Rating: 
Summary: The marks of a great writer
Review: It's an old story: personal disaster redeemed by the return to a man's roots: family, home and nature. In the first thirty pages the main character suffers a sequence of personal losses that lead him back to his family's home in Newfoundland. There he discovers the force of the sea, a folksy community, a job for which he seems underqualified (except for the rest of the editorial staff) and himself. I loved the pace; the original, direct style of Proulx's prose and the discovery of Newfoundland, which I have never visited but seems familiar and imposing at the same time. Style, timing, originality and humanity...those are marks of a great writer. Read it for that, and Proulx will take you to Newfoundland for free.
Rating: 
Summary: The Shipping News
Review: Large and awkward, Quoyle struggles through young adulthood, unsuccessfully battling feelings of inadequacy in every area of his life. Following a domestic tragedy which brings his uselessness and submissiveness to the forefront, Quoyle gathers his two young daughters and joins his aunt for a relocation to the land of their ancestors, Newfoundland. The Shipping News is an entertaining tale, full of emotion. Written in short chapters, the book reads as a series of interlocking and continuing stories, involving many intriguing characters. The author uses quotes and illustrations from the Ashley Book of Knots to open each chapter, fitting with the theme, which adds another dimension to the book. Set mostly in Newfoundland, The Shipping News brings to life the people and landscape of the northern Canadian communities along the ocean. The author constantly uses sentence fragments to bring forth sensations and perceptions in a brisk manner, which I found to be annoying after some time. However, the crisp style does suit the tone of the the environment and people contained in the story. Another point that comes to my mind is the idea that Quoyle needed to move to the semi-wilderness to grow and reach his potential as a person. The novel portrays rural dwellers as essentially good and hardworking, while city dwellers are generally corrupt and unsatisfied with their lives. Of course, the myth of the wilderness as pure and full of redemption is a powerful and ongoing American ideal, which doesn't necessarily hold up in real life. Overall, The Shipping News is an interesting novel and a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Same story... different setting
Review: A lot of books are about man's struggle, etc. Frankly, it gets a bit boring and "ho-hum" after awhile. The only difference with this novel is the location: Newfoundland.
As a Canadian, I have been to Newfoundland and I think the author's depiction is really off base. I believe it gives readers a false impression of what this maritime province is really like.
Some characters are annoying and I'm not a huge fan of her narrative voice. I also dislike the excessive use of sentence fragments. This is, of course, personal preference. My opinion of the book is that the use of descriptive detail and imagery and other literary devices conceals the fact that the plot is fairly bland.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Book...
Review: In The Shipping News Annie Proulx tells the fascinating tale of love. Obese double chinned Quoyle has never, from the moment of his birth just off-shore off the American coast, experienced happiness. He lives, but only in sub reality, engrossed in a world of torture, where he is only a disposable tool.
But suddenly he is freed of his abusers and exploiters in a flurry as his wife dies in a car crash, parents leave his world and the Mockingbird newspaper fires him. Quoyle's first instinct is still to run, but his aunt steps in, recuperates his children and as savior of his life carries him to the land of his heritage, Newfoundland. Now aunt and nephew are set in a barren land to claim two lives that have never before existed.
Telling the story of the caricatures which are scorned by society, lives missing and incomplete Proulx brings life to these dummies. A marvelous book, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, The Shipping News zooms through a life, filling us with philosophical inspiration.
Rating:
Summary: Great Novel
Review: Annie Proulx gives the masses a great treat with "The Shipping News". The novel shows the live of Quoyle, a man who has had it rough his whole life. His parents hated him, people in gereral seemed to hate him, and just recently his wife just left him with two kids, while he doesn't really have a stable job. After his wife died, he gained a substantial sum of money from life insurance. So his aunt comes down to vist him and convinces him to return to his ancestrial home in Newfoundland. While their Proulx gives us a cast of strange, yet funny people. While in Newfoundland Quoyle finds love, people that like him, a stable job as a writer for the local newspaper, and discovers a part of himself he didn't know was there. This book truely is a great, and if you havn't read this book yet, GO OUT AND BUY IT, because it is definately worth it.
