was part of it. But also, he does also feel that the Chinese man was cursing him and the other one. And actually says at one point he wishes they had killed him because he felt slightly -- he felt cursed by him because of what happens later.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and that curse, kind of, you know, like you said, it kind of permeates throughout the rest of the book. And again, that's kind of as we always talk about, like these characters, you know, who are not completely, you know, maybe not likable or even completely relatable. It seems like his regret of the incident to me, I felt was connected more to the curse that he felt kind of caused some of the other bad things that happen in his life. And even kind of going forward. You see some of the other choices that he makes. And you're kind of like, "Well, you know, what's kind of going on with this guy?" Does he have kind of this sense of like guilt? Or does he just kind of move through life like, just, you know, accepting everything as it is, you know? And so that curse kind of comes through and he kind of blames different things on that.

[Frank] I mean, I really -- I wonder, you know, I was just thinking as you were talking that sometimes one is moved to discuss an individual's childhood or background to explain the adult's behavior. And maybe even sympathize it. Like someone does something and then we say, "Oh, because they had such a terrible childhood," or "They had such a, you know, this trauma that happened to them," as if that explains or mitigates or, you know, apologizes for their later behavior which is an interesting concept. Because Robert, you know, poignantly is his early life his parents die, somehow. You're not even explained how that happens. And he goes to live with his cousin who's older and has three kids on her own. And or his aunt. And the cousins are his age. And, you know, it's described as the cousins, sort of tell Robert as a child, a small child, different stories about why he came to be with them and what happened to his parents. But nobody really seems to know for sure. And the drama and trauma of that event of losing his parents and coming to live with his aunt and uncle, the book says, you know, it was something such an adventure that he in later life forgot basically almost all of his childhood because it was just unclear to him what he was. And who he was or where he came from what his roots were. And so I was thinking of that does that explain what happens to him later or forgive what happens to him later? Because what this event that opens the book with the sort of execution mob taking this alleged thief who is also a Chinese immigrant, which is in the Pacific Northwest. In Idaho, there was apparently a whole group of Chinese immigrants. So there was probably racial tension for sure. And they automatically assumed he had stolen. You never know whether he did or not. But this lynch mob in a way that Robert sort of joins in almost seemed to me like that -- like he was saying that maybe very human and in this maybe drilling down deeper, this very masculine if you could say, toxic masculine to join with this group just because guys are doing it. To be a part of it. Almost the first impulse is to be a part of the team, to be a part of the herd, to be part of the pack. And think about the moral consequences later. And that's why I said that you get the internal thoughts of some of them that they're sort of relieved that the Chinese guy got away. Because they were all like, "Yeah, let's just throw them off the bridge." But when it came to it, you know, maybe they didn't quite really want to go that far. But their masculinity, their waves of masculinity push them to it.

[Rhonda] And you know, kind of connected and I kind of jumping around just a little bit here.

[Frank] Well, the book jumps around [inaudible] the time.

[Rhonda] A lot, right?

[Frank] The book written, you do jump around in time, so.

[Rhonda] I kind of connected this to another moment of his that was kind of a turning point in his life as the narrator states is when he -- right before he kind of leaves his family to go off to be a laborer. I don't know if he's like -- I forget what he's doing. He's out fishing or something and he comes along this man who was dying. The man is kind of like, I don't know what the term was, like kind of like a transcendent hobo or something.

[Frank] They called him a boomer.

[Rhonda] Boomer. Yeah, that's what the word was.

[Frank] Does mean like what we would say a hobo from that time. But it was interesting because it was a boomer. Okay.

[Rhonda] A boomer, but the man's like, "Well, you know, someone has robbed me and murdered me, and I'm dying or trying to murder me and I'm dying. And I want to give you kind of like my last confession." And he talks about these kind of really horrible things he did to this young girl. And Robert, you know, he says, you know, "I'm dying. The one thing I would like you to do for me is like, go to the police and give them this name." And Robert doesn't do it. But then he kind of talks about later on how he kind of felt really bad about, you know, not kind of taking care of these man's last moments. And then not feeling so bad about joining that lynch mob. And I felt like, I guess kind of to the credit of, you know, Denis Johnson, we have this really kind of complexity of character. And you're just kind of like what's driving these different, you know, motivations and these different kind of what affects his emotions. I guess personally, in certain situations. I don't know. I thought that was really interesting, like these two moments. And there was like one person who did these really horrible things that we know for a fact because he said it. And he kind of felt some sympathy for that situation. And then the other one, he's kind of like, well, I kind of feel upset because this person cursed me. I thought that was just really interesting kind of moment for parallel.

