What the whole city is talking about. Fannie Flagg

"What the whole town is talking about"

The first time I saw this book in the news feed of the Labyrinth group, I was immediately interested in the beautiful cover: the quality of printing of both the cover and the pages themselves (thick paper is a form of aesthetic pleasure for me) and the creativity of the Phantom Press publishing team pleases and deserves separate praise along with the very idea of ​​the book, but more on that later.
I am not a fan of American literature, nor am I a “personal” reader of Fannie Flagg (to be honest, I had never heard of such a writer before and had not read any of her books), but the note promised “something new and interesting,” so I decided to try and find out for yourself what modern American literature is, not stuffed with action-packed twists in romance novels and other “tabloid chronicles.”
The note didn’t lie: it’s not often in the vastness of the book world that you come across a book like the one that I read for several days in a row and literally didn’t let go of: I ate with it, read it while studying, on public transport, at an event, and even took a bath with it. The writer tells us the story of one small American town in the agricultural part of America, and at the same time illuminates the life of not a single generation (or even a single century!), but of a whole mass of the most diverse people, differentiated according to various characteristics, united together by one important stroke - all they are part of this city.
Of the main advantages, I can note the very idea of ​​​​the plot (the history of the development of a city, a separate state, a country is carried out through the lives of people), the ease of narration, the pleasant style of the author’s writing, an interesting style of presentation, the realism of the book, the polyphonism (polyphony) of the novel, the “authenticity” of the speech of the characters and the “animity” of the city (at times it seemed that Elmwood Springs itself was also a hero of the book: he is born, develops and dies as a person, he has “hearing”, “voice”, “eyes” and can “think” and “feel”).
Despite the large number of advantages, this novel, in my opinion, has a number of significant shortcomings, the first of which is the large number of heroes: the “overload” of residents is annoying; several times, when compiling the tree of characters in the book, I got confused about the number of heroes and the quality of relationships between them. The second significant drawback, in my opinion, is the insufficient development of the characters: not all the heroes of the book turned out to be truly “living” interlocutors and neighbors; of the most striking, I can only name Elner Schimfizl, Katrina Nordström and Lucille Beamer. Their emotions and thoughts are revealed more than others, the reader hears their voices and opinions more often than the voices of other characters in the book, and this circumstance upset me very much: I was hoping to see how Hannah Marie would survive the discovery of her husband’s “true face” after I revealed to her a terrible secret, I was hoping to hear Mr. Ander’s voice when he found out who his daughter’s killer was, I would also like to see a number of other characters and their emotional experiences in different cases, but the book does not provide this - it is too general and superficial for that. The third drawback is the transience of the narrative, the fourth is the harshness and hackneyed language (realism is realism, but I, first of all, read a work of art, and do not listen to simple speech, in which the reduced vocabulary of ordinary people inappropriately slips through), the fifth drawback of the book is the ending. The ending is crumpled, crumpled and completely strange for the entire work. Mekki Warren is the last of the older generation to leave and regrets that America is losing its best generation, and each new one is becoming worse than the previous one. We see confirmation of this throughout the book and will find the “death” of the city as the main argument. But is everything really as sad as the hero (and with him the writer) says about it? No, and this can be heard in the words of Mrs. Lindquist’s great-granddaughter, but there is no visible evidence of this reflected in the book. We don’t see that new generation, which has something wonderful in it, we don’t see the openness and tolerance of people that the heroine talks about. Instead we are left with the story of James Wootten, Michael Vincent and a sad description of the cemetery and what became of it. “Wonderful” is simply mentioned in one phrase, and then nothing.
But don’t let the cons scare you - the book is really interesting and deserves to be read. Especially if you are tired of serious novels of Russian and foreign literature of the 19th century or are exhausted from an overabundance of simple romance novels and pulp fiction.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like hundreds of tiny American towns. But it has two features. Firstly, it was invented by Fannie Flagg, and this is a whole universe of characters scattered across various novels by the writer, which have already become literary classics. And secondly, there is a cemetery near the town, where something strange and amazing happens...

