The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
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Book Reviews of The Shipping News
Book Review: Great Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Annie Proulx gives the masses a great treat with "The Shipping News". The novel shows the live of Quoyle, a man who has had it rough his whole life. His parents hated him, people in gereral seemed to hate him, and just recently his wife just left him with two kids, while he doesn't really have a stable job. After his wife died, he gained a substantial sum of money from life insurance. So his aunt comes down to vist him and convinces him to return to his ancestrial home in Newfoundland. While their Proulx gives us a cast of strange, yet funny people. While in Newfoundland Quoyle finds love, people that like him, a stable job as a writer for the local newspaper, and discovers a part of himself he didn't know was there. This book truely is a great, and if you havn't read this book yet, GO OUT AND BUY IT, because it is definately worth it.Book Review: Magnificent!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was skeptical of this book at first. When it's summer in the Northwest the last thing you want to do is pick up a book set in the dreary weather of Newfoundland. The first few chapters were tough to get through but once I got into it I couldn't put it down! I found the setting of the story more beautiful than depressing. Proulx's descriptions of Newfoundland are completely breathtaking. This book also contains some of the most memorable dialogue and characters you will ever read. Some of it will make you crack a smile, while other passages will just plain make you laugh out loud! The voices of these characters are just so real, you can't deny Proulx's incredible story telling talent. "The Shipping News" is well deserved of the National Book Award and if you stick with it it will be one of the most enjoyable books you've ever read.Book Review: For pure enjoyment, Shipping News is a great read.
Summary: 5 Stars
The story, the ugly duckling who becomes a beautiful swan in the right context, is a familiar and heart warming one. The view of Newfoundland is hilarious, but Killick Claw is typical of any provincial area that has had some isolation from the urban mainstream. But all of this has been done well before. What is outstanding about this book is the prose. Proulx shoots out a staccato style of simple sentences, sentence fragments, synonym on synonym, metaphor piled on metaphor, leaving out many of the connectors, function words and subordinating clauses that we are used to directing our reaction to the material. As a result, the reader must be constantly alert (no down time), and do the work of supplying the missing words and making the connections himself. The style is reminiscent of both John Donne and Hemingway, for different reasons.Book Review: Atmosphere and More
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book and read it on my recent trip to Newfoundland. Naturally, it came alive for me because I was reading her descriptions as I was experiencing the realities. Her writing is highly original -- stylistically her short sentences and phrases keep the narrative moving, her characters are flawed enough to be fascinating, and she has captured the physical beauty of the island. She captured the important transition that is happening there now--cod fishing gone, oil exploration going on. I was glad I got to visit while there were still vestiges of pre-petroleum Newfoundland and I am happy that she was able to capture the atmosphere so well in her novel. I found the book especially rewarding as I met and spoke with "Newfies". I plan on reading her other works. I'm glad I found a new author to explore!Book Review: Some of the best writing I've come across.
Summary: 5 Stars
The protagonist of the novel isn't really what we think of as a hero, and the reader doesn't really like him at first. Once you get into the book, you suddenly realize two things - this simple, unpretentious writing is so good, you've fallen into the cold world of the Northern fishermen. (quite an accomplishment with a Atlanta reader). The second thing the book makes you realize is how petty and superficial our society is - the protagonist is not good-looking, and he seems like kind of a goof- that's not what TV and movies teach us that a hero is supposed to be. The reader starts realizing that the goof is a true hero, as are the rest of the plain, hard-working inhabitants of the story. This is what books are supposed to do - make us look at ourselves or our environment and question the 'truths' we've been submerged in.