So far I am enjoying the book, though it probably won't be one of my favorites. The pump handle obsession makes me laugh because I remember being told that too, though in reference to cold flag poles. I still think about it every winter when I see cold metal. Not the level of obsession that he has, of course, but the thought it still there.
Chapter 1: Of the two, I am definitely Mrs. Sparrow. I like going to Christmas concerts and having carols playing.
Chapter 2: "a deadly conflagration"- not a phrase that you hear too often.
Chapter 7: "times of deep toxic PMS". Uh-huh, you can tell this was written by a man.
chapter 8: I would have to kill Liz if she took this long to tell me something important.
Oh, and I'm waiting for A to mention the Christmas flu story... :-)
So overall, I enjoyed the Christmas Blizzard. It was a nice book to read right before Christmas while it “almost” snowed outside. It DID snow but then melted before morning. Reminisent of a Midwest version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol.
I REALLY liked the chapter titles. I like books where chapters have titles not just numbers. It helps me remember. BUT, since I loaned my book to Angie, I don’t have the titles to refer back to, just my notes.
My book had a picture on the cover of the airplane stuck in the snow. However, the cover plane has the name Lady Luck and in the book, the plane is named Lucky Lady. Intentional? I think not.
Chapter about returning to North Dakota – “every problem looked at from all angles”. Oh boy oh boy, if that isn’t the truth. Randy is from Minnesota and he DOES look at everything from all angles for so long that I wonder if things will EVER get done. And he even explains this to me, the “looking at everything from all angles”.
And further on, the expression “Is that so?” I distinctly remember thinking to myself when I first moved to Minnesota that that expression was used A LOT.
“You walk through life like you are waiting for it to begin …. “ Love that whole quote.
Also loved the reference to “staunch Methodists” towards the end of the book.
I just lost my entire post. NOT HAPPY. Trying to recreated it now. Grrr!
I am a devotee of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac, which I think added to my enjoyment of this book. I could hear Keillor telling the story and it made some of the humor go down better than if I had not heard his radio shows. As a side note, Keillor has impeccable taste in poetry and has published a couple of anthologies that I highly recommend (Good Poems is a good one to start with).
On the whole Keillor's sense of humor reminds me of Tom Robbins or Richard Brautigan, and I find that I really have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy the quirky little side rants they use.
M, I loved the stomach flu story. Can you imagine having to "evacuate" in the snow with the neighbors watching?? But, when you gotta go, you gotta go. How about the Boy Scout camping trip and peeing "Theresa, I love you" in the snow? Holy bladder!
Uncle Earl and his bagful of organs cracked me up.
Once he arrived to the ice fishing shack I started to picture everything as if it were in the movie Grumpy Old Men. Right down to the houses in the town. =)
The idea that his phobia of cold pump handles kept other fears at bay was interesting. I had never considered this before but I like the concept. Better the Devil you know, and at least he had identified the enemy.
I agree with J, very Dickens-esque and a great read for Christmastime.
Vocab: Terpsichorean: relating to dance
Quotes: "He hoisted himself up on one elbow and gazed at her .. his true love in her cardigan sweater, soft purple pants and red socks" This is what a millionaire wears to bed??
"The sheer beauty of their estate at Kuhikuhikapapa'u'maumau" Loved the Hawaiian names.
"I can't get up on a ladder because my prostate is the size of a seedless orange and I'm due to go in for a ream job after the first of the year"
".. and you feel superior to him and you can't pour piss out of a boot when the instructions are printed on the sole." Sounds like something Col. Potter would say.
And for J: ".. Mama [was] waiting up for him with two cups of eggnog and a shot of bourbon and two cigarettes. They were staunch Methodists but on Christmas Eve they made an exception."
I finished reading it today. It was different. Somehow I was disappointed.. expected better from Garrison Keillor. There were some funny spots here and there. The book lost me toward the end. I guess it was supposed to be a spoof of A Christmas Carol. The descriptions of the people in the small town reminded me very much of the small town in Vermont where I lived and raised my family. The comment about below zero weather is very typical of how Vermonters think about the cold.
I did notice the difference in the name of the plane on the book cover and in the story. Just chalked it up to a Garrison Keillor kind of a thing to do.
