On This Page
Description
Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stampede of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch-a gargantuan show more irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the "several kinds of education"-none of them of the textbook variety-Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region's one-room schoolhouse. A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best.. show less
Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
Hay libros que son como la primera vez que llegas a un lugar nuevo. En un principio todo resulta desconocido y cuesta acostumbrarse al entorno y a sus habitantes. Pero después llega un momento en que te conviertes en uno más del lugar y es como si siempre hubieses estado ahí. ‘Una temporada para silbar’ es uno de estos libros. Empiezas su lectura como si fuese un libro más, del que sí, esperas mucho pero no estás seguro, comienzas con titubeos conociendo a los personajes y sus historias, y cuando estás metido de lleno en la novela, ya sabes que estás ante un libro especial, algo que se convierte en una certeza absoluta cuando la terminas y te sorprendes echando de menos a los protagonistas.
‘Una temporada para silbar’ show more está narrada por Paul Milliron, superintendente escolar, que en los años 50 ha de notificar el desmantelamiento de las escuelas unitarias para dar paso a los grandes centros escolares. Será entonces cuando Paul comience a rememorar unos hechos que acaecieron en 1909, y que le dejaron una profunda huella.
Corría el año 1909 en Marias Coulee, una pequeña población rural de Montana. Paul, de 13 años, vive en la granja con su padre y sus dos hermanos pequeños, Damon y Toby. Su madre hace un año que ha fallecido, y ante el duro trabajo que supone encargarse de las tareas de la casa, de sus tres hijos y de los trabajos en el campo, su padre decide responder al curioso anuncio en el periódico de una mujer que se ofrece como ama de llaves que ”No cocina, pero tampoco muerde”. Cuál no será la sorpresa de los cuatro miembros de esta familia cuando reciban la llegada de Rose, pero no sola, sino acompañada de su hermano Morrie. La vida a partir de este momento para Paul y su familia dará un vuelco sorprendente.
Vistos desde las distancia, los recuerdos de Paul tienen una pátina de nostalgia, que el autor, Ivan Doig, transmite de una manera apasionada y tierna al mismo tiempo, no exenta de un cierto sentido del humor, proporcionándonos momentos memorables, como las carreras de los chicos a caballo, porque van al colegio montados a caballo; las relaciones de los hermanos con sus compañeros de escuela; la visión que de la época se tenía de las cosechas y la meteorología; la relación tan especial que se establece entre Paul y Rose, o entre Paul y Morrie.
Tras leer ‘Una temporada para silbar’, inevitablemente me vienen a la mente ‘La comedia humana’, de William Saroyan, y ‘Vinieron como golondrinas’, de William Maxwell, que comparten esa impresión casi mítica de una época pasada, vista por unos ojos inocentes.
Sin lugar a dudas, Ivan Doig, con un estilo ameno y aparentemente sencillo, ha escrito una de esas novelas que perduran en el recuerdo. show less
‘Una temporada para silbar’ show more está narrada por Paul Milliron, superintendente escolar, que en los años 50 ha de notificar el desmantelamiento de las escuelas unitarias para dar paso a los grandes centros escolares. Será entonces cuando Paul comience a rememorar unos hechos que acaecieron en 1909, y que le dejaron una profunda huella.
Corría el año 1909 en Marias Coulee, una pequeña población rural de Montana. Paul, de 13 años, vive en la granja con su padre y sus dos hermanos pequeños, Damon y Toby. Su madre hace un año que ha fallecido, y ante el duro trabajo que supone encargarse de las tareas de la casa, de sus tres hijos y de los trabajos en el campo, su padre decide responder al curioso anuncio en el periódico de una mujer que se ofrece como ama de llaves que ”No cocina, pero tampoco muerde”. Cuál no será la sorpresa de los cuatro miembros de esta familia cuando reciban la llegada de Rose, pero no sola, sino acompañada de su hermano Morrie. La vida a partir de este momento para Paul y su familia dará un vuelco sorprendente.
Vistos desde las distancia, los recuerdos de Paul tienen una pátina de nostalgia, que el autor, Ivan Doig, transmite de una manera apasionada y tierna al mismo tiempo, no exenta de un cierto sentido del humor, proporcionándonos momentos memorables, como las carreras de los chicos a caballo, porque van al colegio montados a caballo; las relaciones de los hermanos con sus compañeros de escuela; la visión que de la época se tenía de las cosechas y la meteorología; la relación tan especial que se establece entre Paul y Rose, o entre Paul y Morrie.
Tras leer ‘Una temporada para silbar’, inevitablemente me vienen a la mente ‘La comedia humana’, de William Saroyan, y ‘Vinieron como golondrinas’, de William Maxwell, que comparten esa impresión casi mítica de una época pasada, vista por unos ojos inocentes.