In 1889, a young Swede who moved to America started his first farm; after a couple of decades, a village with nice and hard-working residents grew around his house. Over the years, the village turned into a town. Elmwood Springs grew, grew beautiful, people were born and died there, and each had their own special story.

The magnificent storyteller Fanny Flagg has created a whole world inhabited by ordinary people, but so cozy and charming that everyone who reads her books sooner or later begins to want to move into it. The new novel can be called a guide to the work of Fannie Flagg; it brings together the heroes of many of her books - from “Fried Green Tomatoes” to “Only Girls at the Gas Station.” This is a gift for everyone who agrees with Fanny's maxim: “Life is a gift, but love is immortal.”

What the whole city is talking about Fannie Flagg

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Title: What the whole town is talking about

About the book “What the Whole Town is Talking About” by Fannie Flagg

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like hundreds of tiny American towns. But it has two features. Firstly, it was invented by Fannie Flagg, and this is a whole universe of characters scattered across various novels by the writer, which have already become literary classics. And secondly, there is a cemetery near the town, where something strange and amazing happens...

In 1889, a young Swede who moved to America started his first farm; after a couple of decades, a village with nice and hard-working residents grew around his house. Over the years, the village turned into a town. Elmwood Springs grew, grew beautiful, people were born and died there, and each had their own special story.

The magnificent storyteller Fanny Flagg has created a whole world inhabited by ordinary people, but so cozy and charming that everyone who reads her books sooner or later begins to want to move into it. The new novel can be called a guide to the work of Fannie Flagg; it brings together the heroes of many of her books - from “Fried Green Tomatoes” to “Only Girls at the Gas Station.” This is a gift for everyone who agrees with Fanny's maxim: “Life is a gift, but love is immortal.”

On our website about books lifeinbooks.net you can download for free or read online the book “What the Whole Town is Talking About” by Fannie Flagg in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like hundreds of tiny American towns. But it has two features. Firstly, it was invented by Fannie Flagg, and this is a whole universe of characters scattered across various novels by the writer, which have already become literary classics. And secondly, there is a cemetery near the town, where something strange and amazing happens... In 1889, a young Swede who moved to America founded the first farm, and a couple of decades later a village with nice and hard-working residents grew around his house. Over the years, the village turned into a town. Elmwood Springs grew, became more beautiful, people were born and died in it, and everyone had their own special story. The magnificent storyteller Fannie Flagg created a whole world inhabited by ordinary people, but so cozy and charming that everyone who reads her books sooner or later begins to want move into it. The new novel can be called a guide to the work of Fannie Flagg; it brings together the heroes of many of her books - from “Fried Green Tomatoes” to “Only Girls at the Gas Station.” This is a gift for everyone who agrees with Fanny's maxim: “Life is a gift, but love is immortal.”

What the whole city is talking about - description and summary, author Flagg Fanny, read for free online on the electronic library website website

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like hundreds of tiny American towns. But it has two features. Firstly, it was invented by Fannie Flagg, and this is a whole universe of characters scattered across various novels by the writer, which have already become literary classics. And secondly, there is a cemetery near the town, where something strange and amazing happens...

In 1889, a young Swede who moved to America started his first farm; after a couple of decades, a village with nice and hard-working residents grew around his house. Over the years, the village turned into a town. Elmwood Springs grew, grew beautiful, people were born and died there, and each had their own special story.

The magnificent storyteller Fanny Flagg has created a whole world inhabited by ordinary people, but so cozy and charming that everyone who reads her books sooner or later begins to want to move into it. The new novel can be called a guide to the work of Fannie Flagg; it brings together the heroes of many of her books - from “Fried Green Tomatoes” to “Only Girls at the Gas Station.” This is a gift for everyone who agrees with Fanny's maxim: “Life is a gift, but love is immortal.”

The work belongs to the genre of Contemporary Foreign Literature. It was published in 2016 by Phantom Press. On our website you can download the book “What the Whole City is Talking About” in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The book's rating is 4.5 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also turn to reviews from readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In our partner's online store you can buy and read the book in paper version.