The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
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Book Reviews of The Shipping News
Book Review: raw reality
Summary: 5 Stars
'The Shipping News' by E Annie ProulxThis novel is as vast and powerful as the Newfoundland landscape in which it is set, however it deals with the minutiae of small people's lives. In the cutting reality of the northern landscape Proulx rips open American society and hangs out the dirty washing of people's existences to be examined under a harsh polar light. Our protagonist is trapped when we meet him - the chains of a hopeless marriage and a dead-end job are threatening to strangle him. Yet as she so often does, lady Luck steps in at the appropriate moment and, through the turmoils of death; kidnap; suicide pacts and the arrival of a mysterious Aunt, contrives to deliver Quoyle, for that is our unlikely hero's name, into the arms of his saviour: that God forsaken and hopeless island whose name nevertheless epitomises the fundamental hope of this tale - Newfoundland. It is this which provides Quoyle's catharsis: through attempting to understand the lives of his rugged new friends and their alcoholic, vulgar, awesome lives; and through struggling to create a new home for his daughters and Aunt he is able to better understand his own existence. Proulx's characters are painted with a large brush on a muted, icy canvas in colours so loud and synthetic that they could easily be dismissed, however the characters are real, within these pages, and violently so. Their lives at first appear ridiculous, pantomimic in their misfortune, yet on closer inspection one realises that they are in fact perfect creations - expertly reflecting the feelings and experiences of us all. Through the author's eyes we see love, loss, passion, fear and insanity all placed against a monumental panorama. Quoyle himself is repulsive; he is fat and ugly, yet his imperfectness makes him authentic. One does not necessarily empathise with him yet, almost despite himself, he becomes a sort of everyman hero - a good person who represents our very human fears. Proulx has a masterful understanding of the human mind and is able to attract us as voyeurs whilst managing to make resonant observations upon the crippling effects of death, grief and mourning; the meanings and forms of love; and on the bigotry, short-termism and selfishness of "American" society - warning us of the dangers of idealising this illusory culture. Proulx manages to do what few authors do successfully - make you loose yourself completely in a place which you do not know. Her tight prose and cutting description are so vivid that they can both stimulate and nauseate at once. The untamed violence of her writing, driven by the force of the omnipresent sea, and her ability to dress with tenderness and pathos the most abhorrent image makes Proulx an addictive force. She does not sentimentalise her characters or their surroundings, their weaknesses are on full display - green and ugly, nevertheless their human fragility makes them relevant. It may sound bleak, but there is an over-riding sense of justice in this novel, a feeling that good will out and that the human spirit will survive no matter what. Maybe it is this that makes the book so incredible. It is impossible to say, yet one thing is certain: this book should be read - by all that believe in humanity.
Book Review: Good News
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the story about a man named Quoyle, an ugly giant of a man, a loser who grows on you like a dull landscape. At the beginning of the novel, he is without plan, without talent, and without the good sense to notice. A lumbering, large-chinned, clumsy loner, Quoyle decides on the death of his beloved yet wayward wife that something has to change. He leaves New York State with his two young daughters and his aunt for his ancestral home of Newfoundland.
I won't go on about the plot here because it just doesn't sound like very much, and such a description wouldn't get anyone but Newfoundlanders to read the thing anyway. The title of the novel refers to a weekly column that Quoyle ends up writing for a small newspaper in the coastal town of Killick-Claw. Initially, the column is simply a roster of vessels currently entering, moored in, or sailing from the harbor, but soon Quoyle, a man with a lifelong fear of water, begins writing about the boats themselves. The column doesn't so much play a central role in the novel as offer a metaphor for the novel. Each of the many and memorable characters sails into the story-line at some point and then is slowly revealed as a person beset by fears or by some dark secret and who tries to overcome them or at least live with them.
When I began reading the novel, I was distracted by the author's use of sentence fragments. For instance, one chapter begins: "The aunt in her woolen coat when Quoyle came into the motel room. Tin profile in a glass eye. A bundle on the floor under the window. Wrapped in a bed sheet, tied with net twine." My first reaction to such a passage is, "Excuse me? Would you mind running that past me again?" Call me a linguistically traditional old fart, but to me sentences have a certain completeness about them that can make even individual ones a joy to read. Granted, clipped sentences can add a certain immediacy to narration and can be used in juxtaposition to complete sentences to stylistically distinguish between, say, description and stream of consciousness. It took me quite a few pages to get over my distaste for the author's reliance on fragments, and eventually even I found myself deeply drawn into the novel and appreciative of Proulx's writing.