Sin lugar a dudas, Ivan Doig, con un estilo ameno y aparentemente sencillo, ha escrito una de esas novelas que perduran en el recuerdo. show less
"Can't cook but doesn't bite." That's what the advertisement for a housekeeper says, and despite this lack of culinary skills Paul Milliron's widowed father decides to hire said housekeeper, a young widow Mrs. Rose Llewellyn. Dragging along her brother as a companion, Rose and Morrie turn the household of three growing boys living in Montana in 1909 upside down, and Paul remembers that year in the one-room schoolhouse fondly even while he, in the 1950s, has to announce the closure of many such schools in the district.
I've never read a book by Ivan Doig before, but this most definitely will not be the last. The author has such a way with language and storytelling that I was sucked right in, savoring the moments and laughing right along show more with Paul as he divulged his boyhood memories. I was carried along entranced, and am still mulling over the ending. Time and place is evoked skillfully and the research that must have been done to make the story come together is woven in beautifully. show less
I've never read a book by Ivan Doig before, but this most definitely will not be the last. The author has such a way with language and storytelling that I was sucked right in, savoring the moments and laughing right along show more with Paul as he divulged his boyhood memories. I was carried along entranced, and am still mulling over the ending. Time and place is evoked skillfully and the research that must have been done to make the story come together is woven in beautifully. show less
Doig's fiction, set in early-20th-century Montana, always rings true, and this coming-of-age tale is no exception.
Narrator Paul is the eldest of the Milliron boys at 12, when their widowed father, intrigued by a personal advertisement, hires a housekeeper to come out from far-off Minneapolis to bring order (and home cooking) into their bachelor existence.Things don't go as planned from the get-go -- for one, she doesn't cook, and for another, she has brought her somewhat dandified brother along with her. It's obvious that there is more (and less) to Rose Llewellyn than she's telling, but when the full story is finally revealed, most readers won't have seen that particular twist coming.
Meanwhile, it's a pleasant and nostalgic journey show more through the year of a small dryland farming community, enlivened by an unexpected turnover at the one-room schoolhouse and by the 1910 arrival of Halley's Comet. Much of the drama centers around that schoolhouse and the adventures of Paul, his brothers, and their schoolmates.
Doig uses a framing device to tell the story as a grown-up Paul, now the Superintendent of Montana's Public Instruction must face the bitter task of overseeing the closure of the state's one-room schoolhouses. It seems an odd stylistic choice at first. The main thrust of the novel deals with Paul's coming-of-age, and it's a bit jarring to have it shell out every five or six chapters so the adult Paul can step in, wrestling with the decision he knows he must make but resisting it with all his heart. Doig, however, has had a good reason all along and manages to bring everything to a satisfying and relevant conclusion. show less
Narrator Paul is the eldest of the Milliron boys at 12, when their widowed father, intrigued by a personal advertisement, hires a housekeeper to come out from far-off Minneapolis to bring order (and home cooking) into their bachelor existence.Things don't go as planned from the get-go -- for one, she doesn't cook, and for another, she has brought her somewhat dandified brother along with her. It's obvious that there is more (and less) to Rose Llewellyn than she's telling, but when the full story is finally revealed, most readers won't have seen that particular twist coming.
Meanwhile, it's a pleasant and nostalgic journey show more through the year of a small dryland farming community, enlivened by an unexpected turnover at the one-room schoolhouse and by the 1910 arrival of Halley's Comet. Much of the drama centers around that schoolhouse and the adventures of Paul, his brothers, and their schoolmates.
Doig uses a framing device to tell the story as a grown-up Paul, now the Superintendent of Montana's Public Instruction must face the bitter task of overseeing the closure of the state's one-room schoolhouses. It seems an odd stylistic choice at first. The main thrust of the novel deals with Paul's coming-of-age, and it's a bit jarring to have it shell out every five or six chapters so the adult Paul can step in, wrestling with the decision he knows he must make but resisting it with all his heart. Doig, however, has had a good reason all along and manages to bring everything to a satisfying and relevant conclusion. show less
It has taken me much too long to get around to Doig, whose story-telling skills, I now find, are among the best. This book lands solidly on Linda's Goodest Reads Ever list. It is set in Montana in 1910, the year Halley's Comet "came back". The narrator fits one of my favorite patterns---the adult looking back on a significant episode of his or her own childhood, and the characters are perfect, realistic, just-complicated-enough. I loved every one of them, even the scoundrels, as I'm sure I was meant to, and the story was beautiful too. Didn't hurt that it featured a lot of whistling (my Dad was a joyful whistler) and a pitch-perfect one-room school environment. No gratuitous violence, no incest or spousal abuse, no rebellious yout's, no show more heavy "issues", and only one minor character in the mold of Pap Finn, just for the spice of it. All five for this one.
