This was one of the first books that Good Books Lately recommended, and here I am finally getting around to it. It is plainly and simply written, and common and regular in its plot, but lovely and thorough in its story.
I am not sure that Kent Haruf is good enough not to use quotation marks, which lately seems to be the Literary Mark, but he's pretty good.
Plainsong made me laugh out loud once as two people unused to anyone other than each other try to make conversation with someone new.
RDC and I were talking about "Return of the King." He said he had expected the matter of the ring to be resolved at the end of the first movie. I asked him if he knew there were going to be two other movies--living with me, he ought to have--and he said yes; I asked what he thought the other two movies were going to be about, then? He said, "Some other ring?" and I laughed and laughed and laughed.
A while later he asked if I recognized that "some other ring" was a Baldrick answer. I hadn't. I laughed again.
I have been refreshing his memory, since he hasn't read the books and saw "Fellowship" two years ago in the cinema and "Two Towers" whenever it came out on DVD (I still don't have the extended version). He was confusing Saruman and Sauron, so to remind him of who is who, I recalled the battle between the two wizards, Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee, smiting each around in the white tower, "and remember how you said that since it was filmed in the southern hemisphere, Gandalf should spin the other way?" He remembered that. Other characters are Agent Smith, the Aerosmith chick, the Alice Cooper guy, and Sallah.