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Title: SHIPPING NEWS by Annie Proulx ISBN: 0-671-51005-3 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 June, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.68 (375 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: An instructive but vastly overrated look at a late bloomer.
Comment: E. Annie Proulx has a gift for describing the ocean that even the late Jacques Cousteau might envy. At one point in this otherwise overrated story, she describes an unruffled bay as "an aluminum tray dotted with paper boats." And she's equally vivid when the weather turns nasty: "Translucent thirty-foot combers the color of bottles crashed onto stone, coursed bubbles into a churning lake of milk shot with foam."
Unfortunately, dead-on maritime observation and the main character's amusing habit of thinking in headlines can't by themselves redeem a meandering plot whose revelations are telegraphed whole chapters in advance of their appearance. Notice, too, that nearly every reviewer swoons over the Proulx style. Her writing is described as "staccato," "atmospheric," "vivid," and "unique." Phooey! Clerks at Western Union have been writing this way for decades. Proulx simply gets more mileage from sentence fragments than anyone else. It's a good trick, but it verges on self-parody after awhile. Some of us still believe that the best writing styles are the ones you don't notice. Bottom line: while reading this book, I stopped to read three others.
Rating: 5
Summary: Reality check
Comment: Anyone who lives in a rural area can relate to the characters in this book. But beyond a gift to express place and time Ms. Proulx has mastered characters in a new and different manner. Her technique is unusual and verges on poetic prose. It has the unique ability to invoke the imagination common to all great literature. The two major themes: First; "community" following an allegorical theme of knots she weaves (pun intended) through the whole book. This theme centers on a place that bring human existence to its central essence of survival in rural Newfoundland with all the inherent and symbolic references to the sea as both life and death. It is the sea, and the community that deals with it, that saves the unlikely hero Quoyle. The second theme is the "emotional baggage" that all of us carry and suffer the weight of. Quoyle is a loser of the utmost magnitude. So pitiless that for the first fifty pages he is hard to relate to. But through interaction with a variety of newfound friends and his own self-honesty we are allowed to watch a subtle, yet believable transformation. Quoyle becomes a man of dignity and overcomes literally everything through hope and the community around him. I discovered the book by accident having never heard of Ms Proulx before. I was entranced. I am the type of person who detests the usual hype that goes with the book world and had I known it was a popular book I would have avoided it. I would have lost something. This book should also be required reading for all Canadians as there is a very real parallel between Quoyle and the people around him, and the Newfoundland relationship with Queben and the rest of Canada. If Proulx is not Canadian then she has absorbed much of the Canadian psyche. Quoyle literally discovers a "new found land".
Rating: 5
Summary: Rooting for Quoyle
Comment: I know alot of people had mixed feelings about this book - but the law of averages with a widely read book such as Shipping News says the reviews will run the gamut. For myself, I love books where I feel real emotions for its characters, whether it ranges from compassion to disdain. Quoyle is immediately loveable - which is ironically one of his downfalls. I couldn't help but root him on the whole book through. This book is neither suspenseful nor exciting - but it's about human emotions and the realities of life. If you keen on feeling something when you read then this novel is certainly worth your time.
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Title: Postcards by E. Annie Proulx, Annie Proulx ISBN: 068480087X Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title:The Shipping News ASIN: B0000640VK Publisher: Miramax Pub. Date: 11 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.99 |
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Title: That Old Ace in the Hole : A Novel by Annie Proulx ISBN: 0743242483 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Annie Proulx's The Shipping News: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) by Aliki Varvogli ISBN: 0826452337 Publisher: Continuum Pub Group Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Snow Falling on Cedars : A Novel by David Guterson ISBN: 067976402X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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