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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Took me a while but I got there in the end.
Was not exceptionally impressed by this book. It has some nice bits but it's slow. I think I probably wasn't in the right mood for it but that happens.
Was not exceptionally impressed by this book. It has some nice bits but it's slow. I think I probably wasn't in the right mood for it but that happens.
One of my all-time favorite books. I refuse to watch the movie because I'm afraid it will ruin the pictures I have in my head. It's a haunting novel... all of Proulx's novels are haunting... with amazing quiet underlying strength and resilience. It's a story that has krept into my head and taken up permanent residence. It pops into my consciousness at unexpected moments. It's simply one of my all-time favorites.
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
"And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery."
Harsh, bleak, brutal but also beautiful, pretty much what life is all about. It seems that the author feels that all we can hope for from life is freedom from excessive trauma or misery - definitely no bucolic joy here. For those who have suffered though, this would be happiness. Who is any one person to judge another person's happiness or what makes them content?
I found this to be a stark and melancholy story, with the imagery of Newfoundland the perfect setting.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I’ve been meaning to read this since my high school English class used a passage from it for an analysis essay. I really enjoyed following Quoyle’s journey.
Shipping News won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and I read it based largely on these recommendations. Never saw the 2001 movie. The book is set in a small rural fishing community in Newfoundland, and concerns newly-single dad Quayle. He struggles to cope with multiple challenges: raising two young daughters, starting a new job, moving to a new home in a community where he knows nobody, navigating a new romantic relationship, and discovering disturbing things about his family’s past.
I liked Shipping News. It’s somewhat outside of my normal reading preferences, but Proulx is a great story teller and a fine writer. I’m glad I read it. Highly recommended.
I liked Shipping News. It’s somewhat outside of my normal reading preferences, but Proulx is a great story teller and a fine writer. I’m glad I read it. Highly recommended.
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Shipping News starts as kind of an inverse-picaresque novel, one in which the protagonist, Quoyle, is a diffident middle aged father of two plagued by misfortune as his cheating wife ruthlessly leaves his family before dying in a car accident, which sets Quoyle off on a comic misadventure to Newfoundland with his aunt, dog, and daughters using his wife’s life insurance money to start a new life.
Vonnegut influence seems evident in Quoyle’s frequent encounters with ironic misfortunes, his comic unflappability in response to them, and the narrator’s perspective on him: one in which things are frequently “happening to him”; unlike most writers, Proulx is not interested in a psychological portrait of Quoyle. She’s more interested in telling his story with the goal of, ostensibly, entertaining the reader. Proulx succeeds greatly at this for a little over 200 pages, but I inexplicably lost interest after that point. It disappointed me and made me question why. The writing is outstandingly good and nothing really “changes” in the story. I guess I felt like Quoyle’s quest was leading him somewhere more personal than it did. Yes, he does get married in the very, very end, and he does experience some romantic scenes, but there’s just something missing for me. I felt like the last ~100 or so pages became a compilation of random events in Quoyle’s life without a super logical or interesting continuity. Events are happening, written well and usually with some good humor, but I’m just not feeling connected to them or like they connect meaningfully with one another.
The dialogue is (purposefully) a little too snappy. Proulx omits words, which adds to the humor of the novel, but it takes a while to get used to.
“Says he can work on it right away…. Thinking of starting a day-care in her house…. Could be the first and best customers…. Barking. Her eyes hot.”
Obviously the above excerpt isn’t coherent, but it’s all writing from the same page. Proulx cuts out pronouns in a lot of sentences or reduces a sentence to a single predicate.
I guess I just feel disappointed. Maybe more with myself than the novel. I couldn’t grasp much meaning out of the story despite there being some obvious/interesting themes (family heritage, connecting with others in a desolate place, the relationship between climate/nature and man, etc.) and I just stopped caring about Quoyle’s journey even though I loved the character and saw the potential.
Vonnegut influence seems evident in Quoyle’s frequent encounters with ironic misfortunes, his comic unflappability in response to them, and the narrator’s perspective on him: one in which things are frequently “happening to him”; unlike most writers, Proulx is not interested in a psychological portrait of Quoyle. She’s more interested in telling his story with the goal of, ostensibly, entertaining the reader. Proulx succeeds greatly at this for a little over 200 pages, but I inexplicably lost interest after that point. It disappointed me and made me question why. The writing is outstandingly good and nothing really “changes” in the story. I guess I felt like Quoyle’s quest was leading him somewhere more personal than it did. Yes, he does get married in the very, very end, and he does experience some romantic scenes, but there’s just something missing for me. I felt like the last ~100 or so pages became a compilation of random events in Quoyle’s life without a super logical or interesting continuity. Events are happening, written well and usually with some good humor, but I’m just not feeling connected to them or like they connect meaningfully with one another.
The dialogue is (purposefully) a little too snappy. Proulx omits words, which adds to the humor of the novel, but it takes a while to get used to.
“Says he can work on it right away…. Thinking of starting a day-care in her house…. Could be the first and best customers…. Barking. Her eyes hot.”
Obviously the above excerpt isn’t coherent, but it’s all writing from the same page. Proulx cuts out pronouns in a lot of sentences or reduces a sentence to a single predicate.
I guess I just feel disappointed. Maybe more with myself than the novel. I couldn’t grasp much meaning out of the story despite there being some obvious/interesting themes (family heritage, connecting with others in a desolate place, the relationship between climate/nature and man, etc.) and I just stopped caring about Quoyle’s journey even though I loved the character and saw the potential.