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april_siese's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sunn_bleach's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Goddamn. Okay, first - there is a plot here, and you'll see it as you work through our Midwestern-by-transfer Molly Bloom's psychoses and obsessions. But just like "Ulysses" (God, what a comparison), you're getting into the absoluteness of a single life. Tons of references, foibles, worries, obsessions, and ennuis that wouldn't make a lick of sense to anybody who isn't her - and that's the point. You're not supposed to get it all, other than the deep stress of mere existence in 2019 Ameri[c/k]a.
So, at 700 pages in, it clicked. Yeah there's an undercurrent of suburban angst through this, but as it progresses I realize it's much more than that. It's the kind of excoriation of the destruction of civilization and settlement, especially the myths that we tell ourselves as Americans both the topical one of our "taming of the land", but also the deeper myth that we can live sustainably. And we can't! We've destroyed it. Our backyards and homes are ecological wastelands with sterile lawns. Did you know there used to be buffalo in Ohio until the early 1830s? Now it's parking lots everywhere, and it's called a triumph of humanity.
In this book, there's a story about a mountain lion and her cubs on the edge of humanity - in the beginning, it's unclear where she is as it sounds like it's on the savannah, but she interacts with humans more and more until her cubs are taken from her by "do-gooders" who think they're lost kittens. This tension on the edge of nature and humanity - really a destroyed nature with a lion so desperate to say the land is still hers - becomes the undercurrent of our Ohio housewife's monologue, where everything she feels and says has the undercurrent of a painful awareness that this land is a lie, it was built on lies, and her fears and worries are reflective of the more insidious alienation that is at the very heart of the American Myth.
All because I said I liked "Satantango" earlier this year and one of my buddies was like "hey so there's this book on ducks you might want to check out..."
So, at 700 pages in, it clicked. Yeah there's an undercurrent of suburban angst through this, but as it progresses I realize it's much more than that. It's the kind of excoriation of the destruction of civilization and settlement, especially the myths that we tell ourselves as Americans both the topical one of our "taming of the land", but also the deeper myth that we can live sustainably. And we can't! We've destroyed it. Our backyards and homes are ecological wastelands with sterile lawns. Did you know there used to be buffalo in Ohio until the early 1830s? Now it's parking lots everywhere, and it's called a triumph of humanity.
In this book, there's a story about a mountain lion and her cubs on the edge of humanity - in the beginning, it's unclear where she is as it sounds like it's on the savannah, but she interacts with humans more and more until her cubs are taken from her by "do-gooders" who think they're lost kittens. This tension on the edge of nature and humanity - really a destroyed nature with a lion so desperate to say the land is still hers - becomes the undercurrent of our Ohio housewife's monologue, where everything she feels and says has the undercurrent of a painful awareness that this land is a lie, it was built on lies, and her fears and worries are reflective of the more insidious alienation that is at the very heart of the American Myth.
All because I said I liked "Satantango" earlier this year and one of my buddies was like "hey so there's this book on ducks you might want to check out..."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Gun violence, and Murder
thepageunfolds's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
OMG!!! I can’t believe this. This is no less than an achievement. To read Ducks, Newburyport is a journey, an experience in itself. Nothing like I ever read before. Very tough to get through at times yet the pages flew by on some days. There is no plot, there is no character development. It’s stream of consciousness. I can’t say I loved it. I can’t say I hated it. However, I can say I went in with too many expectations, I did expect the ending to atleast wrap up what this 1000 page was trying to cover. It didn’t, the last line was also a monologue. I think this book wasn’t for me or may be I wasn’t ready for Ducks, Newburyport YET.
leniverse's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
damara_reads's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
journeyingjeff's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this ambitious, stream-of-consciousness book and its meanderings through so many aspects of American culture (good, bad and ugly). About 2/3 of the way through, I felt like the author had made her point, developed her characters and themes, but was not advancing the narrative anywhere and hitting the same topics over and over again. I think it would have been a stronger book if Ellman's editor and forced her to cut it down by 1/3 or more. I suggest reading a few pages and see if it grabs you.
rosebudglow's review against another edition
4.0
Unfortunately, my main takeaway is that I'm glad I read the whole thing because of the sense of completion. The writing is lyrical, almost hypnotizing—if you like the first five pages, you'll like the whole thing, because it never changes. Unfortunately I think if I had to actually live in the mind of that woman I think I'd kill myself. Also, the lioness didn't work for me. Was it supposed to be straightforward/uncomplicated (finally someone to root for) as a foil? Was it just paralleling for the purpose of providing a parallel? I'm still not really sure.
gabbyquail's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I often think that almost everything that happens in the modern era happens online, which means that one day almost everything we do and think and feel will be swept away, leaving no trace. I now feel that if we retain one paper copy of Ducks, Newburyport, that’ll be a pretty good approximation of a significant chunk of it.
rorywilson's review against another edition
4.0
A review seems somewhat pointless. You'll know after a page if you're interested in the style. A novel not so much read as divined where the story reveals itself amidst a cloud of word association, film references and repetitive underlying themes. Also a lion.
I found 'the fact that' substituted for punctuation in my brain early on in quite a comforting way, and the rhythmic nature of it meant I often found myself falling asleep reading it.
I was expecting something more profound than maybe what is here. It's not trying to be epic, or to macrocosmically understand something - it's more subtle than that. The style is the thing, and I loved the narrator for it for a while.
I found 'the fact that' substituted for punctuation in my brain early on in quite a comforting way, and the rhythmic nature of it meant I often found myself falling asleep reading it.
I was expecting something more profound than maybe what is here. It's not trying to be epic, or to macrocosmically understand something - it's more subtle than that. The style is the thing, and I loved the narrator for it for a while.