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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Monumental epic tale, incredibly tragic and detailed characters, well written, finely constructed fascinating and long. This is an emotionally engaging story.
I kept reading because I was sure it would pay off in the end. I was wrong.
This started out well, very atmospheric and full of tension. And I appreciate that the author had a lot of ground to cover, both geographically and temporally, to tell her story -- so perhaps that's an explanation -- but not long after it starts, the story seemed to lose all "depth" and the characters felt two-dimensional. I lost complete interest.
The writing is excellent, the research that went into the book is deserving of at least two PhDs, and the environmental message is powerful but it was not gripping as a story.
Long tale about the forests and foresters who came to the new land and began the logging industry and how it changed over time.
OMG this is a long book - I was reading the eBook, so I didn't realize quite how long until I saw the massive hard copy in a bookstore a few weeks in - and there's only so much I can read about trees. Parts of it were excellent, when the story stuck with a small group of characters for a decent length of time, but overall there was too much jumping about for me, too many new characters introduced only to die in a fire or get mangled by machinery two pages later. Not my favourite Proulx novel!
Update, 2 years later: if you liked the idea for this book but not the execution, you might like [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1555688602s/40180098.jpg|57662223]. I absolutely loved the first half of that book, but thought it tailed off a bit in the second. Like Barkskins it's also too long, but a very interesting take on a similar subject.
Update, 2 years later: if you liked the idea for this book but not the execution, you might like [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1555688602s/40180098.jpg|57662223]. I absolutely loved the first half of that book, but thought it tailed off a bit in the second. Like Barkskins it's also too long, but a very interesting take on a similar subject.
Amazing tome! Checked it out of the library as an Express read. I had to 'chop' through the chapters ruthlessly to finish on time. Recommend either buying or borrowing this book to give yourself more time to read.
The novel spans a period of over three hundred years up to 2013, following the families of two penniless Frenchmen that arrive in Canada in 1693 to make their fortune. I found that the key stories though are the destructive impacts of immigration on North American forests, Mi'kmaw and indigenous peoples.
While reading this novel, I kept thinking that the author used a writing style similar to other tomes like Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. A lot of information, thoughtful and well written but missing the passion of current novelists like Joseph Boyden or Thomas King when writing about indigenous peoples.
The novel spans a period of over three hundred years up to 2013, following the families of two penniless Frenchmen that arrive in Canada in 1693 to make their fortune. I found that the key stories though are the destructive impacts of immigration on North American forests, Mi'kmaw and indigenous peoples.
While reading this novel, I kept thinking that the author used a writing style similar to other tomes like Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. A lot of information, thoughtful and well written but missing the passion of current novelists like Joseph Boyden or Thomas King when writing about indigenous peoples.
A long story spanning many generations of two families. Not my favorite kind of story, but the writing was very beautiful. I am looking forward to reading other stories by Proulx.
This eminently readable tome about the devastating effects of humans on the great forests of the world fascinated and entertained me on every page. The sheer volume of characters, woven through over 300 years of two very different and yet connected families, could make a reader lose interest if they weren´t created by such a master. Even characters that last the length of a page or two are brought to startling life before being terminated in tragic ways. Those characters to whom Proulx gives more space and time seem drawn from real accounts of the times in which they lived. The incredible amount of research that must have gone into creating this novel and the subtle ways in which it is disseminated throughout the lengthy story are extraordinary. While the novel captivates and entertains, its ultimate portrait is of a world on the brink of collapse. It would appear it may be too late even to read it as a cautionary tale.