Review written in April 2012 show less
Review written in April 2012 show less
I don't have any idea how I heard about this book. It is certainly NOT the kind of story I'd normally gravitate to. And I regret to say I'd never heard of Mr. Doig.
But wow.
I am so glad I gave it a try. This book is a treasure.
His writing is exquisite, the characters (including the most important one -- the land) are some of the most vivid I've read in ages, and the pacing is a slow build that turns on a dime. Wonderful!
It was one of those books that I honestly hated to finish. I almost never give 5 stars, but this one earned each and every one.
But wow.
I am so glad I gave it a try. This book is a treasure.
His writing is exquisite, the characters (including the most important one -- the land) are some of the most vivid I've read in ages, and the pacing is a slow build that turns on a dime. Wonderful!
It was one of those books that I honestly hated to finish. I almost never give 5 stars, but this one earned each and every one.
October, 1909. The all-male Milliron household is getting by a year after losing their wife and mother. A chance newspaper advertisement brings excitement into their lives in the form of a housekeeper from Minneapolis – a housekeeper who “can't cook but doesn't bite.” Typically for a small community, the Milliron's new domestic arrangements spill over into the three brothers' school life. Decades later, the oldest Milliron brother, Paul, recalls the events of this pivotal year in the lives of his family and of their rural Montana school. It's clear that the newcomers will be catalysts for change, but it's not clear whether the changes will be for better or worse.
The Whistling Season will provoke nostalgia in many readers – for show more family and community, for the carefree days of childhood, for simpler times that exist only in memory. However, this is much more than a sentimental, “feel good” book. Doig is a master story teller – dramatic without being melodramatic, and very witty. No detail is unimportant, yet the details don't weigh the story down. If readers haven't already identified with Paul, they'll be hooked by his description of his part of a shared bedroom: My books already threatened to take over my part of the room and keep on going. Mother's old ones, subscription sets Father had not been able to resist, coverless winnowings from the schoolhouse shelf—whatever cargoes of words I could lay my hands on I gave safe harbor. I think book lovers everywhere will recognize that room! Highly recommended. show less
The Whistling Season will provoke nostalgia in many readers – for show more family and community, for the carefree days of childhood, for simpler times that exist only in memory. However, this is much more than a sentimental, “feel good” book. Doig is a master story teller – dramatic without being melodramatic, and very witty. No detail is unimportant, yet the details don't weigh the story down. If readers haven't already identified with Paul, they'll be hooked by his description of his part of a shared bedroom: My books already threatened to take over my part of the room and keep on going. Mother's old ones, subscription sets Father had not been able to resist, coverless winnowings from the schoolhouse shelf—whatever cargoes of words I could lay my hands on I gave safe harbor. I think book lovers everywhere will recognize that room! Highly recommended. show less
Even when it stands vacant the past is never empty. In The Whistling Season, Paul Milliron returns to his childhood home in the capacity of Montana's Superintendent of Schools, on a hateful errand to shut down the state's one-room schools. Back at his vacant childhood home, the never-empty past of Paul's youth comes to us through the author's pen.
If you are of an age to remember the TV series, The Waltons, you'll understand what I mean when I say that this story played in my head like an episode of The Waltons. With just the merest hint of what is going on in his life in the story's 'now' (late 1950s), framing the story of what happened 'then', when he was about 13 (1910). It was spare living but a full life, lived with his father and show more brothers, and riding their horses to the one-room schoolhouse, same as the rest of the 'neighbors'. Arrow heads, buffalo bones, Halley's comet, irrigation projects, dryland farming, cooking, language and learning Latin, and dreaming are the stuff of Paul's youth.
Montana was real to me in this book. I may not have been in the saddle (thank you, says the horse), but I felt the dust and the frost. These people were real to me, too, especially the brothers. Their various personalities and temperaments were true to each throughout. Setting, characters and story – everything – was perfect.
Close the book for the last time, close your eyes, and you'll still hear the whistling – the wind, the woman and the swans. It is a harmony in the ears of my heart, the melody of a lost way of life, the song of one-room schoolhouses, of the young folks educated there, and the sturdy pioneers from which they descended.
I loved this book! (5 stars) show less
If you are of an age to remember the TV series, The Waltons, you'll understand what I mean when I say that this story played in my head like an episode of The Waltons. With just the merest hint of what is going on in his life in the story's 'now' (late 1950s), framing the story of what happened 'then', when he was about 13 (1910). It was spare living but a full life, lived with his father and show more brothers, and riding their horses to the one-room schoolhouse, same as the rest of the 'neighbors'. Arrow heads, buffalo bones, Halley's comet, irrigation projects, dryland farming, cooking, language and learning Latin, and dreaming are the stuff of Paul's youth.
