Customer Reviews

A Christmas Blizzard

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Christmas novels are always nice to read, however this one of Garrison Keillor's is a bit different from what you might expect. It is not the sweet stories of the PBS show Prairie Home Companion, especially when you read in the first 2 pages that Mr. Sparrow, the main character, hates Christmas - the red-green monster - the world's longest and unhappiest holiday with the sheer horror of `The Little Drummer Boy'.
This story contains a lot of Midwestern guilt and woe, but yet its' little continual gems of exaggeration keep the humor alive: " it wasn't like her to fall apart like that, she being a member of the National rifle Association".

James Sparrow needs to learn to love Christmas, as his wife Joyce does and also get over his fear of freezing his tongue to pump handles- their siren call where he has to force himself to keep his tongue in his mouth and not on car door handles or bronze busts of Studs Terkel. His past contains among other problems; a mother who was obsessed by worries of the Christmas tree catching fire. James flies home to Looseleaf, North Dakota where he encounters his past in the form of a dead friend who is now a wolf. A big haired airline ticket lady, a cousin who is plotting to overthrow the US government and is married to an undercover FBI agent who has married her to keep an eye on her.

Through all the humorous absurdities James is rescued from his fears, the blizzard, potential arrest, learns to love Christmas, but most of all discovers the moral of the story: that small kindnesses can create great good...as good a moral as any for a Christmas book

The zillions of fans who enjoy Garrison Keillor's trademark warm , folksy humor may be a mite surprised and delighted I might add to discover that he can also be caustic - entertainingly so. Of course, a great deal of the pleasure in this tale is in the reading by Keillor - there's that unforgettable voice, familiar, spellbinding as he relates A CHRISTMAS BLIZZARD.

It is, of course, the holiday season, a least favorite time of year for energy drink company mogul James Sparrow and the happiest time for his wife, Joyce, Unfortunately, this year Joyce can't pursue her multitudinous yuletide preparations as she has the flu. James wants to leave it all behind, hop on his jet, and hide out for a while at their vacation home in Hawaii.

However, that's not going to happen as he receives a phone call with sad tidings - his Uncle Earl is dying in Looseleaf, North Dakota. So, James has no choice but to rev up the plane and head for his hometown. Once there he's not only almost buried by a sudden snowy blizzard but also by a horde of relatives and old friends.

For reasons perhaps not even known to the inscrutable James he passes himself off as a CIA agent and agrees to "hide" in an ice fishing cabin on the local lake. Well, this sort of exposure and dramatic change from the comforts of his ten-room apartment in Chicago can cause all sorts of strange reactions. Strange may be an understatement in the case of James - a confrontation with a wolf, the Big-Hair Lady, and a Chinese wise man.

Keillor is the king allowing us not only to enjoy his unparalleled narration but his fertile imagination in A CHRISTMAS BLIZZARD. Oh, and by the way, Uncle Earl is just fine.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

I am a faithful listener to Prairie Home Companion. I usually have a hard time embracing Garrison Keillor's written oeuvre, and this book is no exception. His fiction usually reads like an extended Lake Woebegon monologue - he even steals plot elements from his monologues - and, really, in many cases the monologues themselves are exactly the right length. This is a relatively short book but I still found it a bit of a slog. It contains some fresher funny moments and some truly surrealistic elements (e.g., entering or exiting an ice-fishing shack on the lake, and finding ... not what or whom you would expect). This is not a cuddly I-love-Christmas book, and you need to suspend your disbelief quite a bit. I would call it a fable, but the moral is hard to discern. I guess it fits into the satire genre most closely. I'm pretty ambivalent about this book. Definitely read it if you like his fiction. I would rather listen to his show.

I have been listening to Mr. Keillor's radio show since the beginning and read his Lake Woebegone books. I bought this book because of the comment on the book comparing it to Mr. Dickens "A Christmas Carol", my favorite Christmas story for as long as I can remember. Sorry, but in my opinion, it is not any where near being in the same league as one of the best loved Christmas stories of all time. Don't be misled by the comparison.

I always thought Garrison Keillor's wit was on the ho-hum side until I read this book -- parts of it are side-splittingly funny!! I did a double take when I first opened the book and read the lyrics to "Little Drummer Boy", but then I settled down and learned to expect this as I went along (I was not disappointed). The part about the sporanos "screeching like hyenas" still makes me laugh -- I once sang in a chorus and yes, this describes one of the sopranos in my group - nobody could "reach her" and so she kept on screeching.

The snowstorm episode was a great read - including the lonely but beautiful walk across the ice to the ice shack and beyond. Even the wolf is believable... well, almost.

I'm not finished with the book (small as it is) but I will report back once done.

I recently attended one of the most interesting book club meetings ever. To be sure, the opinions are usually quite mixed but generally friendly. Last night's discussion, however, was completely different.

