Rating: 
Summary: Man Trips on Rope, Recovers
Review: The bowline is used where it is necessary that the knot hold without binding except to the standing part. It may be used on a mooring line, instead of a braided loop. (from The Guterson Book of Knots) I can write like that. It is an odd way to write. For me it is. Man Writes Sentence Fragments. After I read the book, I read some reviews. They loved it. They hated it. I didn't even read the same book. Evidently, I cannot read the same book. Would they know it if it bit them? Pulitzer Prize! What did they think they were reading? A storybook? Good book, though. Yes, good. Why not? It's funny, in a way, that people can see so much, without seeing what they're looking at. The amazon.com review says, "Quoyle ... is slowly transformed by the strengthening ties that bind him to the place and to his fellow Newfoundlanders." Ties that bind! Is this the same book? Yes, I know. Style and substance. Always a trade-off. Of Picasso asked, "Why do you not paint things like they really are?" Man shows him a photograph of wife. "Is she really that small?" Picasso asks. A reader can be put off by style. Almost was. Man Trips on Rope, Recovers. The rocks have names, the icebergs none. The Quoyles have history. Great hulking ugly thing, dragged there. To new-found land. The Quoyles have names. Not the Quoyle, though. An iceberg. Managing Editor: R. G. Quoyle. No, not an iceberg. The house, a standard metaphor. Fixing up the old house. Anchored on the point with cables, that's something. Far from other people. Anchored on the point, that's the point. "The old place of the Quoyles, half ruined, isolated, the walls and doors of it pumiced by stony lives of dead generations. ... Nothing would drive them out a second time." Ashes, ashes, all fall down. Can I see it? Can I miss the point? Pollock splatters, Monet points. Dots of different sizes is all. Phrases that wander through pages of Melville, Faulknerian strolls through southern gardens of effusive, continuous description. Words, only words. Words are names of things. Rocks have names. Knots have names. People, too. Periods are dots. Joseph Conrad would be proud. More, though. There is much more to it than that. Style and substance. More than that, because of the word "and". The tale is not only in the story, it is also in the telling. And not just that. The story is multiplied in the telling. This is the calculus. "Quoyle remembered crying, 'I can't see it!' to a math teacher who turned away, gave no answers." Of all the things that may happen, some things are rarer than others. Where some see happy endings, others see new beginnings. Some see cruel fate. Listed among rare events is love without pain. Listed last. "'Not a word of truth in it,' she screamed, purple with laughing. 'But how she makes you think there was! Oh, she's terrible good!'"
Rating: 
Summary: An instructive but vastly overrated look at a late bloomer.
Review: E. Annie Proulx has a gift for describing the ocean that even the late Jacques Cousteau might envy. At one point in this otherwise overrated story, she describes an unruffled bay as "an aluminum tray dotted with paper boats." And she's equally vivid when the weather turns nasty: "Translucent thirty-foot combers the color of bottles crashed onto stone, coursed bubbles into a churning lake of milk shot with foam."
Unfortunately, dead-on maritime observation and the main character's amusing habit of thinking in headlines can't by themselves redeem a meandering plot whose revelations are telegraphed whole chapters in advance of their appearance. Notice, too, that nearly every reviewer swoons over the Proulx style. Her writing is described as "staccato," "atmospheric," "vivid," and "unique." Phooey! Clerks at Western Union have been writing this way for decades. Proulx simply gets more mileage from sentence fragments than anyone else. It's a good trick, but it verges on self-parody after awhile. Some of us still believe that the best writing styles are the ones you don't notice. Bottom line: while reading this book, I stopped to read three others.
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile read, but overrated.
