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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
Surprisingly good book - story, characters, and plot completely different from anything I've read. Should check out others by Proulx.
This was my second read (first being after it initially came out) Still not a fan. The writing is not easy to read, makes you halt, stumble over phrases. Which, funny enough, I LOVE in poetry or small doses but an entire book? Painful. Flipper pie? Never heard of it. I think the “outside looking in” version of Newfoundland is what irks me most.
Loveable losers you really start rooting for. Interesting, harsh, ever-changing Canadian landscape that helps set the scene and becomes a character itself. Best newspaper name ever with: The Gammybird. And a beautifully written tale by Proulx whose literary skills are evident in the sparseness of language and the dark comic undertones. Also love Quoyle occasionally thinking in headlines, including this brilliant one: Dog Farts Fell Family of Four
What a great read. Reminded me of Empire Falls in that the story for me is really the author's writing and characters. It was a pleasant story with great characters, but the writing itself . . . what a dream.
Great book! Great stories, great characters, quite a few quirky people, and some kind of creepy, but that seems typical of most of Annie Proulx's books. Lots of great descriptions, although she likes to show us what a great vocabulary she has by using words in her descriptions and dialogs that no one has ever heard of or would ever say..
I really liked the book, one of the best I've read in quite a awhile, but I was a little dissapointed in the ending... Not that it was bad, but as good as the rest of the book was I just thought the ending would be better...
I really liked the book, one of the best I've read in quite a awhile, but I was a little dissapointed in the ending... Not that it was bad, but as good as the rest of the book was I just thought the ending would be better...
i love discovering excellent new writers!! (that is, new to me)
Quoyle is a born loser. He works as a newspaperman when he is needed, but seems to lose his job every year when a boss's relative returns. His wife is constantly cheating on him; sometimes in his own house.
She leaves him taking the two girls, and she is killed in a car crash after selling the girls. The girls are saved, and Quoyle is convinced by his aunt to move back to the family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. He figures he's got nothing keeping him in NY because besides his wife dying, his job back in the hands of the relative, his parents have recently died.
It's a hard life in a place that never gets warm. His daughters have some trouble adjusting and so does he, but the four of them (the aunt too) seem to figure out the future.
Nice, well described. Even though it sounds like a harsh area, Proulx makes you want to go there and meet these people and see the land.
She leaves him taking the two girls, and she is killed in a car crash after selling the girls. The girls are saved, and Quoyle is convinced by his aunt to move back to the family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. He figures he's got nothing keeping him in NY because besides his wife dying, his job back in the hands of the relative, his parents have recently died.
It's a hard life in a place that never gets warm. His daughters have some trouble adjusting and so does he, but the four of them (the aunt too) seem to figure out the future.
Nice, well described. Even though it sounds like a harsh area, Proulx makes you want to go there and meet these people and see the land.
I started this book in the summer of 1995 when I was working in a remote part of Alaska. People were passing this title around. I had heard it was an award winner and that it was set in another remote place. It seemed like it would be a good fit for me then, but I couldn’t get into the writing or the characters. Winter is my time to read hard or challenging titles and this book caught my attention. I can report that I enjoyed the Shipping News. Quoyle has a hard life and finds himself in Newfoundland. The author cooks up some interesting characters and plot twists and I enjoyed living in their world for awhile. All the references to different sailing knots was a fun addition, as was the thread of building Quoyle a boat. If you have some time to sit with an interesting community of characters I’d say give it a go.
Oh how I wanted to love this book. Instead the experience was more of a detached appreciation for Proulx's extended metaphor (knots) and immersive depiction of Newfoundland, rather than a love affair with the characters/setting/etc. Plot is nonexistent, and that's often a deal-breaker for me.
Great book! Poor, lost Quoyle and his chin.
I think I read this again before the movie came out. The movie starred the ever-awesome Kevin Spacey, and I honestly wondered if they would give him a prosthetic chin!
I think I read this again before the movie came out. The movie starred the ever-awesome Kevin Spacey, and I honestly wondered if they would give him a prosthetic chin!