[Frank] You're right, because those two events are his two encounters with the dying. The Chinese guy, who they're basically going to kill but does escape, and this boomer hobo guy as well. But it's interesting that you say that because it just occurred to me. It's so much talking about it. It's feeling so much different than how it was in my head. Well, I guess we'll see what happens with that. But the man who's lying, the boomer guys, lying against the tree, who is described as being like, a mouth hole amongst rags and leaves and dirt. Like he's just been lying there so long as he tells the story to Robert, who's a young man at this point, that he was robbed. And the robber cut the back of his knee so he couldn't chase after him. So therefore, he was dying apparently could not go to a doctor. I mean, get any kind of help, you know, as a transcendent man with no money.

[Rhonda] And I think a gangrene too, he said. He was like --

[Frank] Yeah a gangrene. And then he said the rot from his knee was going to rise all the way up to his eyes until it took him. And then he'd be no longer. He was very eloquent about it. But then he tells his last right or confession almost too young Robert, about how he was living in his brother's house. And the brother has a 12-year-old girl. And it's horrible. The way he goes into the girl's room every night and because the girl doesn't react doesn't say anything just is sleeping and the man telling the story. It says, "Well, she just lay there, lay there, lay there. And I just did more and more and more." And basically, he's at work and when he comes home, his sister in law is sobbing on the porch and saying, you know, "He took a stick to her. He took a stick to her." And the guy is like, "What?" Is like, "My husband took a stick to our daughter because she's pregnant." And he's like, "What?" Is says and she's dead. And so the guy just turns around in shock, even though he's been raping her, and is a hobo rides the rails. When I say hobo, I say it's like image of riding the train around the country and doing what you can to subsist. And so you say how it was interesting, but Robert doesn't pick up on that. [multiple speakers] and thinking about it differently when we're talking about it. Because I just realized he doesn't really acknowledge that story as a horrible story. He acknowledged it more as there's a man dying in front of him and he's not doing anything to help them.

[Rhonda] Yeah, I think that's a good point because he expresses kind of his regret about the situation. But you're right. He does not acknowledge anything that that man has said. Which I think is important because there are clearly situations in the story where he really picks up on certain conversations that he has with people that really interest him. And, you know, that's something I'll talk about a little bit, I guess when we talk about the audio book part. But I think that is a good point that he doesn't even acknowledge that. And I think that's also really kind of fascinating that that --

[Frank] Well, it could be said, you know, it could also be said that, like you just said, he does pick up on other people he meets throughout the book, on their personalities and their stories. But it could be said that he doesn't, Robert, take in grief, or take in trauma very well at all. He doesn't acknowledge it really in his own life, and he doesn't acknowledge it in others. And when I say acknowledge, I don't mean he's consciously not acknowledging it. It's simply not a part of his brain. It's not a part of his framework that he -- there's almost like the times that you see him engage -- like one of the one of the stories in the book or one of the vignettes or moments when he gets too old and he's around 40. And his body is just destroyed from logging and hauling and carrying and doing physical labor because everything about him is just physical labor. He's lucky enough to get a team of two horses and a wagon. So he becomes a guy who hauls things around for people. And one of the things he's asked to haul around was a man who says he's been shot by his own dog. And that's a whole other story. But as they're going to the doctor which takes an hour over rough road, they're talking and Robert is just so curious about what do you mean he got shot by his own dog? What is that about? And the guy who says he got shot by some dog is you know, in pain. But being a little bit obtuse about telling the story. But Robert is very much like, "Okay, I got to know, I got to know, I got to know." So I bring this story up to say he was in engaged in that. But he was not engaged in the other man's story about what he had done to the young girl.

[Rhonda] That was the example I was thinking of as well. It's kind of like he almost threatened to stop the transportation if, you know, the guy didn't tell him about the story about how the dog shot him. You know, he's, you know, so into that. But like you said, he kind of doesn't acknowledge this other really serious story. And there are other times too kind of like when he has the one -- I don't know if it would be a friend, a Native American man that he talks to sometimes, you know. Those instances that would happen, so yeah, that's a good point.

