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hardcoverhearts's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
thebookbully's review against another edition
4.0
I FINALLY FINISHED!! My 100th book of the year!!!
I enjoyed this reading experience so much. I've never had another like it: it both demanded I crawl inside the mundane and exceptionally personal thoughts of another person, while also forcing me to examine my own internal monologue. I'll need to sit with this book over a longer period of time to fully absorb its effects, but it was well worth the time spent.
I enjoyed this reading experience so much. I've never had another like it: it both demanded I crawl inside the mundane and exceptionally personal thoughts of another person, while also forcing me to examine my own internal monologue. I'll need to sit with this book over a longer period of time to fully absorb its effects, but it was well worth the time spent.
corey's review against another edition
Thought I would celebrate completing graduate school by diving into this gratuitously long novel, about which I'd heard good things and had been looking forward to reading for a while, but yeah--not so much. I'm giving up about 250 pages in.
There are some interesting things this book does. Its examination of living comfortable lives in America, at the expense of so much violence, and often times amidst that violence, has never been done in quite this way before. And Ellmann is incredibly funny--there's a laugh about every five or so pages.
Ultimately, though, I just don't think I can bear to read another 700 pages stuck in the wandering mind of a neurotic Ohio housewife. I'm not somebody who needs a sweeping plot--especially not when the book is doing inventive, interesting things--but I do need SOME plot.
There are some interesting things this book does. Its examination of living comfortable lives in America, at the expense of so much violence, and often times amidst that violence, has never been done in quite this way before. And Ellmann is incredibly funny--there's a laugh about every five or so pages.
Ultimately, though, I just don't think I can bear to read another 700 pages stuck in the wandering mind of a neurotic Ohio housewife. I'm not somebody who needs a sweeping plot--especially not when the book is doing inventive, interesting things--but I do need SOME plot.
whatsbookinjenni's review against another edition
1.0
Read for the Booktube Prize Quarterfinals 2020 (Fiction Group D). Video RTC
jackielaw's review against another edition
2.0
“the fact that what is it with this constant monologue in my head, the fact that why am I telling myself all this stuff”
Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann, is mostly written in the form of a single sentence, containing many commas, and running across almost one thousand pages. Add in the notes at the end, expansion of the acronyms scattered throughout the text, and it easily breaks this tally. It also weighs more than a kilogram – a Big Book in every sense of the word.
I mention that it is mostly written as a single sentence. There is a story within about a mountain lion that runs in parallel. This is presented in a more conventional format and provided relief from the frantic intensity of the stream of information and opinion pouring from the narrator’s head. The two tales increasingly segue and enable a devastating denouement. The final line was breathtaking, and not just because the book was finally finished.
I recently read Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession and it was like being enveloped in a welcome hug – it is quietly splendid. While Leonard and Hungry Paul is a story that makes me feel good about the world, Ducks, Newburyport is its opposite. Over the course of its thousand pages it lists many, many ways in which man is a scourge on our planet. I’m still not sure I can forgive the author for putting the picture into my head of the teenagers with a baby dolphin – just one horrific scene in a multifarious outpouring. By the end of the book I was believing the world would be a better place if we all followed the lead of several minor characters and removed ourselves. This tome is depressing.
Set in Ohio, America, the sentence is the internal monologue of a middle-aged wife and mother of four children. She bakes cinnamon rolls and pies in her home, supplying select eateries around her local town. She keeps hens in her backyard. She misses her dead parents, especially her mum. We learn of her history and current concerns between ephemera meandering around such subjects as: baking, films, actors, popular culture, books she has read to her children. She watches the news and bemoans the state of modern America – the atrocities enabled by American gun laws and the thoughtless self-entitlement of humans.
“the fact that nothing you do seems innocent anymore, the fact that even baking a pie has many ramifications”
The woman’s history does provide interest. She has lived in Europe as well as America. She has suffered serious health issues. The facts and feelings engendered by these nuggets sown within the digressive text need to be sieved from the stream of facts that are often inane: types of pie, the contents of cupboards, shopping lists. She details her dreams, her worries about her children and the type of mother she is.
“the fact that I’m only doing it to help my family, and yet to make any profit on these pies, I have to ignore my poor family half the time”
The reader is taken on trips to a shopping mall and a visit to the dentist but mostly the woman is in her kitchen, baking and watching news on TV. She is thinking about her shyness, looking back on all the incidents in her life she feels bad about, remembering her parents. She is considering the way Amish people live and how simple their lifestyle appears.