Proulx won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for fiction as well as a couple of international awards thrown in for good measure, so one more positive review from me shouldn't come as a surprise. What I find sets this novel apart from many others I have read recently is the substance as opposed to simply the style of the story. An acquaintance once said that no one under forty could possibly write an interesting novel, a comment that I resented at the time, having been in my twenties, and still don't assent to. I would, however, certainly agree that experience is a powerful tool for a writer, and, as is evident throughout The Shipping News, it is a tool which Proulx, 56 years old on the release of her first novel, applies masterfully. Few characters in the book could be described as exotic, but each character seems real, unique, and deeply human. Their quiet lives are revealed with patience and compassionate good humor.
I highly recommend this book.
Book Review: A Reflection of Newfoundland
Summary: 5 Stars
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx is a regional fictional novel that takes place in the isolated Newfoundland village of Killick - Claw. Quoyle, a middle aged man whose ancestors lived in Newfoundland returns there with his two daughters and aunt to start a new life and forget about his depressing, embarrassing past. The small town life of Killick - Claw, the starkly cruel coastline, the haunting history of Quoyle's ancestors, and a group of unforgettably unique characters who find there way into his life, help create a foundation for Quoyle to build on. Proulx is very successful in connecting all of these distinct parts and showing how they all help Quoyle start a new life. As the odd family of four starts figuring out how to fit into the culture, society, and natural setting of Killick - Claw, the reader learns to do the same with E. Annie Proulx's short, chopped writing style. The barebones lifestyle consisting of only the necessities that Quoyle learns to live is directly reflected in the writing style the author uses to portray it. Sentences are often not grammatically complete but always succeed in depicting Proulx's complete meaning. The actual text tells us: "A rough morning. Quoyle jumped down the steps. He would drive." We know, from these eleven words, what the setting is, who is involved, what he is thinking, and his plans for the morning. Without this reflective, no-nonsense writing style, Quoyle and his northern world would not be complete. Without Quoyle and Newfoundland to write about, this writing style might seem silly. As regional fiction, this novel does an excellent job of showing the importance of setting. After reading it I have an extremely clear impression of this particular section of Newfoundland coast, the points, the bays, the islands, the towns, and the isolated position of all of it. This impression of isolation is demonstrated by a description of the lack of real roads available to take Quoyle and his family from their old lives up to their remote destination in Newfoundland. On every rural road it is "Quoyle and the car in combat. Car Disintegrates on Remote Goatpath." The feeling of isolation seems to compress as they continue driving and fog descends. It is compressed so far as to seemingly turn into their destination, the lone house on the point where the aunt grew up. As they approach the house, "green of grass stain, tilted in fog," the isolation it represents seeps into them. The local setting consists of this half forgotten house, weather beaten and dilapidated, which Quoyle strives to make livable year round; the town where he covers `the shipping news' in the local paper; the bay separating the two and causing him many uncomfortable moments concerning his distaste for boats; and the vast, rugged, ocean and coastline surrounding and intimidating him. This book makes me want to go to Newfoundland. I feel as if I could walk into the village, find my way to the `Gammy Bird' newspaper office and greet all of Quoyle's co-workers by name. I would be prepared for the rural, isolated, aspect of the setting, and the idea that you take what comes at you and make the best of it for yourself.Book Review: A Superb Novel!
Summary: 5 Stars
Now that we can edit our Amazon reviews, here is an update on the novel The SHIPPING NEWS, which I first reviewed on February 27, 2000. Today, I want to add that the book, a mid-life story, is most suitable for readers over the age of thirty-five or forty. It is the reader with life experience who will best empathize with the main character's plight and, therefore, find the story irresistable. THE SHIPPING NEWS by E.Annie Proulx (1993) is one of the finest novels I have ever read. Proulx's unique writing style serves up the utterly compelling story of one man's (Quoyle) odyssey from lackluster career, depression, and despair into a brighter tomorrow where success, self-esteem, and love finally becken in mid-life. This sometimes dark, literary journey, written in a remarkable style that paints vivid word images, will immerse the reader into every emotion!