[Frank] I mean, so the character of Robert who are with obviously the whole book, is almost that kind of character whose simplistic man of the earth who only works in physical labor, can only. And in simplistically doesn't contemplate much about his life. I mean, he doesn't -- it's funny. I don't feel like we're making him sound like a very good guy, which, I mean, good, bad, but complex. I mean, certainly --

[Rhonda] He kind of comes off as good or bad in the -- even when he makes those kind of weird, odd decisions. I don't think he comes off as good or bad. In my opinion, I think that's how I read it.

[Frank] I mean, it's also you know, life is its lives like sometimes you hear terrible stories and people will tell you terrible things and what one can take in and what one can't. Especially after the fact when you're hearing a story that's done. I don't know, maybe it's just goes into a part of ourselves or can that is just that sort of I [inaudible] the pocket that's I can't deal with this grief right now. I can't take it in. Especially think about like with the guy who tells that story. He's dying against the tree. He's literally witnessing a man dying. I mean, so what's you know that immediate happening? Anyway.

[Rhonda] I mean, you know and another thing and I guess this is maybe a theme, I don't know, throughout the book that I think about when you say he kind of doesn't really process these things or, you know, he has a really difficult time with these moments of death and grief. There's kind of this theme of the, you know, superstition or supernatural throughout the book. Which goes along with that idea. Because I feel like sometimes it's really easy if you can't process something to kind of like, blame it maybe on something that we can't see. Something that we don't understand that we can't deal with it kind of blame it on, I don't know, the supernatural or something like that. And that kind of comes up with the idea of the curse. You know, that's how he understands that all of these kind of bad things are happening. We haven't talked about, you know, the death of his wife and child but even the idea of there's themes of ghosts. And there's themes of, you know, kind of cursed creatures that we see throughout this book. So I kind of feel like those themes that we can talk more about, I guess, like the death of his wife and child or what he thinks --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And it comes [inaudible] in this book.

[Frank] Yes. And I think it makes very clear that we as human beings are, obviously impelled by certain survival appetites to survive and to live, and to get through. And but yet through various reasons of evolution or whatever we also are endowed with this ability to think, for better or worse, sometimes worse. And that thinking can lead -- depending on your education and personality, can and lead you to so many things. I think that supernatural witchy folklore belief, obviously, has been with human race since the beginning of word or oral tradition. I mean, and where you get your meaning about the world around you. So yeah, the story -- actually, let me see. Because he does -- he's like, you know, leaves school fairly early, becomes a labor. Actually the event with the guy who's dying, the rapist, basically, kicks in into her into a commitment to work harder because he's he was sort of a lay about, he says, just fishing. And so he becomes very dedicated to working. So then he's, you know, works throughout his 20s, his youth. And then in his early 30s, he does meet a young woman in church. And, you know, she basically asks him. She come at the church -- social after church. She does come up to him and introduces herself, and it's described as like, she introduced herself as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Indicating, you know, Robert was not going to do it himself, and was a little amazed that by her doing that. It wasn't described as pushy or anything ulterior. It was just a friendly hello. Yeah. And like you said, he kind of buys this small plot of land like an acre. And he says he probably wouldn't have done that. If he hadn't thought you know, about marrying this woman and they get married. And he built a little place on this acre and I have a daughter. But I don't feel like we kind of really got to know what their relationship was like. And also it kind of seems like he still was gone doing his laboring things, you know, kind of traveling to where the work was a lot of the time. So you don't really get a good sense of like -- you hear some of their interaction. But you don't get a really strong sense of what it's like -- what their relationship was like. And then of course, while he's gone for one of his jobs on its way back, a fire has kind of ripped through his community, including his home. And he never he never recovers the bodies that [inaudible] at least. And he kind of, you know, that is a huge turning point for him in the story, of course. And I don't know. I feel like kind of the supernatural kind of seeps into that as well because she does come back to him. Well, you know, a few times. [inaudible] as a ghost.