There is a great deal of repetition: polluted water supplies, bottled water, plastic pollution; how inspectors drive around gathering samples and thereby contribute to air pollution; cruelty to animals, factory farming, the billions of chickens raised in cages to sate man’s wasteful food preferences.
“the fact that there’s a lot you just have to blank out if you want to get through life”
The narrator is neurotic – well meaning but selfish. The narrative is all over the place and this appears to be deliberate – that thoughts will wander as connections with memory are triggered by current events.
“the fact that I do feel guilty though, bringing kids I love into a world we’ve trashed”
This trashing of the world along with the senseless cruelties inflicted by man are, of course, done for money – personal gain.
“the fact that it was the costliest natural disaster in Ohio history, the fact that it’s always about money, the fact that they think that’s the only thing that interests people, the fact that they can’t just talk about a violent storm, they always have to translate the damage into cash terms”
The woman regularly mentions her money worries, blaming the cost of medical care. She worries about environmental issues but mainly their impact on human health.
Trump is mentioned along with his Make America Great Again slogan. This is backed up by national educators’ desire to instill patriotism, optimism and contentment in their students.
“the fact that a lot of American history is nothing to be proud of, the fact that it makes you pretty sick, but my students didn’t want to hear any of that, the fact that they wanted everything to make a pretty picture, upbeat”
To get to the story there is a need to read through page after page of frenetic, often upsetting and then inane, tortuous facts.
“the fact that celery puts so much effort into being celery, just to end up filling the plastic lunch box of a not particularly hungry American kid”
I wondered why this structure had been chosen. It is audacious and ambitious but felt done for the sake of it.
Amongst the many books I have not read, or not finished, are tomes such as Don Quixote and Ulysses – books that certain people seem to believe should be appreciated by anyone who wishes to have their opinions on literature taken seriously. Ducks, Newburyport may well end up sitting amongst these supposed greats. Making it through to the last page certainly felt like an achievement.
There is much to ponder within its pages but also a great deal that felt like filler. Had the book been a quarter of its size, had it told the family story and the lion story but without quite so much litany, then perhaps I would have been more impressed. As it is, the sheer number of words and the form in which they were written overwhelmed the beating heart of what is a devastating take-down of human consciousness and behaviour. The issues confronted may be worthy, but I am glad to have finished reading.
Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann, is mostly written in the form of a single sentence, containing many commas, and running across almost one thousand pages. Add in the notes at the end, expansion of the acronyms scattered throughout the text, and it easily breaks this tally. It also weighs more than a kilogram – a Big Book in every sense of the word.
I mention that it is mostly written as a single sentence. There is a story within about a mountain lion that runs in parallel. This is presented in a more conventional format and provided relief from the frantic intensity of the stream of information and opinion pouring from the narrator’s head. The two tales increasingly segue and enable a devastating denouement. The final line was breathtaking, and not just because the book was finally finished.
I recently read Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession and it was like being enveloped in a welcome hug – it is quietly splendid. While Leonard and Hungry Paul is a story that makes me feel good about the world, Ducks, Newburyport is its opposite. Over the course of its thousand pages it lists many, many ways in which man is a scourge on our planet. I’m still not sure I can forgive the author for putting the picture into my head of the teenagers with a baby dolphin – just one horrific scene in a multifarious outpouring. By the end of the book I was believing the world would be a better place if we all followed the lead of several minor characters and removed ourselves. This tome is depressing.
Set in Ohio, America, the sentence is the internal monologue of a middle-aged wife and mother of four children. She bakes cinnamon rolls and pies in her home, supplying select eateries around her local town. She keeps hens in her backyard. She misses her dead parents, especially her mum. We learn of her history and current concerns between ephemera meandering around such subjects as: baking, films, actors, popular culture, books she has read to her children. She watches the news and bemoans the state of modern America – the atrocities enabled by American gun laws and the thoughtless self-entitlement of humans.
“the fact that nothing you do seems innocent anymore, the fact that even baking a pie has many ramifications”
The woman’s history does provide interest. She has lived in Europe as well as America. She has suffered serious health issues. The facts and feelings engendered by these nuggets sown within the digressive text need to be sieved from the stream of facts that are often inane: types of pie, the contents of cupboards, shopping lists. She details her dreams, her worries about her children and the type of mother she is.