5 comments:
So far I am enjoying the book, though it probably won't be one of my favorites. The pump handle obsession makes me laugh because I remember being told that too, though in reference to cold flag poles. I still think about it every winter when I see cold metal. Not the level of obsession that he has, of course, but the thought it still there.
Chapter 1: Of the two, I am definitely Mrs. Sparrow. I like going to Christmas concerts and having carols playing.
Chapter 2: "a deadly conflagration"- not a phrase that you hear too often.
Chapter 7: "times of deep toxic PMS". Uh-huh, you can tell this was written by a man.
chapter 8: I would have to kill Liz if she took this long to tell me something important.
Oh, and I'm waiting for A to mention the Christmas flu story... :-)
First to the finish! Go me!
So overall, I enjoyed the Christmas Blizzard. It was a nice book to read right before Christmas while it “almost” snowed outside. It DID snow but then melted before morning. Reminisent of a Midwest version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol.
I REALLY liked the chapter titles. I like books where chapters have titles not just numbers. It helps me remember. BUT, since I loaned my book to
Angie, I don’t have the titles to refer back to, just my notes.
My book had a picture on the cover of the airplane stuck in the snow. However, the cover plane has the name Lady Luck and in the book, the plane is named Lucky Lady. Intentional? I think not.
Chapter about returning to North Dakota – “every problem looked at from all angles”. Oh boy oh boy, if that isn’t the truth. Randy is from Minnesota and he DOES look at everything from all angles for so long that I wonder if things will EVER get done. And he even explains this to me, the “looking at everything from all angles”.
And further on, the expression “Is that so?” I distinctly remember thinking to myself when I first moved to Minnesota that that expression was used A LOT.
“You walk through life like you are waiting for it to begin …. “ Love that whole quote.
Also loved the reference to “staunch Methodists” towards the end of the book.
I just lost my entire post. NOT HAPPY. Trying to recreated it now. Grrr!
I am a devotee of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac, which I think added to my enjoyment of this book. I could hear Keillor telling the story and it made some of the humor go down better than if I had not heard his radio shows. As a side note, Keillor has impeccable taste in poetry and has published a couple of anthologies that I highly recommend (Good Poems is a good one to start with).
On the whole Keillor's sense of humor reminds me of Tom Robbins or Richard Brautigan, and I find that I really have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy the quirky little side rants they use.
M, I loved the stomach flu story. Can you imagine having to "evacuate" in the snow with the neighbors watching?? But, when you gotta go, you gotta go. How about the Boy Scout camping trip and peeing "Theresa, I love you" in the snow? Holy bladder!
Uncle Earl and his bagful of organs cracked me up.
Once he arrived to the ice fishing shack I started to picture everything as if it were in the movie Grumpy Old Men. Right down to the houses in the town. =)
The idea that his phobia of cold pump handles kept other fears at bay was interesting. I had never considered this before but I like the concept. Better the Devil you know, and at least he had identified the enemy.
I agree with J, very Dickens-esque and a great read for Christmastime.
Vocab:
Terpsichorean: relating to dance
Quotes:
"He hoisted himself up on one elbow and gazed at her .. his true love in her cardigan sweater, soft purple pants and red socks"
This is what a millionaire wears to bed??
"The sheer beauty of their estate at Kuhikuhikapapa'u'maumau"
Loved the Hawaiian names.
"I can't get up on a ladder because my prostate is the size of a seedless orange and I'm due to go in for a ream job after the first of the year"
".. and you feel superior to him and you can't pour piss out of a boot when the instructions are printed on the sole."
Sounds like something Col. Potter would say.
And for J:
".. Mama [was] waiting up for him with two cups of eggnog and a shot of bourbon and two cigarettes. They were staunch Methodists but on Christmas Eve they made an exception."
I've finished. It was an interesting read, but probably not one I'll read again. It just got too strange for me.
Like, in Ch. 19, Leo coming out as a member of the FBI? Really?
I finished reading it today. It was different. Somehow I was disappointed.. expected better from Garrison Keillor. There were some funny spots here and there. The book lost me toward the end. I guess it was supposed to be a spoof of A Christmas Carol. The descriptions of the people in the small town reminded me very much of the small town in Vermont where I lived and raised my family. The comment about below zero weather is very typical of how Vermonters think about the cold.
I did notice the difference in the name of the plane on the book cover and in the story. Just chalked it up to a Garrison Keillor kind of a thing to do.
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