[Frank] Right, if I can interject, he has a long life of over 80 years. And yet he's with her, his wife for only about two. And his baby is fairly newborn, I think four months old by the time the fire occurs, and they're gone. And it says -- the book says at some point like he was used to his loneliness and he went back after they died to that loneliness without really a "problem" we would say. Because he does -- the moment you have with them as he comes -- When I was reading it, I had no idea where the book was going at any time. I knew nothing about it. So I never knew like where we were going to be taken. Like when you do have the really the one encounter in real life between the two that the encounters. The first Robert and Gladys when he asks on their first date asks her to marry him, you know is in this field or daisies in a picnic. And then the second is when they're married and the baby's already born. He comes back from a long job and brings her something fast perilla to drink. And it's the detail there is that she has a little bit -- she's a little sick, the wife. And the baby a little bit too but it's a little bit. And it says that she could clearly do her chores. But it was an agreement between them at every time she didn't feel well, those chores were forgotten. And she would just stay in bed and he would bring her something. I mean, so it was sort of like a kindness there. When I said I didn't know where it's going to go, I thought, is there going to be violence here? Is there going to be abuse? Like I didn't know what their relationship would be like. But he was almost like, childlike because then later he's sleeping and throughout the book the train, this sort of new train to the west, that he's helped build whistles in the distance. And throughout the book, he wakes up from a dream hearing that whistle. And at this point he does and his wife is feeding the baby in the middle of the night in the dark. And he just talks to her about the baby and what she thinks the baby knows yet. And it says he keeps asking her questions just because he wants to hear her talk. And it's very, very lovely and very sweet that he -- when I look back at it, I kept waiting for something -- I don't know why but something terrible to happen. But then it didn't. It was just almost like a very childlike man. What we would say childlike, unsophisticated. Because he was asking her questions about like, what the baby knows, as opposed to what like a dog would know. And she's just like calmly talking to him about that. And he's just sort of like, asking almost childlike questions. And I just occurred to me are very unsophisticated questions.

[Rhonda] Yeah, it's kind of a simplicity to him. I would say that I feel like I we see throughout the book, you know. And in those type of questions and those kind of type of type of behaviors. And of course, when the fire comes, the curse, you know, he believed that that was a result of the curse. That's what he is, you know, kind of attributes to what has happened. And then like he said, like kind of this whole idea of loneliness, like a lot of the book, even though he is married, I got this sense of isolation throughout the entire book. Even when he is connecting with people, you know, with the exception of maybe kind of the moment that you just mentioned. I feel like there is kind of this sense of distance. This sense of this isolation with him. And he becomes really isolated after the fire because he kind of slowly tries to start to rebuild on that land. But it's really kind of isolated and far out even to the point like in the winter, sometimes he would have to go and stay in the town. But you know, there's this sense of just like being alone with him and throughout his whole life.

[Frank] Well, that's interesting, because when you were talking, I was going to say, this word we say about simplistic like, it almost seems like a very judgy word from two librarians who you know, are educated and supposedly intellectually more inclined. And it's almost like what does all that mean really? Like, it's almost seems slightly derogatory to say, simplistic or childlike that he is. You know what I mean?

[Rhonda] Mm-hmm.

[Frank] I don't feel like it's fully fair [multiple speakers] judgment because the simplicity, for lack of a better word, and I wish I could figure out a better word. And I probably could have I just thought for a minute, but, you know, leads into what you've been saying about the supernatural or folkloric, or mythological almost elements that come into it about that I think are there for Robert, showing us how Robert makes sense of his grief, really. And so his emotions that he' just has no words for. And I've said this before, like, you know, reading -- I love so much It feels like it gives one language to describe oneself and one's emotions and one's feelings and what's happening. I mean, at the core, that's what reading does immaculately. But like you said like his wife and baby are not found. I mean, the whole area is gutted by the fire. His house is like to the ground. I mean, it's described incredibly well. So beautiful.

[Rhonda] And I guess kind of the idea of the simplicity is we really don't get to see what his thoughts are, you know. We kind of see him kind of moving through life either attributing things to some of these kind of supernatural ideas or just kind of this very just acceptance of what it is. We don't really get to see or understand like -- we understand that he's grieving. And we seem to kind of interact with these people but we don't get to see the internal process very much. So it comes across as, you know, like we said simple or childlike because of the kind of he just either accepts or kind of just you know, tributes to these things. Or even when we he has experiences with kind of like these ghosts or things. Again, he just kind of like this isn't strange. I'm not trying to understand why this is happening. This is just how it is with life, you know.

