Rating: 
Summary: Unknotting a life - great story of healing
Review: This compelling. story start slowly and then gradually ropes you in. Quoyle is the main character; his name means coiled rope, and he is certainly a man with many knots. The book starts very painfully, as you're plunged into Quoyle's childhood. He is a true loser, demeaned and shunned. He lumbers through his first 2 decades oozing self-deprecation. Life happens to him, from meeting his only friend in a Laundromat, to stumbling into a journalist's job, which he does poorly. Quoyle is a self-esteem vacuum, waiting for disaster. Which happens when he meets and marries Pearl. He falls utterly in love with someone incapable of reciprocating, thus continuing the searing agony of his life.When a series of tragedies leave Quoyle to raise his daughters alone, he is helped in his grief by a distant aunt. And is encouraged to return with her to their ancestral home in Newfoundland. The first few chapters are a bit brutal because Quoyle's pain is so understated, and therefore so palpable. He's a hard character to follow along; there seems to be so much wrong in his life. But he's got a heart of gold, which makes it worth the discomfort of watching him suffer. The aunt is bracing; like cold sea-water thrown into your face. She too has heart, and old wounds. But unlike Quoyle, her response is to buck up and start problem-solving. At times this causes her to be brusque, but she is a needed tonic to Quoyle's lethargic self-loathing which threatens to consume him. The car ride up the eastern seaboard from New York begins the journey to the aptly named Newfoundland. What at first appears slow, is actually the subtle "unknotting" of Quoyle's life. In his new job with the local weekly paper, he is assigned the shipping news, and begins to uncover his writing voice telling the stories about the ships. With the aunt's help they begin rebuilding the family house that's stood empty for 40 years. He meets Wavey, also a single parent, also nursing hurts from the past. Very slowly Quoyle's life takes on a rhythm as he gets to know his neighbors and co-workers. He also begins to unravel the unsavoury heritage of his ancestors. Being thrown into these strange situations, he needs to start making choices, and so doing starts to shape his own life. Of course its not an easy path, which is another reason why the story needs to be slow. To be believable, to be a book you want to read, Quoyle uncoiling must be something we could hope for ourselves. One of the threads throughout the book is the role of community in making one whole. The small fishing village with its staggering poverty and abuse cases seems an unlikely place to get your life back together. In spite of their hardship, maybe because of it, many of the characters remain connected to a spirit of hope and compassion. The rugged landscape with its sound-changing mists and kaleidascope weather is backdrop to something more enduring that happens when people remember themselves and each other. And a warning when we forget. Isolation happens in crowded cities, as well as abandoned villages. The characters are quirky and memorable. You can tell Proulx lived in Atlantic Canada for awhile, because she writes such poignant stories about the people. The lure of the sea, living with the constant expectation of bereavement, the resourcefulness that weathers changing economies coupled with government ineptness. The tragedy that isolation can bring. The aunt with her lost loves and cable-whipped memories she must heal. Billy Pretty, a gnarled old batchelor and unlikely philosopher. Tert Card, ..., who gives you the creeps. Wavey's courage to raise her handicapped son. Al Yard's constantly singing the only song he knows. Quoyle's six-year-old daughter Sunshine, in her own journey of recovery from menacing white dogs. The subtle humour woven through the book is like one long joke in some ways, except the Newfie is having the last laugh. Proulx's language is interesting. She sprinkles sentence fragments into her text, giving it a choppy, wavy feeling. "Tert Card in a red shirt and white necktie, on the phone: Billy Pretty on the other line. Billy laughing, choking out dark sentences Quoyle couldn't understand, almost another language. Drumming rain, the bay stippled. The gas heater howled in the corner." After awhile you don't notice the choppiness, but it works on you anyway, like the way you feel the ocean swells even after you've been on dry land for awhile. It would take an extreme land at the extreme edge of a country to balance the extreme injustice of Quoyle's life. Not that he'd see it that way. In a way he just ended up in Newfoundland, and began trying to make the best of it. But it almost seems as if the place found him, opened him up, showed him himself, like the way one day he sees his naked body in the mirror and for the first time sees "strong" instead of "[fat]". And in another sense, Quoyle found himself. He had to or be lost forever; again the extreme places in our lives are often our friends. He had to start entering life, make choices, give of himself, instead of waiting for what would never come. This story stayed with me along time. It was very satisfying to read, like all good stories about healing. Reminds you that life is always more than what you can figure out. This mystery can be frightening or encouraging; often its both. But these characters endure with their human spirit intact. And so can any of us, when we become open to the life we've been given.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Review: Not everyone needs to be beautiful or witty to be worthy of love, or to have needs and desires. I loved the writing style and the interspersing of the descriptions of the knots from an old seaman's book (or was it?). This book may be slightly difficult to read, but it is truly great. The movie is a shameful representation of an uncomfortable, yet charming, story.
Rating: 
Summary: Novel of Awakening my eye!
Review: This book was a wretched read. I tried valiantly to finish it, thinking surely it must get better. It didn't. The prose was so choppy that I ended up seasick, and the characters were so unsympathetic and pathetic that I didn't care if they "awoke" or not. Not that it mattered because they never did. If anything they went from a coma to a fitful doze. This book was as dark and choppy as the Newfoundland sea but without the ferocious beauty and granduer. This woman won a pulitzer prize!?
