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A review by george_salis
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
2.0
This book seemed uniquely maximalist, turning each reader into their own antenna that picks out references and allusions from the "torrent of meaningless info," as it's described on the back of the book. What with confirmation bias at play, one could almost nurture the illusion that this book was written with them specifically in mind. Such were my first impressions, but after reading more and more I feel that the book suffers from being almost solipsistically monophonic, a single radio transmission that only briefly picks up on the white noise of other stations and engages with them on a more or less superficial level. The brief lioness sections that are lightly peppered throughout do little to add another voice/perspective. Thus, in a way, if you've read the first 100 pages of this book then you've read the first 400, due to the white noise style.
While the structure is unique overall, there are certain tics that recall White Noise, specifically the list of name brands. And the free association/rhyming is the most interesting part of the book and reminded me of the Ulysses' riff: "Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer...” I do agree with another reader who said that the antecedent corrections were annoying, failed attempts at humor at best.
Let it be known that "the fact that" is the new grand champion of verbal tics, formerly belonging to "type of thing" in DFW's The Pale King. I found that the mind becomes desensitized to the phrase, retreating into the background of the experience, so it's not as annoying as it could be at face value, but I don’t think it adds anything to the immediate reading experience. Sure, one could say that the inundation of so-called facts reflects the sorry state of American culture, lacking as it does respect for critical thinking skills, and thus everything is a ‘fact.’
As readers have been discovering, Ducks is not really a single sentence, even though saying so makes for great marketing doesn’t it, at least for a certain group of people who enjoy ostensibly challenging literature, like me. There are numerous instances on each page where a period could replace a comma. I think the commas are more of a visual phenomenon in this case rather than anything truly grammatical. I read somewhere that the publisher recommends taking breaks too. The "Penelope" episode of Ulysses, on the other hand, is much more of a single sentence and I pleasurably read it in one sitting.
While reading this, there was the feeling that "I could write that." Which is similar to the cliché critique of modern art. But with modern art, it's not about the skill of execution per se, but the feelings evoked by the piece. And I think that's the saving grace of this novel, the feelings it can evoke, not its subpar technicality or lack thereof. I think that’s why other people are really enjoying this novel, but it didn’t really resonate with me on that level either.
I didn’t love this, nor did I hate it, I found the prose style and the quotidian content to be just interesting/amusing enough to warrant an ambitiously mediocre label. It’s a long book, but not difficult, and it would be quite an easy read if you find the narrator’s thoughts particularly stimulating. I think one problem I had is that the narrator’s thoughts felt too obvious or platitudinous to me. After taking a break to read Omensetter’s Luck, I found that I had very little interest in returning to this book and with around 600 pages left, there are too many books I’m yearning to read in order to give this one more of my time. I pushed through all 850 pages of the mediocre-at-best The Runaway Soul by Harold Brodkey, hoping for some revelatory moment, but it never came, so I don’t want to go through something similar with Ducks.
While the structure is unique overall, there are certain tics that recall White Noise, specifically the list of name brands. And the free association/rhyming is the most interesting part of the book and reminded me of the Ulysses' riff: "Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer...” I do agree with another reader who said that the antecedent corrections were annoying, failed attempts at humor at best.
Let it be known that "the fact that" is the new grand champion of verbal tics, formerly belonging to "type of thing" in DFW's The Pale King. I found that the mind becomes desensitized to the phrase, retreating into the background of the experience, so it's not as annoying as it could be at face value, but I don’t think it adds anything to the immediate reading experience. Sure, one could say that the inundation of so-called facts reflects the sorry state of American culture, lacking as it does respect for critical thinking skills, and thus everything is a ‘fact.’
As readers have been discovering, Ducks is not really a single sentence, even though saying so makes for great marketing doesn’t it, at least for a certain group of people who enjoy ostensibly challenging literature, like me. There are numerous instances on each page where a period could replace a comma. I think the commas are more of a visual phenomenon in this case rather than anything truly grammatical. I read somewhere that the publisher recommends taking breaks too. The "Penelope" episode of Ulysses, on the other hand, is much more of a single sentence and I pleasurably read it in one sitting.
While reading this, there was the feeling that "I could write that." Which is similar to the cliché critique of modern art. But with modern art, it's not about the skill of execution per se, but the feelings evoked by the piece. And I think that's the saving grace of this novel, the feelings it can evoke, not its subpar technicality or lack thereof. I think that’s why other people are really enjoying this novel, but it didn’t really resonate with me on that level either.
I didn’t love this, nor did I hate it, I found the prose style and the quotidian content to be just interesting/amusing enough to warrant an ambitiously mediocre label. It’s a long book, but not difficult, and it would be quite an easy read if you find the narrator’s thoughts particularly stimulating. I think one problem I had is that the narrator’s thoughts felt too obvious or platitudinous to me. After taking a break to read Omensetter’s Luck, I found that I had very little interest in returning to this book and with around 600 pages left, there are too many books I’m yearning to read in order to give this one more of my time. I pushed through all 850 pages of the mediocre-at-best The Runaway Soul by Harold Brodkey, hoping for some revelatory moment, but it never came, so I don’t want to go through something similar with Ducks.