[Frank] That kind of personality that sometimes I can be afraid of or, you know. Robert I think at heart, maybe -- I'm getting in a hole. All right. One can be afraid of because he's unquestioning. He's someone who I could say is unthoughtful in that he doesn't think typically. But by saying that it sounds like he's actively not thinking but the way the book presents him and very believably so is that it's not even an option for him. To think about his life or to contemplate his life is not an option. It's not like he's saying, "Oh, I don't want to think about it because it's too painful or because I want to be mean or I want to be good." I mean, just not even an option. It's almost like this impressionistic life wetted by his human appetites to survive. And everything else is his nature really is external. And what he gets from the external natural world, which in the Pacific Northwest is pretty gorgeous. But like you were saying that that's when some of the supernatural seems to come in. Because, well, you tell it like --

[Rhonda] So I guess we'll the first one --

[Frank] When he sees his wife -- Go ahead, go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead.

[Rhonda] Yeah. So it seems like his wife, you know, he assumes that his wife and daughter perished in the fire. And then when he, you know, I guess in the years after they died, he's rebuilding or kind of like, recreating his land so that it's livable again. And each night kind of he gets these clues that you know, his wife as a ghost or our spirit is coming to visit him as she kind of comes. And then one night, she in some form tells him what happened to her. And that she actually did escape from the home and she was running with the baby. And she had taken a quite a number of other things with her. And that as she was running from the fire, she was kind of dropping some of the things so that she could move easier. And finally she has the Bible in one hand, the baby and a box of chocolates. She decides to drop the Bible. And again, he believes that or I don't know if she explains it as the ghost, but that it was the reason that because she dropped the Bible. She, you know, I guess she trips and falls and hits her head and that's how she dies. And then you don't really know what happens to the baby until later on. You know if he believes -- he doesn't know if someone has, you know, taken the baby in or if the baby just perished because she couldn't take care of herself. And the reason we know all of this is because of this ghost. I'm assuming -- and I can't tell if this is a figment of his imagination, or are we actually witnessing a ghost in the story? I don't know. What did you think?

[Frank] Well, that's interesting because I was thinking that now the book is called Train Dreams. And like I said before, you know, from his little cabin like he's woken by the Train whistle in the distance, often throughout the years. And it seems like his most cogent or detailed experiences of emotion are in the middle of the night or when he wakes up from these, or dreams or having dreams or "wakes up from them". So when he's in bed and he wakes up, he senses the apparition of his dead wife in the room, who then goes on to explain to him. She's not really talking to him the way he describes it, or it's described. It's almost a shadow play of what happened to her like, through her spirit, he's seeing what happened. And maybe, his way of making sense of his life and the only way he can actually apprehend language or images to explain his life is when he's in an almost a vulnerable state of half sleep. That in his waking life, it's just consumed with visceral hard work, and chores and, you know, life. And so it's described -- So do you think that, what he sees her tell him, "What happened to her," do you think that's the truth?

[Rhonda] I don't know. So I don't know, honestly. Because that, you know, again, that kind of leads us to jumping to another part of the story where and I don't know if you want to tell it about where he thinks his daughter returned.

[Frank] Oh, my God. The way it's described is that she basically drops the Bible, the wife Gladys. And to get a better so she could walk -- get away from the fire quicker. She needs a free hand and falls from a cliff on her back breaking her back into like the water, which then takes her and she drowns. And the baby crawls away, eating the chocolates from the box of chocolates she didn't drop. And it is one thing though, it is said that she drops the Bible. And that was her fatal flaw because it showed her denunciation of God in favor of these materialistic tactile pleasures of chocolate. Just quickly if you have an opinion, like who -- this is third person, but who's talking? Because that's a judgment right there.

[Rhonda] It is a judgement.

[Frank] And I'm wondering --

[Rhonda] It sounds like it and that's the thing. Like I couldn't tell if that was what she was saying to him, explaining like, well, that's what happened to me or that's what his judgement of it was. But I -- yeah, I was wondering if it was because of what she was saying to him. Like that kind of like from beyond this is why this happened to me. I chose the chocolate over the Bible. I don't know.

