Great Plains

I liked this book very much. It is complicated, interesting, informative and a good study of the 10 plains state and which part of them contains the actual plains. The book is like a large tapestry with many different elements woven in. There is the geography of the land, the plants, animals, people plus much more. This is also a book of joie d' vivre, love of life, a French impressionist painting of the beauty and joy of being alive,the joy of small incidental occurances too easily forgotten. Ian Frazier also uses stream of conscience as different scenes, places and people flash before his eyes. He then goes back in history to the lifestyle of the Indians before the white men came to the plains and how when they did come how riciculous the red men thought the white mens ways and customs were. Then he comes back to today and what is happening now. So, back and forth, back and forth from history to present. Mr Frazier tells of how the plains were becoming settled and civilized and of the colorful characters who lived and helped shape this area into what it would become. Crazy Horse was a favorite and he also liked George Custer and believed Custer also loved this wide open land, some parts rolling, some like a rumpled bed and other areas as flat as a board which makes heaven and earth seem to come together. I believe Mr Frazier loves this wide open country because he spent two years living here and writing about it and driving back and forth crossing much. But he writes back and forth from past history to present. But the book ends concerning future times and is concerned with nuclear missal sites. Tomorrow land

Great Plains is an enjoyable book, a sweeping, eclectic view of a part of America many of us see only from airplane windows. It reads like what it mostly is, an extended (old-style) New Yorker piece, though Ian Frazier is no John McPhee. Indians, cowboys, ranchers, farmers, charlatans, outlaws, explorers, miners, soldiers - they're all here as Frazier zigzags up and down the 100th meridian in his beat-up van. The picture that he paints is of a vast, mostly empty region, across which many have wandered but few have stayed. It is bleak but Frazier finds it invigorating. The book is now twenty years old and some of the material is even older, so there are places where it sounds dated, as in the Cold War references in the discussion of the nuclear missile installations spread across the northern Plains. The only place where Frazier failed, I think, was in his compressed discussion of the final years of Crazy Horse. There are too many characters and too much action to fit into twenty pages. It left me confused. Frazier joins many in his admiration of Crazy Horse, but the formal demands of this kind of journalism preclude extended biography. But that is a minor nitpick for an otherwise good read. Recommended.

Originally published in 1989, this fine piece of work still holds true twenty plus years later. Ian Frazier hops into the van and routes his way through the Great Plains from Texas to Montana and all places in between. A gifted writer and raconteur, we read of the early fur trappers, Native Americans, buffalo, railroads, cattle, crops, homesteading, strip-mining, even Lawrence Welk and Billy the Kid, to MX missiles and so much more. This would be the Great Plains...what so many people look upon as flat, boring and unconscious. Frazier brings to life hundreds of happenings from the past, up to the time he initially wrote the book. Incorporating his own personal views and reflections complement the overall image. Fast paced, educational and at times humorous, he digs deep into the prairie soil and pulls out a gem. To quote, "Joy seems to be a product of the geography..." How true. Open spaces open the mind.

I don’t know what I expected when I bought a book called “Great Plains” but I didn’t expect what I got. Frazier weaves together mostly interesting personal stories about his travels through the plains area with some historical context. Ultimately this is good writing and is entertaining but it’s not much more than that.

I was born and raised on the Great Plains, and have come to love the very region this book is about. I also love the history. Frazier explores this in interesting and great detail. I was never bored while reading this. It’s not a dry, history essay of the Plains. It’s a road trip travelogue full of historical research, but it’s also something else. Frazier does an amazing job of bringing in the people of the plains that he meets. This book made me want to get in my car and drive everywhere he went. It’s gritty, rugged, and spacious. Not boring, these Great Plains. I guess it depends who you are and where you’re from, but I really, really appreciated Ian Frazier’s writing in this book.

A beautiful book , suggested reading

great read!

Good reportage, probably not in depth enough and a bit fractured in places as his journey does not follow an established pattern. Not laugh out loud, but found myself smiling quite a lot. Unbiased about the native Indian which a lot of US books are not, they seem to thrive on matter of fact racism. It is a quick read, and gives a good insight into US culture of cars, driving and their paranoia in the cold war.

A good read but Frazier is no Least Heat Moon.

A really boring book which failed to live up to the New Yorker review. Gave myself a medal fo finishing it! Could have been so much more interesting.