Narrating the lonesome, simple life of Robert Grainier in the Idaho Panhandle, Train Dreams is the opposite of what we commonly dub an ambitious novel. We have here a protagonist who is far from being a heroic, successful, celebrated or any pompous terms we might come up with. Grainier is not a despicable character either. He is just a regular man, without a clear history, and without any future at all. The only thing we can say he’s good at is surviving the harsh condition in the frontier without having to succumb to drinking, suicide, or escape….