[Frank] I don't know. It's a very like is third person. So it's always like, who's doing the telling here. But so the baby is crawling away. The wife Gladys is pulled out to the water and floating, dead. And then like 10 years later in a very crisp autumn night, Robert is at home in his cabin, that same cabin who he -- the event of this night that we were about to talk about, I guess is one that commits him to that space for the rest of his life, commits him to that cabin. Because there's this wild cacophony of wolves and dogs and the animal life making noise that particular night and a full moon. And this is what I was saying before about how the nature, the external to Robert is more impactful than his interior life in terms of how he can feel it and talk about or talk about it to himself. So out of this animalistic cacophony of nature comes this inhered creature. Which basically is the daughter in his mind grown up raised by wolves.

[Rhonda] Right. She's a feral child raised by wolves.

[Frank] I mean, the way -- with a broken shin like the bone sticking out below the knee. And he describes her that description of her wrists. Her wrists are like calloused rock hard that from walking on all fours and her feet are just sort of morels of mallet heads. And he takes this feral child in, immediately -- not immediately, but almost immediately recognizing it as his daughter. He says, "Kate, is that you?" And she, you know, doesn't say anything, just snaps at him growls. He brings her in and tends to her wound. Oh my god, it just struck me so sad. I mean, for some reason I took it at face value that it was true when I was reading it. And now it suddenly does strike me as this dreamlike, wet, external, natural world way of explaining his own grief or having him come to terms with his own grief. Where we would say, you know, now somebody would work through their grief as if they're dead. They're gone. What could I have done anything if I came home early if I didn't? Like what could I have done there? For him he can only explain it through the world around him. And because he manifests in his own mind, let's say, his wife explaining this story which is his own -- which if you think about it his own words. Because you want to say that he's not really seeing a ghost. He's dreaming it himself. It's his own explanation to himself via his wife and has to believe his daughter's alive.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and I was kind of questioning as well if this is a true experience because he kind of already has this story in his head, right, when he going back to when he was transporting the man who was shot by his dog. You know, the reason he was shot by his dog was because he was going to -- the man who was transporting was going to shoot the dog because of the wolf girl. Which is a whole another kind of story of, I guess it was a you know, this creature who is part girl and part wolf. And he thought that the dog -- I guess with the dog, you know, some kind of way connected to the wolf girl. This I can't remember correctly but so that's why he was going to shoot the dog. So he has this story of like this wolf girl and the wolf people. And I believe that it comes up again in the Native American character. Who also kind of mentions this idea of like these wolf people. So he has already this thought that there are these kind of wolf people out there. So I feel like it wasn't -- like you said it wasn't that big of a stretch for him to kind of put those two stories together.

[Frank] Right. And again, it begs that question like we -- or I'll say I can be inclined to say, "Oh, like poor and poor guy." The story about the wolf girl makes such an impact on him. He stays terrified and impacted by it. That you like you just said it could be he said that he in his brain translates that to his missing daughter, missing/dead daughter, because it was such an impactful thing to him. And we could say, "Oh like poor guy." Like you know, you have no language to work through your grief. You have to make up this crazy story to yourself almost deluding yourself, delusionally. Like he could have been tending to an actual injured wolf rather than what you think is his daughter, because in his head, it has to be his daughter. Because it's conflated with this wolf girl story because he has no other language. There again, like I've been saying, language gives us ways of talking about ourselves, for better or worse, whether it's true or not, whether we'll ever know ourselves. And that story was such a story to him that maybe that was the only way he could tell the story of his daughter, which is sort of fascinating and not to be to be judged. I don't think, harshly at all. Why do I have to get on a high horse and say, "Oh, that's the way you dealt with your grief?" So what? That's fine. Right?

[Rhonda] And you can tell that story. And I feel like it was really emphasized that those stories of the wolf people really impacted him. Because I remember when he's transporting the man, he gets really, really frightened. Like, it really kind of affects him when he's like listening to the story. So, like you said, you know, it can be like the grief can be dealt with in any kind of ways. But this was like with the idea, kind of the nature and the surroundings that he was living in, kind of coming together to round out this story for him. To close this story for him to know like, what had actually happened to his daughter. And as a way to kind of answer that question for him.