As the story progresses, Quoyle and his tiny family move from the U.S. to an old family home, in need of TLC, located in Newfoundland (where the author has lived, by the way). It is a distinctive, historic house, anchored to rocks by great chains that defend against ocean winds and storms! Quoyle goes to work in a reporting job with the local newspaper called THE SHIPPING NEWS. Readers will enjoy Proulx's realistic word portrait of Newfoundland landscapes and culture. The author expertly reveals Newfoundland life via wonderful, believable characters and settings as Quoyle makes various contacts throughout the community in pursuit of the latest disaster story! You see, it is his job to cover all of the bad news: accidents, fires, deaths, and so forth! OF course, a couple of mysteries occur along the way.
Surprises occur in every twist and turn of this stunning work. Always central is Quoyle and his determination to take care of his small family by succeeding in a new culture. Certainly, only a superior writer could present Quoyle's tale in such magical passages. No wonder this novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994! Quoyle's life journey reminds us that every person has worth and that truly great stories arise out of everyday circumstances!
This novel is detailed, somewhat dark, somewhat naturalistic, but, most of all, it is reassuring in it's humanity. I recommend it to those willing to be fully immersed in the story to the very end!
A note to those who like to speed their way through novels: the first three or four chapters necessarily inform the reader about the main character's eccentric personality and predicaments. Then the story takes off as the family moves to New Foundland.
I have not yet seen the movie that was made of this novel because I have read the novel twice! I can only say that I am sorry the film, THE SHIPPING NEWS, wasn't better received. Some books are harder to translate into films than others. Often, reading the book first is essential to understanding the movie. For example, another such book/movie was DUNE. Though the DUNE movie was actually well-done on a number of levels, it's complexity was better understood if the viewer had read the book first!
Even if you did not like the movie, do read THE SHIPPING NEWS by E. Annie Proulx, when you get the chance! I highly recommend it!
Book Review: Watch the movie / DVD !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Annie Proulx, she has a very much endowed vein for fine-intimately spoken humor. Her novel SHIPPING NEWS won the Pulitzer Prize. The Swedish director Lasse Hallström ("The Cider House Rules", "What's eating Gilbert Grape" and "Chocolat") brought it full of genius to screen. It is a MUST to see the scene, where the ancestors of Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) are pulling by rope their house across the ice. The pictures shot on location (Killick-Claw, a Newfoundland harbor town) are simply wonderful. But at first you have to endure the coming in-chapter: a bad life in New York, where Quoyle is overwhelmed by hussy type Petal (Cate Blanchett), a wild, hot-blooded woman, wearing a ton of make-up and short rubber mini-skirts, always looking for excitement with good time guys and honky-tonks, by whom Quoyle has a child, Bunny. Petal soon dies in a car crash with one of her boyfriends, short after Bunny was sold by her to a black-market child adoption ring for six thousand dollars. Moreover Quoyle's parents commit suicide. In this terrible situation (daughter Bunny is found by police) Aunt Agnes Hamm (Judi Dench) appears and Quoyle is convinced by her to move to their ancestral home on the Newfoundland coast. Quoyle takes a job as a reporter for the local newspaper The Gammy Bird and starts to rebuild his life, though the weight of an awful past bears down. Encouraged by the publisher Jack Buggit (Scott Glenn) and by Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), the owner of a day care center, Quoyle has to change his loser-life fighting against his demons and the demons of his ancestors. Also Aunt Angie or the "widow" Wavey have their nightmares, but together they get all problems under control. For example the mobbing of an oil-tanker-adoring journalist (Pete Postlethwaite) or getting overboard without a life-belt or losing the house tethered on a storm-wracked cliff during a heavy, cathartic storm. (And at the side there is a romance between Quoyle's daughter Bunny and Moore's son, who suffered brain damage during birth.) Spacey and Moore are wonderful as they, at her lowest point, try to overcome their damaged hearts and love once more. So they all recover from the terrors of their past lives, especially Quoyle's transformation from passive victim into a whole human being is heart-felt. It is good to see films like that, just a shame there is not more.