Review: This book is good for a few reasons, mostly Ms. Proulx's exceptionally vivid imagery. She creates colorful pictures with, it seems, great ease, by stringing together a few words in short, efficient sentences or in sentence fragments. She's also very funny. There's a line I won't soon forget, at the novel's start, about how the pathetic Quoyle spends his nights: "Dreamt of love. Why not? A free country." My problem with the novel is its slowly paced, predictable plot: Likable guy goes from an unbelievably miserable life to an unbelievably sweet and happy one. That's not to say the idyllic ending in itself is bad; it was the long, slow progression to the happy ending that I object to. I didn't expect that particular problem. The novel starts off strong, witty and sharp, not taking itself too seriously and presenting an instantly sympathetic protagonist, whose life is summarized neatly with the telling of a few heartbreaking, absurd events. Once Quoyle gets to Newfoundland, however, the story grinds to a virtual halt. The clarity of the early chapters is gone. Suddenly, it seems you're trudging through a series of vignettes that have little to do with one another: Quoyle's daughter has irrational fears; she gets over them. An unhappily married couple visit the harbor; weeks later, the man's murdered body drifts ashore by Quoyle's house. Life on Newfoundland can be dull; the assistant who works for Quoyle's aunt is desperately trying to get a job elsewhere. Fascinating. Some of these anecdotes are amusing, but they don't weave together to create much of anything, certainly not any explanation of the fairy tale magic that transforms Quoyle from a pathetic oaf at the novel's start to a robust self-assured man at the end. At the same time, the writer has an annoying tendency of skimming over events that are significant to Quoyle's development as a character. For instance, he apparently witnesses some sort of mishap with an oil tanker that heightens his appreciation for the island environment. But we're not there when it happens -- we learn about it during a newsroom conversation days after the fact. Similarly, Quoyle's friendship with Dennis and Beety seems to be significant; after all, back in upstate New York he was a social moron, unable to maintain any normal relationship outside of his friendship with the pitying Partridge. But again, the reader doesn't really see the new friendship being formed -- one day Quoyle meets Dennis and Beety, then suddenly they're all sitting down to dinner like long lost relatives at holiday-time. I found these omissions a bit frustrating, and they made me less tolerant of Ms. Proulx's endless digressions into the history of old sea storms and oddly shaped rocks in Newfoundland waters. I don't mean to sound too critical -- the book is definitely worth reading. It's a sweet story and, again, the descriptive writing is fun. I'm just surprised by all the unqualified praise for this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A sweet, humorous and poignant story of hope and love.
Review: Meet Quole--with few friends and even fewer social graces. We wince as life repeatedly takes advantage of him. Finally, in his late '30s, he comes into his own. Just as a puppy grows into its clumsy feet and big ears, Quole learns how to navigate life, love, work, family and friends. It helps us believe that there's hope for the underdog in all of us! And the author's prose style is marvelous, poetic and captivating, staccato with words well-chosen. An excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: It was brilliant. My life feels emptier without this book in my hands. I've been searching for a book like this since I started reading 20 years ago. I hope it's not another 20 before I find another!
Rating:
Summary: one of the best books I've ever read
Review: The best part about this book, and there are many, is the characters. Proulx's development of these people, and the detail she gives them down to the dialouge, makes this book the gem that it is. I also loved the way she intertwined such a deep understanding of the community and lifestyle of Newfoundland into the story. This book is for people who love the sea, love good characters, good writing, and want to be immersed within a culture.
Rating:
Summary: The chocolate eclair in a bag of Woolworth's "pick and mix"
Review: Thank you E.Annie Proulx for doing what hundreds of self help books haven't managed to do. To make me realise that every love affair is different. This is a totally fabulous book. I am SO glad that I read it. If you haven't read it I don't recommend that you read the very last review you will find here as it gives away everything!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book.
Review: This was one of those rare books that I could not put down. I was in Newfoundland, and felt the quiet, solemn beauty of the land. The characters were my neighbors, real people living hard lives but accepting of their fate. As for Quoyle, he is everyman, a hero for the fact that he changes his situation in life and makes an otherwise unremarkable life become extraordinary.
Rating:
Summary: I feel privileged to have read this book.
Review: The transformation of a "loser." Wonderful writing. Great descriptions of tough people in a difficult environment. Fascinating "types." Great descriptions of colours in a land where there is no colour. Puts Newfoundland on my must-see list. At first I had trouble with the style -- so many sentence fragments! -- but by the end it was a totally natural. Three great reads in one year (Moo, Jane Smiley; The Englishman's Boy, Guy Vanderhaeghe). Who needs computers and TV?
Rating:
Summary: Some of the best writing I've come across.
Review: The protagonist of the novel isn't really what we think of as a hero, and the reader doesn't really like him at first. Once you get into the book, you suddenly realize two things - this simple, unpretentious writing is so good, you've fallen into the cold world of the Northern fishermen. (quite an accomplishment with a Atlanta reader). The second thing the book makes you realize is how petty and superficial our society is - the protagonist is not good-looking, and he seems like kind of a goof- that's not what TV and movies teach us that a hero is supposed to be. The reader starts realizing that the goof is a true hero, as are the rest of the plain, hard-working inhabitants of the story. This is what books are supposed to do - make us look at ourselves or our environment and question the 'truths' we've been submerged in.
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