Pilgrims
Garrison Keillor
Pilgrims
Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her - he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place. But Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response - fifty people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Carl's bossy sister, Eloise, Mr. Berge the town drunk, and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travellers, but ten applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all. At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel - as they enter alien territory, safely away from Lake Wobegon, they tell each other stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.
3.6 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
304 |
| RRP |
£16.99 |
| Date of Publication |
December 2009 |
| ISBN |
978-0571252404 |
| Publisher |
Faber & Faber |
| |
Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her - he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place. But Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response - fifty people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Carl's bossy sister, Eloise, Mr. Berge the town drunk, and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travellers, but ten applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all. At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel - as they enter alien territory, safely away from Lake Wobegon, they tell each other stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.
Reviews
The Daily Telegraph
Thomas Marks
"[The book] contains some of the funniest writing about American tourists in Europe since Mark Twain’s riotous Mediterranean travelogue, The Innocents Abroad… The real success of Pilgrims lies in its rich comic observation of Americans in Italy, with their strange mixture of awe at the old world and disappointment in its poor service culture."
16/01/2010
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The Washington Post
Steve Amick
"Once the chuckles subside, he leaves us with an engaging, moving look at the true, daily heroics: people struggling to go ahead and love those they've thrown in with, or -- short of that -- at least overcome the urge to give them a good choking."
11/11/2009
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The Independent
James Urquhart
"Only Margie's buoyant presence picks the novel up. Keillor nourishes a dangerously un-Wobegonian carpe diem sentiment in her own thoroughly charming, mildly illicit Roman encounters. This novel is a gentle entertainment, with the pilgrims' choric grousing giving counterpoint to Margie's widening horizons. But its flatter aspects are Keillor's stock in trade of phlegmatic Norwegian guilt, which suggests a possible dwindling of the franchise."
15/12/2009
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The Sunday Times
Adam Lively
"There is much that is charming in this, and in the reminiscences of life in Lake Wobegon with which the pilgrims regale each other to ward off the encroaching Roman chaos. But the novel’s overarching theme and narrative lack bite. The gee-shucks response of the Wobegonians to Italy palls by the end, and Keillor doesn’t attempt to balance it with anything beyond picture-postcard clichés."
10/01/2010
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