I was about the only person in the group who enjoyed the book. I thought it a fun, light, silly poke at Christmas movies and mankind.

I was in the minority (not a new feeling, for sure). As the discussions heated up we noticed a few disturbing points and it seemed as if everyone had read a different book. We noticed discrepancies in:

the main character's hometown (Chicago or Minneapolis)
the wealth of the main character (wealthy or not)
an epilogue (have or have not)
method of transport (commercial or private airline)
own or not own a condo
owner or employee of a power drink company

Are you starting to understand? Our discussion of the book turned from "I love how crazy gun toting Liz got her comeuppance" (me) to "wait a minute, Sparrow lives in Chicago not Minneapolis!!!" (everyone)

It turns out that the version I read, the first image, is the latest out in time for Christmas 2011. An original version published in 2009 the image in red, offers a slightly different story.

All of this leads me to wonder: What the heck was Keillor thinking?

To be sure, Keillor's found great success with A Prairie Home Companion and many Lake Wobegon tales.

So, if a writer is so successful, how did this book become such a hack? Did he slack off on purpose? Was it put together hastily? Did he have interns or assistants write it?

Or was it a prank, a very bad publicity stunt?

I don't know the answer but as our book club wrangler said: you will probably never run into this kind of situation again.

I hope not.

What do you think?

My print copy had an entirely different ending that the Kindle & Nuk versions! They were not similar at all! It absolutely ruined our Book Club discussion and very annoying! Also, the book is a weird mix of A Christmas Carol. It's a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story!

Garrison Keillor, the well-known radio figure on Prairie Home Companion and author of more than a dozen and a half books, wrote this funny novel about somewhat queer and comical people in humorous situations. James Sparrow made hundreds of millions of dollars selling a health product made from grass that coyotes ate during mating season. The food works on about twenty percent of the people who eat it. They are energized and can begin work early and end it late and awake each morning feeling fresh and ambitious. It does not work on James Sparrow.
Sparrow has several somewhat disabling hang-ups developed during his childhood. He hates Christmas, although married to a woman who overly adores the holiday. He remembers how his mother put up a Christmas tree, but was constantly, without let up, fearful that the tree would catch fire, so she doused it occasionally with water. His father complained every Christmas that his wife, James' mother, was spending too much money on gifts. So James was given a five year old used book with its original inscription that showed it was a gift to someone else.
Somehow, although she denies it, James' mother taught him not to place his tongue on a frozen pole because the tongue would stick to the pole. This developed into an obsessive fear. James is constantly afraid that he will stick his tongue on a frozen pole. Once he stuck his tongue on a shower pole during his shower and burnt his tongue.
James wants to get away from Christmas by flying to Hawaii on his private plane. He owns a home in Kuhikuhikapapa'u'maumau. His wife catches the flu and is unable to travel. James decides to go alone, but stops in North Dakota during an usually fierce blizzard to see his uncle who he thinks is dying. The storm strands him and he goes to stay in an isolated fishing shack so that he can be alone. There he meets a wolf, a lady with big hair, and a Chinese wise man. The three teach him the great secret of life. Then, like Scrooge in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, his life changes.

I bought Garrison Keillor's audio performance of his newest short novel to supplement the book, and to add to my collection of seasonal favorites. It is, in my opinion, an instant classic.

This is a non-sectarian and gently humorous Christmas story with a pleasant Dickensian resonance: a successful businessman finds that his unhappy and long-ignored childhood memories are important to face, understand and forgive, to assure his future happiness.

To read A Christmas Blizzard is but one way to enjoy Mr. Keillor's writing; to listen to him read this work aloud in his uniquely warm, soothing light baritone is something else again. I like to think the experience is akin to hearing Charles Dickens perform A Christmas Carol during one of his 19th century American tours -- a memorable event but, alas, unable to be preserved for posterity.

Luckily, 21st century book lovers don't have to miss out on their favorite authors' readings of their own works. This, Mr. Keillor's fine vocal performance of A Christmas Blizzard is an endlessly repeatable and highly recommended event, as is almost anything he does. Like Charles Dickens, he is a national treasure.

On PHC, Keillor's just short of absurd tall-tale rambles seem for the most part perfect in scale and pitch. But this windy yarn, even with its handful of LOL moments, is mostly tiresome, recycled, and too long. It's surprising such a shrewd audience gauger as GK thought it would be a good idea spilled out verbatim, would make for an amusing read, which it could have been with a lot of tightening. And as remarkable as anything, beyond wanting an editor's touch in other respects, are the careless (nicest way of putting it) punctuation and proofreading throughout, evidently in keeping with today's new publishing practices. Just amazing to think that someone in the business actually read through this hasty typing without reaching for a pencil --- 'oh, it's Keillor, so it must not need any fixes.'