Rating:
Summary: To Inherit the Desolate Heritage or The Juice of a Turnip
Review: Newfoundland is very much an unpleasant smelling vegetable: a Newfie joke with a sharp spine.
"The Shipping News" is a crafted piece that like a Shakespearean play has standard devices: one of a kind people and places, haunting history, pathos and improbability. I'm glad I read it and I think I'll probably have to read it again to really get it. This novel is one of those rare things: The Great American Novel. People and novels are not always what they seem to be on the surface.
Rating: 
Summary: She can write, but cannot tell a good story.
Review: The authors writing was poetic, but the story was less than mediocre. Just another story of a mans inner struggle, only a different setting.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Deserved Pulitzer Winner
Review: The first time I tried to read this book, it was a little hard to get into. The second time, I read all the way through in just a couple of days. Proulx's descriptions of the Newfoundland scenery and fishing made me want to visit just to see the beauty. Her love of the land comes through in her characters' attachment to the land. The place we come from makes a profound difference in our identity. In order to get a full picture of our identity we must explore that aspect of ourselves. This is a common theme in postmodern literature, but Proulx puts a different twist on the theme by choosing to write about Newfoundland--not a typical place for average people to be exploring their roots. By choosing a land that means a lot to her, she opens the way for others to connect with their own little pocket of the world. The importance of place is evident in Quoyle's transformation from a quiet, useless, bumbling fool into a competant, strong, admirable character. In the beginning, before he goes back to Newfoundland, you can see indications that he could become strong. He is a devoted friend, father, and even husband in the face of his wife's infidelity. When he moves back to his birthplace and connects with his past, his strength becomes more active. He is not only able to overcome his own past, but he is also able to be a good father and to help Wavey to heal from her past. I strongly disagree with the reviewers that say this book does not have a good story. I was drawn in by the events in Killick-Claw. I did not find the sentance fragments distracting in the least. They created a great sense of character--especially for a simple character like Quoyle. This book is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Yar, more literary puffery
Review: One of the reasons that I can sustain a belief in my own inherent coolness is that I don't fall for a lot of novels that people ooh and ahh over, promising new writers, literary geniuses, all that blather. Nabokov was a literary genius. This chick ain't. Her writing style is affected, cutting out most pronouns, which I guess is supposed to give you a clue into the observational or verbal tendencies of her subjects, but really just makes her sound tangential. And her juxtapositions of words, the thing that most writers work on so intently in order to make their writing distinctive, is slack, haphazard, and stands out only for its unintentionally oxymoronic nature-- lacking even irony, which would at least make it work. I suppose the only true irony at play here is that her main character is a mediocre writer. Proulx doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between the concepts of "effortless prose" and lack of effort. Her imagery is vague and boring: "eyes the color of plastic" and "wall the color of insect wings" don't tell me anything-what the heck color is "plastic?" and is the wall then papery and white or translucent and iridescent? I can't tell and it's supposed to be a telling detail, not something that breaks up the flow of the story with momentary confusion. The protagonist engenders no sympathy, rather you feel sorry for those around him, who have to be in this dumb book about him when they would have made even slightly more interesting subjects for a long narrative. The "sense of place" aspect of the book, something that usually captures me since I love nature writing, is developed but at the same time endlessly bland, I guess the same color as Quoyle's plastic eyes. All in all, I wish I had spent the time reading the Ashley Book of Knots, which seems infinitely more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very bad
Review: I'm from Newfoundland and I was a little offended by this book. We are not all that ignorant, we just have a very distinct culture.
As for the plot, it really wasn't great. I didn't like Quoyle and I certainly didn't enjoy his daughter or mother who were both moody, spoiled brats. And his wife irritated me everytime she was mentioned. The family moves here so Quoyle can start a new life where he originally hails from. And he also finds out that he is better than anyone expected - he gets a job and a girlfriend.
If you liked the movie, don't think you'll like the book, too. The movie was not incredibly true to the book. Case in point - Kevin Spacey is not a large lumbering fool as our hero is described to be.
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