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bianca89279's review against another edition
5.0
WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2019
When I read about this novel in the Guardian, I was intrigued but also put off by its size. Nevertheless, I went to Edelweiss and requested the ARC, thinking if I’m meant to read it I’ll get approved. Many thanks to the publishers for approving my request.
As you’ve probably heard, this is a very long novel, written from the point of view of an unnamed forty-something stay-at-home mother of four, who lives in Newcomerstown, Ohio. She ruminates, wonders, jumps from one thing to another; she’s perplexed, vexed, stuck, scared, and filled with guilt; she’s nervous, neurotic, forgetful, distracted, intense and constantly tired. She’s a good representation for many mothers in today’s developed world. Three years prior, she had had cancer, “the embarrassing kind”, which put a strain on the family’s finances, which is why she’s taken to baking pies and other desserts to sell to cafes and diners. Her second husband, Leo, and the biological father to the youngest three kids, is an Engineering professor at an Ohio University. He sounds like a great guy, which is a nice counterbalance to all the male vileness mentioned in the book.
Have you ever wished you had less knowledge about current affairs, politics, the environment, hoping that ignorance might bring you some semblance of bliss? Is it possible to be happy and serene when one knows about the crazy world we live in? Is it surprising that so many people suffer from anxiety? This novel is basically riddled with one woman’s anxieties. I related to some and understood others.
There are several themes that keep popping up in this novel:
- how much her mother’s stroke just “broke her”
- male violence
- deadbeat dads
- parenthood and its many tribulations
- gun violence and the constant fear that someone will shoot your kids while at school
- the environment and the damage caused by humans
- history and the many cruelties and injustices perpetrated against the native people
- police violence.
Several movies and books are discussed in detail - some I knew, others I had to look up. Google will be your friend on many occasions.
Ducks, Newburyport is extremely contemporary, a time capsule of Trump’s America. It’s mesmerising, original, realistic, intelligent, observant, and occasionally amusing. Oh, and anxiety-inducing.
Ultimately, this was satisfying and worthwhile the time spent in its company.
It’s not for everybody, no book is.
Brava, Ms Ellmann.
When I read about this novel in the Guardian, I was intrigued but also put off by its size. Nevertheless, I went to Edelweiss and requested the ARC, thinking if I’m meant to read it I’ll get approved. Many thanks to the publishers for approving my request.
As you’ve probably heard, this is a very long novel, written from the point of view of an unnamed forty-something stay-at-home mother of four, who lives in Newcomerstown, Ohio. She ruminates, wonders, jumps from one thing to another; she’s perplexed, vexed, stuck, scared, and filled with guilt; she’s nervous, neurotic, forgetful, distracted, intense and constantly tired. She’s a good representation for many mothers in today’s developed world. Three years prior, she had had cancer, “the embarrassing kind”, which put a strain on the family’s finances, which is why she’s taken to baking pies and other desserts to sell to cafes and diners. Her second husband, Leo, and the biological father to the youngest three kids, is an Engineering professor at an Ohio University. He sounds like a great guy, which is a nice counterbalance to all the male vileness mentioned in the book.
Have you ever wished you had less knowledge about current affairs, politics, the environment, hoping that ignorance might bring you some semblance of bliss? Is it possible to be happy and serene when one knows about the crazy world we live in? Is it surprising that so many people suffer from anxiety? This novel is basically riddled with one woman’s anxieties. I related to some and understood others.
There are several themes that keep popping up in this novel:
- how much her mother’s stroke just “broke her”
- male violence
- deadbeat dads
- parenthood and its many tribulations
- gun violence and the constant fear that someone will shoot your kids while at school
- the environment and the damage caused by humans
- history and the many cruelties and injustices perpetrated against the native people
- police violence.
Several movies and books are discussed in detail - some I knew, others I had to look up. Google will be your friend on many occasions.
Ducks, Newburyport is extremely contemporary, a time capsule of Trump’s America. It’s mesmerising, original, realistic, intelligent, observant, and occasionally amusing. Oh, and anxiety-inducing.
Ultimately, this was satisfying and worthwhile the time spent in its company.
It’s not for everybody, no book is.
Brava, Ms Ellmann.
henrymarlene's review against another edition
4.0
An absolute mammoth read. Almost 1,000 pages, with limited punctuation - I kid you not. I stopped and started 'Ducks, Newburyport' about six times over the last two months in between all of my other books. I couldn't keep track of the thoughts going through the main character's head. I could not find how to hang onto them; they were so fast, haphazard, fleeting and strangely interconnected. But then! ... I found a sort-of groove and pushed onto the finish line. I love that lists, and list of statements suddenly appeared, and some of these things deeply resonated with me and made me smirk in agreement ("we will all die, on and off we'll get indigestion ..."), and that the character was a baker, and baked in a similar way that I do. The fact that the story of the lioness and her cubs was hauntingly beautiful and sad at the same time, and the fact that when you think about thoughts, there is no logic to them, no sequence. Even I am channeling how the novel was written as I describe it! And that randomness that Lucy Ellmann created in these thoughts, however scary in reading this book, were meant to be. I am still not yet certain on the role and story of the lioness and her cubs. Are they a fable running parallel to her life events or a metaphor for the woman's subconscious? Are they the movie to her never-ending sentences?I have no idea yet the prose in these vignettes was poetic, comforting and sweet. I think I liked this. I felt like I had travelled as far as the woman and the lioness when I finished reading.
thecurbau's review against another edition
5.0
The fact that I can't wait to endure this book once again. The fact that the word endure suggests I didn't like this book, but really, I loved it. The fact that it reflects what a traumatic and broken nation America is. The fact that.
grvhppr's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Ducks, Newburyport is essentially a style-driven rendering of the "average American housewife" through a single-sentence, stream of consciousness telling of our main character's life. Through bizarre yet logical thought jumps the reader sews together her life like a great quilt. We learn about her every concern, passion, worry, opinion, relationship (personal and work related), etc. as the narrative is near breathless, which I think is representative of what a woman/housewife experiences--an onslaught of life compounded and compressed day after day with disappointments/rewards big and small.