“the fact that I’m only doing it to help my family, and yet to make any profit on these pies, I have to ignore my poor family half the time”
The reader is taken on trips to a shopping mall and a visit to the dentist but mostly the woman is in her kitchen, baking and watching news on TV. She is thinking about her shyness, looking back on all the incidents in her life she feels bad about, remembering her parents. She is considering the way Amish people live and how simple their lifestyle appears.
There is a great deal of repetition: polluted water supplies, bottled water, plastic pollution; how inspectors drive around gathering samples and thereby contribute to air pollution; cruelty to animals, factory farming, the billions of chickens raised in cages to sate man’s wasteful food preferences.
“the fact that there’s a lot you just have to blank out if you want to get through life”
The narrator is neurotic – well meaning but selfish. The narrative is all over the place and this appears to be deliberate – that thoughts will wander as connections with memory are triggered by current events.
“the fact that I do feel guilty though, bringing kids I love into a world we’ve trashed”
This trashing of the world along with the senseless cruelties inflicted by man are, of course, done for money – personal gain.
“the fact that it was the costliest natural disaster in Ohio history, the fact that it’s always about money, the fact that they think that’s the only thing that interests people, the fact that they can’t just talk about a violent storm, they always have to translate the damage into cash terms”
The woman regularly mentions her money worries, blaming the cost of medical care. She worries about environmental issues but mainly their impact on human health.
Trump is mentioned along with his Make America Great Again slogan. This is backed up by national educators’ desire to instill patriotism, optimism and contentment in their students.
“the fact that a lot of American history is nothing to be proud of, the fact that it makes you pretty sick, but my students didn’t want to hear any of that, the fact that they wanted everything to make a pretty picture, upbeat”
To get to the story there is a need to read through page after page of frenetic, often upsetting and then inane, tortuous facts.
“the fact that celery puts so much effort into being celery, just to end up filling the plastic lunch box of a not particularly hungry American kid”
I wondered why this structure had been chosen. It is audacious and ambitious but felt done for the sake of it.
Amongst the many books I have not read, or not finished, are tomes such as Don Quixote and Ulysses – books that certain people seem to believe should be appreciated by anyone who wishes to have their opinions on literature taken seriously. Ducks, Newburyport may well end up sitting amongst these supposed greats. Making it through to the last page certainly felt like an achievement.
There is much to ponder within its pages but also a great deal that felt like filler. Had the book been a quarter of its size, had it told the family story and the lion story but without quite so much litany, then perhaps I would have been more impressed. As it is, the sheer number of words and the form in which they were written overwhelmed the beating heart of what is a devastating take-down of human consciousness and behaviour. The issues confronted may be worthy, but I am glad to have finished reading.
sarahxify's review against another edition
5.0
the fact that these turtles suffer for life, so that we can briefly carry Coke in bulk
the fact that all life forms emerged from mush and will probably turn back into mush pretty soon, especially if everyone carries on voting Republican
the fact that I heard somebody on the radio say that she wants to live in the same zip code as her boyfriend, Poland, Ohio, the fact that I'd never heard anyone finding zip codes romantic before, the fact that maybe I should mention ours to Leo more often over a candlelit dinner, perfume, the fact that I could pour him a glass of wine, and murmur 43832 and see what happens
This book took me completely by surprise. It is very long and very rambly; essentially one sentence following the internal monologue of a woman as she worries her way through her life. At the same time, it is warm and hypnotic, and slowly draws you in as the details are unravelled.
The storytelling in this is very clever. It's subtle, and totally grips you as various things happen and you try to read through the narrator's thoughts to understand the drastic things that happen to her and her family. There is also a parallel story, told in a very different style from the perspective of a lioness looking after her cubs. Both of these stories had me enthralled and in awe of Lucy Ellman.
the fact that all life forms emerged from mush and will probably turn back into mush pretty soon, especially if everyone carries on voting Republican
the fact that I heard somebody on the radio say that she wants to live in the same zip code as her boyfriend, Poland, Ohio, the fact that I'd never heard anyone finding zip codes romantic before, the fact that maybe I should mention ours to Leo more often over a candlelit dinner, perfume, the fact that I could pour him a glass of wine, and murmur 43832 and see what happens
This book took me completely by surprise. It is very long and very rambly; essentially one sentence following the internal monologue of a woman as she worries her way through her life. At the same time, it is warm and hypnotic, and slowly draws you in as the details are unravelled.
