Last week my Zoom book club met and discussed “Our Souls At Night,” the 2015 last novel by Kent Haruf of eastern Colorado. While John Denver has made Colorado famous for its “rocky mountain high,” only the western half of the state has such peaks. The eastern half is part of the nation’s Great Plains, flat and agricultural. Here Haruf sets his five novels in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado.
Haruf uses a spare style, appropriate for the straight talking inhabitants of our central states. His characters have lived in or near Holt their entire lives and farm or supply the services such as teaching needed in such a place. They live without pretension and with a settled, though not resigned, sense of their lives. In each of his novels something unexpected happens to jar them into a new purpose or connection with their neighbors. In this case, a widow makes a proposition to a widower to meet and talk each night. In bed. Just to talk. Needless to say this causes great concern in the town and in each of their families. It just isn’t done. But they do it.
Unbelievably to me, a book about an ordinary elderly man and woman in a small farming town has been made into a film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. I won’t watch it, not daring to ruin my own images of Addie and Louis formed as I read the novel. If you have managed to avoid the film, I highly recommend the book. If you have seen the film, I suggest you take a good look around until you find spot two unassuming neighbors. Imagine it’s them instead!
Saved By Words 
I hadn’t heard of that film, so looked it up. Made in 2017, I can’t say it has much appeal to me.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I can’t imagine what the casting director had understood from that book.
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This sounds a novel I would enjoy, and I shall certainly give the film a miss
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I think you would.
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Got an offer on the Kindle edition, and read it yesterday…..interesting, and plausible for a determined pair
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I found it quite believable.
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I know what you mean about skipping the movie. I won’t see “Charlotte’s Web.”
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I didn’t even know there was a movie!
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Probably good you didn’t know! I think there have been two. E.B. White hated one and thought the other was okay. His grandniece lives nearby and has much of his memorabilia.
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Nice review Elizabeth 💖
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I have forgotten how many times I have intended to read one of Hanuf’s novels but it’s yet to happen. I imagine that his style would be perfect for these troubled times. I must find something by him this summer. And avoid the film!
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I am amazed at his ability to convey so much with so few words in his novels.
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I did the opposite with the Harry Potter series. Watched the movies and skipped the books. LOL
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I imagine the books would be a letdown after the films.
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I did that with Harry Potter initially too, but this summer my children have asked if we would all read the books together, and so we are! I must say I have been pleasantly surprised and have enjoyed the conversations with my adult children who have read them many times but see lots of meaning and interesting connections in the books. They have enlightened me quite a bit!
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That sounds fun. I admit I was thrilled to visit “Harry Potter World” last year in Florida.
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This sounds like a great read, Elizabeth. No fear of me ever watching the movie, I haven’t watched one in about four years but I read a book a week and sometimes more.
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I have yet to find a movie that appeals to me the way a book does.
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I saw the movie. It was tender, and modest in its portrayal. I liked it.
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That is good to know. I think I had a very fixed idea of the characters from reading the book, as I sometimes do.
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