A Thousand Years by Jane Smiley is The 1992 Winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it is also one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, ranked 974th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, and more importantly for this corner here, this has entered Realini’s Top 1,000 Favorites – more reviews on those and more on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel

 

A Thousand Years by Jane Smiley is The 1992 Winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it is also one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, ranked 974th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, and more importantly for this corner here, this has entered Realini’s Top 1,000 Favorites – more reviews on those and more on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel

 

 

10 out of 10

 

A Thousand Acres was so exhilarating and surprising, I have read Moo https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/moo-by-jane-smiley-included-on-1000.html by Jane Smiley and it was not exactly dazzling, and then the subject, people on a farm, was not enticing, it could have gone either way

 

Indeed, in my part of the world, we used to call ‘peasants’ (I still do, when drivers seem to run me over, on my bicycle) those who were ignorant, rudimentary, when in fact, these are the folks that provide the food…this novel has been full of ‘twists and unexpected events’, Ginny Cook, the narrator, becomes a sort of friend

Larry Cook might remind one of Dallas, this was a very popular series more than forty years ago, when even under the Ceausescu regime we could see it, there were those greedy men fighting over money, Larry Cook is a rich farmer, who decides to give away his Thousand Acres to his daughters, except one, Caroline, is not interested.

 

The man may seem a munificent character, only we discover he is in fact a monster – I am never sure if a spoiler alert is preposterous, in assuming somebody reads this far, or at all, or necessary – he raped his daughters, Ginny and Rose, he may have spared Caroline, and then he turns against them in his old age, with devastating effect

We learn a lot about farming, appearances, the hard work, these personages should be rich, the property is worth millions of dollars, and yet, they may squander it all, actually, it is this Larry Cook and then Caroline that bring disaster, they file a suit, saying he wants the Thousand Acres back, and this malevolent daughter is with him

 

Meanwhile, it does feel as if this is a soap opera, in that there are betrayals, affairs, Caroline refused the inheritance, then changed tactic, one personage commits suicide, or maybe he is too drunk to know, one sister wants to kill another, the merit here is that, unlike the soap operas, which offer all possible choices, for the sake of it, this is on a different level, furthermore, it will not all end up with merriment for all

There is a lot happening, Jess has coitus with two of the sisters, Ty tries hard to extend the hog operation, and we have so much about logistics, loans, that I was just realizing how good this novel must be to keep me interested, despite the fact that I do not really want to read about such things, especially these days

This is a time for Stoicism https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/on-providence-by-seneca-one-of-greatest.html because we may face adversity, I do not even have the courage to call my senior partner, seeing as there have been a couple of terrible years, on the other hand, An Instant in The Wind should teach me to be resilient

 

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