The storytelling in this is very clever. It's subtle, and totally grips you as various things happen and you try to read through the narrator's thoughts to understand the drastic things that happen to her and her family. There is also a parallel story, told in a very different style from the perspective of a lioness looking after her cubs. Both of these stories had me enthralled and in awe of Lucy Ellman.
cathbarton's review against another edition
5.0
I started this book last year and was enjoying it hugely but got diverted onto other things. Lockdown brought me back to it and I have just reached the end. I think it is a stupendous achievement, unlike anything else I've ever read.
It's a shame that some people get hung up on the punctuation/lack of punctuation issue. It is very easy to read, I found, and I was carried along with it.
The final section (no spoilers!) is shocking but also very funny. And Lucy Ellmann does bring the book to a conclusion; she doesn't just stopm, as you might fear she will.
Massive respect for this writer. And a great read in lockdown.
It's a shame that some people get hung up on the punctuation/lack of punctuation issue. It is very easy to read, I found, and I was carried along with it.
The final section (no spoilers!) is shocking but also very funny. And Lucy Ellmann does bring the book to a conclusion; she doesn't just stopm, as you might fear she will.
Massive respect for this writer. And a great read in lockdown.
stephaniereads's review against another edition
5.0
Take an Ohio housewife, someone nondescript. A mother of four children, a wife completely in love with her (second) husband. A shy, anxious person who has retreated into her home to spend her days baking for restaurants and watching old movies because that's where she feels safe. Explore everything that goes on inside this one person and find multitudes - she, who in many ways has been made small by the men around her and the terror of the news, is still full to the brim.
As for the writing style, don't be intimidated. Sure it’s long, and I will confirm that most of the prose is one sentence (broken up with "the fact that" to indicate pauses), but I've read much more difficult writing. The language itself is simple but fragmented, like our own internal monologues. There's a rhythm to it that, after a few pages, drops from view. The effect is more like wading into a river and letting it carry you for a while. Sometimes I could read this in huge gulps, but sometimes I'd dip in a few pages and back out for air.
This really straddles the line between "is this drivel? is this brilliant?" but I'm coming down on the side of brilliance. What was most striking for me was how she captured that feel of moving through your day, your mind consumed with the temperature of your coffee and what's playing on the radio, and then you get a flash of that one day a decade ago that nearly broke you and you have to catch your breath. But then you carry on. It's that feeling, the fact that each person walking around is so full and unknowable.
And then there's how Ellmann chose to listen in on an ordinary woman for a thousand pages. And then there's the themes of what it means to give yourself over to motherhood. And then there's the mountain lion subplot (the mountain lion!) that gets at the primal nature of being a mother and underscores the noise that goes on in human beings. Not to mention the political commentary, thoughts on childhood and memory, and just the sheer ambition of this book.
I mean - yes, some of this is nonsense. But much of this was brilliance.
As for the writing style, don't be intimidated. Sure it’s long, and I will confirm that most of the prose is one sentence (broken up with "the fact that" to indicate pauses), but I've read much more difficult writing. The language itself is simple but fragmented, like our own internal monologues. There's a rhythm to it that, after a few pages, drops from view. The effect is more like wading into a river and letting it carry you for a while. Sometimes I could read this in huge gulps, but sometimes I'd dip in a few pages and back out for air.
This really straddles the line between "is this drivel? is this brilliant?" but I'm coming down on the side of brilliance. What was most striking for me was how she captured that feel of moving through your day, your mind consumed with the temperature of your coffee and what's playing on the radio, and then you get a flash of that one day a decade ago that nearly broke you and you have to catch your breath. But then you carry on. It's that feeling, the fact that each person walking around is so full and unknowable.
And then there's how Ellmann chose to listen in on an ordinary woman for a thousand pages. And then there's the themes of what it means to give yourself over to motherhood. And then there's the mountain lion subplot (the mountain lion!) that gets at the primal nature of being a mother and underscores the noise that goes on in human beings. Not to mention the political commentary, thoughts on childhood and memory, and just the sheer ambition of this book.
I mean - yes, some of this is nonsense. But much of this was brilliance.
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