[Frank] Yeah, Yeah. And then at the end, you know, he lives by himself for all these years. And there is that sort of summation again, like who's talking? Like, what entity is telling the story about -- I mean, I can just read this to the end where it says Grainier himself lived more than 80 years well into the 1960s. In his time, he traveled west to within a few dozen miles at the Pacific, though he'd never seen the ocean itself. And as far east as the town of Libby, 40 miles inside Montana. He had one lover, his wife, Gladys, owned one acre of property, two horses in a wagon. He had never been drunk. He had never purchased a firearm, or spoken into a telephone. He'd written on trains regularly many times in automobiles, and once on an aircraft. During the last decade of his life, he watched television whenever he was in town. He had no idea who his parents might have been any left no heirs behind him. Which is interesting because that's well, I guess you couldn't say a wolf girl is an heir [chuckles].

[Rhonda] Yeah, we don't even -- like we said we haven't even determined if she actually was a wolf girl or not, so.

[Frank] And then it does go on to say which I can identify with that he dies in his cabin. Everyone in the town knows who he is. He dies in his cabin and isn't discovered until like six months later. Living alone. But what about the last scene? What about that?

[Rhonda] The one where he's discovered, that part?

[Frank] No. Do you remember what happens at the very end?

[Rhonda] What part are you -- go ahead --

[Frank] [multiple speakers] So after you know, he dies, I guess we said it flips back and forth in time. And it goes back to the 1930s where he goes to a show.

[Rhonda] Oh, right. Yes. [multiple speakers].

[Frank] In a -- what?

[Rhonda] Poker [inaudible].

[Frank] Well, that's right.

[Rhonda] [multiple speakers] that part?

[Frank] That was a pretty intense part where he sees a marquee in a theater that, you know, for a 1930s movie that promises all sorts of sin and love. And he goes through this paroxysm of, lust and desire that he has to physically sort of exhaust himself, just physically not an any other way to get rid of that filling. But I'm saying -- and then at the end, I think he goes to a doctor. He's staying in town at a lodging and it's in a doctor's house who takes in lodgers. And the doctor gives him a free pass to that same theater, but to see a new show featuring a horse. You know, a vaudeville almost show with a horse that can do tricks. And among other animals in the show. And he goes to it and says he's sitting amongst his people, Robert, the hardened people of Northwest and out comes this wolf boy. Which I don't know. I mean -- and I say I don't know not because I don't know if I buy it, but I cried. I did.

[Rhonda] And then I maybe think because there's because that's something that because there's a part he howls and howls. And that's something that Robert did that he started to do. Right that he kind of felt I guess it was something that was like very cathartic to him. Like he started to howl. So, yeah. I thought that was like that -- I mean, I guess like there was that connection. So when else kind of releasing that. What brought you to tears with that, Frank?

[Frank] Well, the way it's described and it's the very last scene is sort of that about how they're laughing at this wolf boy prancing around in a clearly fake outfit or seemingly fake fur. You know, like, "freak shows" that were popular. But then everyone is silenced and riveted when the wolf boy throws his head back. And in an almost unhuman contortion and lets out a quickly ascending howl that Denis Johnson says is the ideal of all such howls. Like is the ideal of all such noise that can come from an animal or human being or a living organism's throat. And it's the lonesome sound of the train whistle. It's the -- what does he say? Taking itself higher and higher, more and more awful and beautiful. The originating ideal of all such sounds ever made of the fog horn and the ship's horn, and the locomotives lonesome whistle of opera singing and the music of flutes and the continuous mon music of bagpipes. And then, I took it and I think I cried because it seemed like the manifestation of Robert's life -- of Robert's inarticulate inability, for better or worse to apprehend what was happening to him in his life. And if you value that you value that, if you don't value that you don't value that. Or if it's not even a question -- like I said before, I don't even think it was an option to him to do that. But so that to describe his life. So that howl is almost -- and it's for all of us. Even the ones who say like I do, I can talk about my life I could describe my life, the parts of our lives, or the core maybe of our lives that we cannot understand or if we're honest, we'll never understand about what happens to us and how we describe our lives. That howl is the -- oh dear. I'm sorry, there's like a plane or something outside. That howl is this sort of howl to the gods of -- ah, I lost my train of thought. Basically the howl is it's is there's no words to describe the human experience at core. All you can do is let out and yell.

[Rhonda] Yeah, I think that I could see how that could bring you to tears. That's kind of -- yeah. [inaudible] way of expressing those moments that he was not able to express at least that we know -- we perceive that he's not able to express.

