The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

[Scheherazade]

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Looking at the title of this book, I had prepared myself for a sea adventure of sorts, with boats, fishermen and nets. However, The Shipping News is the story of Quoyle, who struggles to make a living as a journalist. He is a lonely person who is stuck in a parody of a marriage with a wife who finds it impossible to be faithful and has no scruples about her extra-marital affairs either. Quoyle's static existence gets an unexpected shake when his wife dies unexpectedly. Unsure about what to do with his two young daughters, Quoyle decides to move to Newfoundland, where his family comes from originally. In this remote place, he, for the first time in his life, finds 'himself' and, through the many interesting people he meets, he learns how it feels to be needed and cared for.

I believe all of us will find a little bit of Quoyle in ourselves, remembering our awkward habits and the embarrassing moments we have had throughout our lives. His seemingly unsympathetic personality grows on the reader by each page and, by the end of the book, he becomes one of the most memorable characters in modern literature.

Even though the story unfolds slowly, the way it depicts how tragic human existence can be makes it a worthy reading. It is a very familiar, sad story; so familiar and sad that we cannot help laughing out at times.

8/10 KitKats!

[Nossa]

Thanks a lot for the review. I actually have had that book for sometime now, but since I didn't really like the author's Brokeback Mountain much, I was hesitant about starting reading that one. Now that I have a thorough idea about the story, I'll probably be more willing to read it.

[Petya]

"And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery"

I think the book is pretty much summed up in this line from the end. Love for Quoyle was always surrounded some sort of pain, his father, brother and wife, all pretty much turned Quoyle into what he is. Although I think the book was pretty much always going to lead up to a redemption and a new life for Quoyle I feel she skipped over a lot of the defining moments in his life. His wife dying, kids being sold and the alienation from his father and brother, although talked about never went into as much detail as I thought she would. As well with the beginning of his new life it was pretty much summed up in a chapter missing out on a great scene but instead just writing the two words "I do".

I thought the death aspect was done very nicely with Quoyle trying to explain to his children about death and how their mother "went to sleep" and can't wake up and we take it that once something is dead it's gone for ever. Much like Quoyle's life it was over but he found a new life with a new family and we read on to see that when Jack "goes to sleep" and Quoyle once again has to explain theres no coming back until Jack wakes up and confirms that it's all possible. A similar situation with a bird I think reinforces this idea of new beginnings.

Although it's not going to be something I hurry to read again I'm defiantly going to catch up on her other work and recommend this book to people. I felt it was a bit drawn out in some places and over looked in others, I was looking forward to reading about Quoyle and Wavey's life together in a lot more detail. She did do a great job of describing Newfoundland so much that I now actually want to go there.

6.5/10

[Jozanny]

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Looking at the title of this book, I had prepared myself for a sea adventure of sorts, with boats, fishermen and nets. However, The Shipping News is the story of Quoyle, who struggles to make a living as a journalist. He is a lonely person who is stuck in a parody of a marriage with a wife who finds it impossible to be faithful and has no scruples about her extra-marital affairs either. Quoyle's static existence gets an unexpected shake when his wife dies unexpectedly. Unsure about what to do with his two young daughters, Quoyle decides to move to Newfoundland, where his family comes from originally. In this remote place, he, for the first time in his life, finds 'himself' and, through the many interesting people he meets, he learns how it feels to be needed and cared for.

Excellent summary Sche, but I was never able to connect to Proulx's humor, and felt she copped out on most of her supporting characters, leaving them in mid-air, with her exposition a kind of window shopping regionalism for those who think New England must be eccentric to the point of ridicule. It isn't. I stayed in Farmington with a college dorm mate for a while, and no one displayed a crabby gnarled personna good for gaping at like a tourist attraction.

Amazon can't move its copies of TSN fast enough. I know because I had to close my listing til I solve my mobility problem.

[promtbr]

Maybe that's why she's kept her focus for the last three books in Wyoming's "high lonesome".

Haven't read Shipping News, but I have Close Range and Bad Dirt.

Having read most of the stories in each, she definitely has found her voice in the gems of stories like, "The Mud Below" and "Half Skinned Steer" and "Blood Bay". I have spent a couple of summers in the state and she has some of the semi-tweaked flinty but willing-to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-a-neighbor-out-of-a-jam folks so pegged..Great stuff. Sounds like I may leave TSN in the Bookstores...

Her Wyoming pieces are as good as any recent short fiction I have read.

[Mopey Droney]

I am intrigued by Proulx and will get around to reading her at some point or another I'm sure, and this will probably be the first book I read.

That said, I must ask: did you find her use of adverbs in the book annoying? I ask because once, while I considered whether or not to purchase it, I opened to a random page and began reading, falling upon this succession of sentences: "Above the peak of the house the thin sky and clouds raced diagonally. The illusion swelled that the clouds were fixed and it was the house that toppled forward inexorably. The looming wall tipped at Sunshine who scrambled up and ran, deliriously frightened." Am I being too picky, or do these three "-ly"s, so close together, produce an effect that is more jarring and indicative of amateurism than pleasing, skillful repetition? It strikes me as unnecessary and perhaps affected.