| Mobile | RSS

Shipping News: A Novel

June 4th, 2010 | Posted in Shipping Travel
Sponsored Links
 

  • ISBN13: 9780684857916
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Shipping News is a celebration of Annie Proulx’s genius for storytelling and her vigorous contribution to the art of the novel.

Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a “head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair…features as bunched as kissed fingertips,” is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just deserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle’s Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family’s unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives.

Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above 70 degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it’s easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents).

As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph — in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover’s knot.Amazon.com Review
In this touching and atmospheric novel set among the fishermen of Newfoundland, Proulx tells the story of Quoyle. From all outward appearances, Quoyle has gone through his first 36 years on earth as a big schlump of a loser. He’s not attractive, he’s not brilliant or witty or talented, and he’s not the kind of person who typically assumes the central position in a novel. But Proulx creates a simple and compelling tale of Quoyle’s psychological and spiritual growth. Along the way, we get to look in on the maritime beauty of what is probably a disappearing way of life.

Shipping News: A Novel

Leave a Reply |
Tags: , , , Beety Nutbeem,  Billy Pretty,  Product Description,  Shipping News,  ,
Follow Discussion

5 Responses to “Shipping News: A Novel”

  1. Anonymous Says:
     June 4th, 2010 at 9:26 pm

    Good book. Not a great book.
    Rating: 3 / 5

  2. Janelle Says:
     June 4th, 2010 at 9:54 pm

    Whoever says this book is boring is just plain stupid. The characters and the story line are remarkable. The character of Quoyle is awesome and when the movie comes out, I’m sure Kevin Spacey will do a great job.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  3. Justin Freeman Says:
     June 5th, 2010 at 12:09 am

    Are you tired of plot driven novels? Are you wary of reading character driven novels instead? Then the Shipping News may be for you! The plot is nearly nonexistent, which need not be a problem. But the characters are also poorly defined. Quoyle, the only character we really get to know, remains largely an enigma, and understanding him requires poring over every page, reading several times to extract the few clues Proulx leaves. For instance, Quoyle is obese, and while Proulx draws our attention to this and to his constant overeating, we never get a clear picture of why he overeats or even how he feels about his weight.

    In addition to limited substance, the novel offers a unique style. Proulx writes more fragments than sentences. She also leaves grammatically necessary but arguably extraneous words out of sentences. The net effect is prose that is constantly forcing you to slow down and sort out the bizarre grammar.

    For some, this novel is clearly a joy to read. Proulx is a very talented writer, and it may be that she wrote this in a deliberate attempt to appeal to literary prize judges. I hope this is the case, and that having won tremendous critical acclaim, she turns her talents back to writing more accessible novels.

    Rating: 2 / 5

  4. Divine Says:
     June 5th, 2010 at 2:18 am

    I should start by telling you that I read this book for a class, and not because I wanted to, which may have affected my opinion of it.

    About two years ago, I rediscovered books. For a long time, I had stopped enjoying reading because I was only exposed to books that teachers exposed me to, and I did not share the same interests as my teachers. When the Modern Library released their list of 100 books of last century, though, I figured some of them must be all right, or else they would not have made such a list. “Catch-22″ and “Slaughterhouse-5″ brought me back into the world of books, and I made it my goal to read all 100 books (I stopped after reading about 30).

    I heard about a class at my high school later on that year (now I am in college), around registration time, that was all about reading good books and discussing them. Having just discovered the pleasures of great books and wanting to tell people about them, I took this class. Our first book was E. Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News”.

    I started this book with great excitement. If the book was good enough for our class, it had to be amazing, I thought. It had beaten out “Portnoy’s Complaint” and “Mr. Sammler’s Planet” for attention of our student body, so it must have been super.

    I was wrong.

    “The Shipping News” begins decently. Someone dies, our hero is alienated, and the action goes to Newfoundland. I should have guessed that nothing happens at all after that. What happens in Newfoundland in the real world? Nothing.

    After we read this worthless book, we read “Cold Mountain”, another book I recommend skipping. After this class, I was turned off to literature completely. Thank God during our independent projects for the end of the year, someone showed me Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral”, proving that good literature is still being written today.

    How fitting, though, that today’s good literature comes from the old masters.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  5. Anonymous Says:
     June 5th, 2010 at 5:00 am

    I was looking forward to reading this book but was sorely disappointed! A dreadful tale about a dull person who has nothing good happen. Not recommended!
    Rating: 1 / 5

Leave a Reply