From the narrative we know she's an Ohio stay at home baker with four children and a loving husband. And while the narrative seems like it would be boring to listen in on the daily ongoings of a piemaker, I never felt a desire to stop. I'm sure how this was possible but somehow Ellmann did it. This work is as large as the lives of the women represented by our main character because motherhood is in itself limitless. There are no real punctuations, only commas, only mini-moments of respite that build into something total.
Personal favorite scenes/multiple mentions:morning routines, Ronnie scenes, flat tires, and the mall flooding . The book is full of great moments and thought associations though so there's never a dull moment. While I'm not female, I still found the book resonant and easy to get into our main character's mind. It felt very real to me.
There's also a second narrative that follows a mountain lion that I LOVED.
If you're daunted by the size of this book, don't be. You can read it as fast or slow as you want and jump in right where you left off without missing a beat.
As for the name of the book, Ducks, Newburyport:Our housewife's mother almost drowned in a duck pond when she was young. If that had happened, then this whole story wouldn't exist, so I believe naming the book after a random small event that happened to her mother, it shows that lives/legacies can dramatically alter as easily as your next thought .
Lastly, I want to touch on "the fact that". My understanding of the 19,000+ uses of "the fact that" when starting a thought is an exploration on the difference between perspective and fact. We all live radically different lives it seems but we also share a lot of commonalities with one another. So by using "the fact that" Ellmann teases the contradiction between personal understanding and objective truth. We live life picking up facts that we internalize and morph into personal understandings of how the world works. It's how we stay sane in a world that has to make room for its billions of opinions of what's right and wrong.
From the narrative we know she's an Ohio stay at home baker with four children and a loving husband. And while the narrative seems like it would be boring to listen in on the daily ongoings of a piemaker, I never felt a desire to stop. I'm sure how this was possible but somehow Ellmann did it. This work is as large as the lives of the women represented by our main character because motherhood is in itself limitless. There are no real punctuations, only commas, only mini-moments of respite that build into something total.
Personal favorite scenes/multiple mentions:
There's also a second narrative that follows a mountain lion that I LOVED.
If you're daunted by the size of this book, don't be. You can read it as fast or slow as you want and jump in right where you left off without missing a beat.
As for the name of the book, Ducks, Newburyport:
Lastly, I want to touch on "the fact that". My understanding of the 19,000+ uses of "the fact that" when starting a thought is an exploration on the difference between perspective and fact. We all live radically different lives it seems but we also share a lot of commonalities with one another. So by using "the fact that" Ellmann teases the contradiction between personal understanding and objective truth. We live life picking up facts that we internalize and morph into personal understandings of how the world works. It's how we stay sane in a world that has to make room for its billions of opinions of what's right and wrong.
owhite's review against another edition
3.0
Dnf for now, I’m just not strong enough to finish this even though I really enjoyed what I did read. The most interesting thing about this book is how it was possible for Lucy Ellemen to write so much and say so little, but that is the appeal of the book so
karnaconverse's review against another edition
2.0
Did not make it through to the end because I lost interest in the format and the characters.
flyman347's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, umm, I really don’t know how to write this. It feels very much like a “conditioner and shampoo has run out at the same time” situation. I didn’t think I would finish this, especially now, but I’m really glad I did. This is a story of the true American experience, plain and simple. The POV of a stay at home mom gives an inside look at how a normal person would interact with the insane world that is America.
mcrammal's review
challenging
slow-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? Yes
2.5
The fact that I liked this book best when I wasn’t reading it, the fact that I went through the five stages of grief each day, the fact that I can’t decide if I like it or not, but I’m glad I read it, though I would never reread it, but maybe I’ll keep it on my bookshelf and lug it around each time I move, the fact that I didn’t discover the glossary for abbreviations until I was 100 pages in, but by then I didn’t care about what they meant because there were too many of them, the fact that she sure talked a lot about movies she saw and dreams she had, the fact that I bet if you cut all that out of the book it would be down at least 200 pages, the fact that this is a 900+ pages long sentence, the fact that the timeline is undetermined and shaky, the fact that sometimes that made reading it confusing, the fact that I can’t decide if Lucy Ellmann is crazee for writing this, or a genius, the fact that maybe ask me a month from now, or two months from now, or a year from now, the fact that I’ve seen people say this is a good representation of how people thought in 2019, the fact that that feels both accurate and exaggerated, the fact that if you take too long to read this book you’ll miss all the call backs to previous thoughts, the fact that I tried to read 60 pages a day but am sure there’s plenty of call backs I missed, the fact that I hope to never again read a book that has lists and lists and lists ever again, the fact that I can’t decide if I like this book or not, the fact that phew, this really was a lot of word vomit, and I wonder if people really think this way, the fact that it made me wonder how I think, if I think in words or wordless thoughts, but I keep forgetting to try to pay attention, the fact the last sentence clause sure did wrap it up nicely, at least in my opinion, the fact that actually maybe I don’t know how I feel about it, the fact that I’m still unsure now how I feel about the work as a whole, the fact that I need to start a new normal book to reset my brain, and it’ll be a relief to read a book that has lots and lots of sentences, and paragraphs, and a timeline, instead of one big long sentence that’s occasionally cut up by a story in the perspective of a mountain lion that was searching for her babies, the fact that this book sure was an experience, and that’s all I can say about it for now.
ollie_walker's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0