Montana was real to me in this book. I may not have been in the saddle (thank you, says the horse), but I felt the dust and the frost. These people were real to me, too, especially the brothers. Their various personalities and temperaments were true to each throughout. Setting, characters and story – everything – was perfect.
Close the book for the last time, close your eyes, and you'll still hear the whistling – the wind, the woman and the swans. It is a harmony in the ears of my heart, the melody of a lost way of life, the song of one-room schoolhouses, of the young folks educated there, and the sturdy pioneers from which they descended.
I loved this book! (5 stars) show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Published Reviews
ThingScore 100
Doig's writerly ambition is less in plotting than evoking, and it is his obvious pleasure to recreate from the ground up — or the sky down — a prior world, a prior way of being. The land and its people — the family, the neighbors — are laid out before us with a fresh, natural openness.
added by lorax
Doig has given us yet another memorable tale set in the historical West but contemporary in its themes and universal in its insights into the human heart.
added by lkernagh
Doig has been at this for a long time; he's 67 and the author of eight previous novels and three works of nonfiction, including the memoir This House of Sky. You can see the evidence of that experience in his new novel: its gentle pace, its persistent warmth, its complete freedom from cynicism -- and the confidence to take those risks without winking or apologizing. When a voice as pleasurable show more as his evokes a lost era, somehow it doesn't seem so lost after all. show less
added by khuggard
Lists
Books tagged favorites
390 works; 30 members
Best Books Read for TIOLI
49 works; 14 members
2022 Christmas Gifts
60 works; 13 members
Carole's List
445 works; 13 members
Books Read in 2016
4,666 works; 197 members
Books discovered on LibraryThing
256 works; 36 members
To Read
617 works; 7 members
Llibres que he llegit el 2024
77 works; 1 member
Author Information
27+ Works 10,132 Members
Ivan Doig was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana in 1939. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in history from University of Washington. Before becoming an author, he worked as a ranch hand and a journalist. His non-fiction works include This House of Sky, Winter Brothers, and Heart show more Earth. His fiction titles include English Creek, Dancing at the Rascal Fair, Bucking the Sun, The Whistling Season, The Bartender's Tale, and Last Bus to Wisdom. He received several awards including the Western Literature Association's Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award and the Wallace Stegner Award in 2007. He died of multiple myeloma on April 8, 2015 at the age of 75. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
El cercle de Viena (100)
Work Relationships
Is abridged in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Whistling Season
- Original title
- The Whistling Season
- Original publication date
- 2006-10-10
- People/Characters
- Rose Llewellyn; Morrie Morgan; Oliver Milliron; Paul Milliron; Damon Milliron; Toby Milliron (show all 11); Aunt Rae; Uncle George; Aunt Eunice; Eddie Turley; Brose Turley
- Important places
- Montana, USA
- Important events
- Halley's Comet (1910); Digging 'The Big Ditch' irrigation canal
- Dedication
- To Ann and Marshall Nelson
In at the beginning and reliably fantastic all the way - First words
- WHEN I VISIT THE BACK CORNERS OF MY LIFE AGAIN AFTER
so long a time, littlest things jump out first. - Quotations
- Father had a short, sniffing way of laughing, as if anything funny had to prove it to his nose first.
I had fallen in love with the test sheets. There it was, language in all its intrigues, its riddles and clues. The ins and outs of prefixes and suffixes. The conspirings of syllables. The tics of personality of words met ... (show all)for the first time. Look to the root, Morrie's dictum drummed steadily in me. Almost anywhere I gazed on the exam pages, English rinsed itself off into Latin. Vulpine brought the clever face of a fox into my mind. Corpulent necessarily meant something about a body, likely a fat one. On and on, the cave voices of vocabulary coming to me, and when I had been through every question, I went back over each a couple of times, refining any guesses.
...the individual clutter of each of us...
Damon's sports scrapbooks lay around open when he was working on them and he was always working on them. Over in his nook, Toby had a growing assortment of bones from the buffalo... (show all) jump we had discovered, secretly hoping, I suspect, that he could accumulate a buffalo. My books already threatened to take over my part of the room and keep on going. Mother's old ones, subscription sets Father had not been able to resist, coverless winnowings from the schoolhouse shelf – whatever cargoes of words I could lay my hands on I gave safe harbor. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)When I pull into Great Falls to the convacation waiting for word from me about the fate of their prairie schools and rise in front of that gathering and toss away my prepared remarks, I can now say to them the best thing in me: that I will sleep on the question appropriately.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 1,862
- Popularity
- 11,582
- Reviews
- 105
- Rating
- (3.96)
- Languages
- Catalan, English, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 20
- ASINs
- 12