Dreams of Trains

Combining within itself, like an ancient psalm, sadness and light, the book by the recognized classic of modern American literature Denis Johnson (1949-2017) tells the story of Robert Grainer, an involuntary hermit, whose life, spanning almost two-thirds of the 20th century, unfolded among the hills, rivers, and railway tracks of northern Idaho. It is a tale about a world in which, despite the overwhelming suffering that fills it, otherworldly beauty occasionally breaks through: to comprehend, capture, and express it in words is beyond the main character's ability - it can only be witnessed by someone free from thoughts and memories, from worries and hopes, from speech, from language itself. Such could be the dream seen by a train - if trains could dream. In 2012, the book "Dreams of Trains" became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.