Dennis Johnson's Train Dreams

Reading through Dennis Johnson’s Train Dreams, it quickly becomes evident that this book isn’t just a novella on the life of a man who loses his wife and daughter to a forest fire, but instead something much greater. Throughout the novel and even on its cover art, Train Dreams hints at how “…the cataclysmic changes wrought by twentieth century” led to “…the disappearance of a certain kind of American life”. In this novella, Robert Grainer is a man whose life is caught up in the middle of America’s modernization; more importantly than watching wooden bridges turn into iron bridges, Robert is able to witness the “death” of the old American West culture.
Robert is lucky enough to have been born before the modernization of America and live long
enough to watch it all happen. Before the change, life revolved around admiring nature and its beauty. During the time Gladys and Robert started to see one another frequently, they would go out to Glossing’s meadow and just enjoy nature, “The buttercups nodded in the breeze and the petals of the daisies trembled.” (Johnson 38). The reader is presented with this very romantic view for nature as Johnson goes on and on laboriously detailing every aspect of it. Nature is what people admired the most; they would live within the woods or like Robert, near the river. However, this soon all ended as dates on the meadow turned into afternoons watching the World’s Fattest man for pure entertainment. “Some years earlier, in the mid-1950s, Granier had paid ten cents to view the World Fattest Man.”, people began to worry less about the natural world and care more about materialistic things (Johnson 22). Robert started to separate himself even more from nature and began to ride the wave of modernization. After his visit to Bonners Ferry and after seeing the advertisement for a theatrical event filled with “pulchritude”, he begins to fantasize about this new form of entertainment; “At home, in the woods, the filthiest demons of his nature beset him. In dreams Miss Galveston came to him. He woke up fondling himself.” (Johnson 110). The old American style of living is now long gone and Train Dreams makes it even clearer to see through the slightest of details.

The cover art for this book serves as one of those “glancing ways” to portray how modernization has finally cached up to the old American West. The horse represents the past when nature was untouched and people lived within nature, while the puffing train represents modernization catching up to everything else. During his time in isolation, Robert would hear trains in the distance and wolves all around him; as time progressed, these trains would get closer while the wolves became more distant. “… the valley seemed stopped with a perpetual silence, but as a matter of fact it was often filled with the rumble of trains and the choirs of distant wolves and the nearer mad jabbering of coyotes…” (Johnson 81). What represented the past to Robert, the howling of wolves, was now overpowered by the sounds of trains and coyotes. “By now it no longer disturbed him to understand that the valley wouldn’t slowly, eventually resume its condition from before the great fire.”, nothing would ever be the same and Train Dreams made it clear by using this analogy. Throughout his life, Robert Granier was able to see the world turn many times and consequently, experienced many changes in his life. In result of this, he spent his last years in isolation not wanting to be part of this new era. Just imagine how much more Robert could have experienced in life had he just let go of his past. Although not always easy, not letting go of the past should never be a reason to stop enjoying life.