A review by sacredblues
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

1.0

I’m going to be perfectly honest here: I did not like Country of the Pointed Firs at all. Putting it bluntly, I found the book a snore and a chore. I’m more engaged reading the nutrition labels of cereal (did you know that there are two columns, one with milk and the other without; they latter is referred to as a “dry bowl”). Part of this was that there was no plot to speak of. A plotless or meandering work is fine, but those works hinges on having characters you care about, or the very least, a setting you care about. Country of the Pointed Firs has neither. There is no name given for the narrator and she’s so featureless that the story might as well be written in second person. For me, she was nothing more than a medium between the reader and the book’s world. Unfortunately, the book’s world is nothing to write home about. I didn’t for Mrs. Todd, who seemed to lack a story and was quite bland to me. The few other characters don’t offer much and seem to just be set pieces for the setting. I’ve heard you can appreciate the book’s beautiful depiction of Maine, but I personally don’t read books to appreciate nature, I read books to appreciate people and events. I typically don’t get anything from nature poetry and likewise didn’t get anything from a nature novel(la?). Maybe I’m just too dumb, tooo impatient to appreciate the book, yet my opinion is still valid since I’m sure there are many, many readers like me. I tapped into the beauty of the book during the final chapter, for I was reading to the sound of waves as I sat near Bass Harbor Lighthouse at sunset. So even for me, there are definitely ways to appreciate the book. But I don’t think most readers will be able to create such an environment. Besides, books generally shouldn’t require readers to create an environment for an enjoyable read when the book itself is tasked with doing such.