Right. But yeah he does express it in some ways like we said with through folklore his own way. I think that's really the core of it his own way. And that's why I said the ticket judgy about someone who describes it, we would say simplistically or primitively, which is not right. Because that howl at the end is all of us. Because we all for whatever sophistication level of language we have, there are things we can never know and don't know about ourselves or about life and about why we're here. We need to read a comedy the next time.

[Rhonda] [inaudible] that is our own choice. And I do want to talk about the audio aspect of it is a little bit. So this book was narrated by Will Patton who is an actor. He's done a lot of TV shows, I believe you. I can't name anything off the bat. But I really enjoyed this type of narration. So you usually kind of have two types of narrators, the ones that kind of, you know, really just kind of read the story, which is kind of more appropriate for nonfiction and memoirs. And then you get the narrator's that kind of really like, pull out their acting chops, and they really want to like give you a performance. And that was kind of the case in this audio book. And I know that some people prefer, you know, one or the other. But, you know, kind of the things that he did was, I believe he used what I would call kind of like a very regional voice. I would -- it's kind of what I would imagine people in the northwest of the United States sounded like around the turn of the 20th century. And so that kind of really grounded me, you know, in the period in the time and the place. And then he really does give each character their own voice. So, Robert had his own voice and the wife had their own voice. And one of the kind of best ways that you could see this was the story of when he was trying to figure out how the dog shot the man. Like there was actually like real banter. You kind of felt like you were listening to, you know, two different people talking. So he was able to really kind of give each character their own, kind of bring each one to life. And so I know you know, some people don't like that an audio books. They kind of just want the story to be read and some people really enjoy the performance part of it. But for this length of book, I thought that it worked really nicely. So you know, I thought that this was a very nice listen as an audiobook. So that's kind of just my input on that aspect of listening to it.

[Frank] Cool. Actually, I'm curious to -- I should listen to it. Because Will Patton is a good actor.

[Rhonda] Yeah. And he's really [inaudible] think he's like different voices and even just a part where he's just doing the narration, you know.

[Frank] So he actually does different voices for the different characters and it's compelling?

[Rhonda] It is.

[Frank] Cool. All right. We'll have to link that on the on the blog post to the audiobook. I should also say that this reading this book also brought to mind other favorite books of mine, which feature like solitary sort of stoic men navigating their lives. Like The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Stoner by John Williams which I've talked about. Have you read either one of those?

[Rhonda] I have read The Road. I have not read Stoner. Yeah, I would like to. Yeah, that sounds good. And did you get a kind of like John Steinbeck feel from this or maybe it's just kind of the time period? But I kind of got that type of --or maybe, you know, I'm thinking kind of Grapes of Wrath where he's kind of just like traveling and I don't know.

[Frank] I think there's definitely like Hemingway too like a tradition of this sort of American man frontier getting through an emotional life of which he doesn't understand. He understands the visceral labor of life, but it doesn't understand the rest of it. I think that's sort of solitary, stoic man thing. Which I mean, I wouldn't think I would but I actually do find compelling. Like I've realized that some of my favorite books have featured you could say that kind of character like Stoner by John Williams. Stoner is the name of the guy not his occupation [multiple speakers]. And The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Even Lie with Me the book -- I've discussed Lie with Me and Stoner on the podcast in the past. By a French author, Lie with Me. Anyway. Honey, there's [inaudible]. How are you, babe? [laugher].

[Rhonda] Right. That was a really a good discussion today.

[Frank] Really? Do you think so?

[Rhonda] I enjoyed it.

[Frank] I'm going to go outside and just look at the sky and let the sky tell me what this discussion was about.

[Rhonda] [laughter] [inaudible] compute some different insights, listening to kind of your perspective which I always do. [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Yeah, you are good to dear. Well, I guess we should wrap it up. Thank you everybody for listening. We've discussed Denis Johnson's Train Dreams. I hope you've read it or will read it. And check out our blog post, which you can find through nypl.org/125, which is our 125th anniversary of the New York Public Library. And you can leave a comment there or praise us to the skies wherever you get your podcasts. So thank you. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

[Rhonda] See you next time.

[Narrator]Thanks for listening to the Librarian Is In, a podcast with a New York Public Library. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Google Play or send us an email at podcasts@nypl.org. For more information about the New York Public Library and our 125th anniversary please visit nypl.org/125. We are produced by Christine Ferrell. Your hosts are Frank Collerius and Rhonda Evans.