Rating: 
Summary: I'm a bit puzzled by all the hype
Review: Because of circumstances beyond my control (trapped in one room on a 90 degree night, a room with a malfunctioning air conditioner), I read this book in one sitting. Even so, I don't think the heat addled my brain - or my viewpoint.
The book was a slow read. It focused on one man, Quoyle, who has had more than his fair share of hard luck. His unfaithful wife, a woman he loved no matter what, has the misfortune to die in a car accident, leaving her two children with Quoyle. He can't seem to hold on to a job at the local newspaper and finally takes a job in Newfoundland. Needless to say, he doesn't think much of himself and doesn't hold out much hope for finding real love. But he is determined to make the best of things, if for no other reason than that he loves his children passionately. They are the focus of his life and he feels a responsibility to them.
The writing is vivid, the details memorable but the plot line is slow and meandering. I got through it only by taking many breaks and drinking lots of caffeine -and, in all honesty, might have given up entirely if the heat hadn't kept me awake.
If you like a lot of action and excitment, this one won't do. On the other hand, if you want a glimpse of a life totally unlike the one you are living (unless you happen to be a Newfoundlander who lives far from civilization), of days spent outside or along the shore, of a hardscrabble existence, you may enjoy reading this one. And Quoyle himself does undergo a metamorphisis of sorts, becoming more hopeful and finding some joy by the close of the book. In case you plan to read this one, I won't give away any more details but will say that this one certainly didn't live up to my expectations.
Rating:
Summary: Keep going
Review: You have to do more than just start reading this book. I thought I hated it at first too. I hated the sentence fragments bursting out at the reader, chopping at rather than telling the story. Then I realized there was purpose to the style, and I began to appreciate it. It was like newspaper headlines that shout out the bare bones (the main character is learning to be a newspaperman); gradually the story is fleshed out and the sentence style becomes more graceful. The writing style develops along with the characters, which is neat to watch.
Rating: 
Summary: A dramatic but dark comical of a man's recovered life.
Review: After finding so much pain in love, Quoyle decides to get away and rediscover his life with his two kids. He meets many new people that change his life, but some things he just can't get past. This book showed promises and hardships, but it didn't interest me much. Annie Proulx used a great plot yet she put so much detail into matters that it ruined the whole point. This book has many twists and turns that make it hard to follow all the characters. Also, the author put a lot of useless information that made the storyline drag. Although I didn't enjoy the book, it is all in the perspective of the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing and Indifferent
Review: I recently finished this novel...i have to say that i never usually dislike a book to the extent that i disliked this one...and when i heard they were making a movie out of it i was shocked...i did give one star b/c annie proulx's writing style is mesmerizing and lyrical in a unique sort of way...but the subject matter was grey and dull...the plot was lacking something, as well...i only finished this book to see what the final culmination of all of these characters would be like and obviously if u read it, you know...the ending was just as bizarre and dry as the rest of the book...sorry annie...it was a chore to finish this one...kristen from NJ...
Rating:
Summary: A Culmination of Style, Almost a Masterwork
Review: If this is the first Annie Proulx you read, you may get confused and then you've missed the point. Don't start with Shipping News. Delve back into Ms. Proulx's history and start with her earlier works. These are the primers for her style and it only gets better with each new work. Disregard the other reviews posted here about the book being difficult or tedious. These are readers that want a quick fix and they would be better served reading a book of her short stories, such as Wyoming Stories. The reviewers who gave her bad marks are also readers who don't recognize prose, even when it is at it's best. Annie Proulx paints the page with words as much as she writes. The style is delicious and much like a great meal, you don't want the book to end. The characters may be somewhat on the edge of unbelievability, but this is fiction, so relax and enjoy. No character gets killed off suddenly and you get to learn about each person as they evolve throughout this dense and complex work. Don't let the movie throw you off, either. The producers picked badly with Kevin Spacey, and would have done better with Nick Nolte or Gerard Depardieu. These actors have the height, coloring and bulk needed to play the central character of Quoyle, a huge, shy and clumsy man who is both pathetic and lovable. The only Proulxism that I'm not fond of is her "laundry list" style of discription in some cases. Mention 2 or 3 items in the list and you've given me enough to get a feel for the scene. Mention 9 items in a list and you've started to become tedious. But, that said, she does what she does well, and these are temporary setbacks in an otherwise perfect book. So, read Wyoming Stories, move on to Postcards and then try your hand at Shipping News. You'll love each for the rich discriptions and the eccentric characters woven throughout.
Rating:
Summary: The Shipping News Review
Review: The Shipping News is a book written by E.Annie Proulx. This book tells the story of a man named Quoyle. Quoyle had a rough life because of his physical appearance. He had been over-weight, he worked for newspaper office a job which he had not been very good at. Quoyle married a horrible woman, she treated him awful, but they managed to have two children together. E. Annie Proulx wrote a very descriptive novel about how Quoyle had to over come the many obstacles in his life. Once the woman he was married to died he and his aunt moved back to their native land of Newfoundland. He was then faced with the troubles of losing a woman whom he loved but had never received any in return from and was now facing a new way of life in Newfoundland.Throughout the novel Quoyle is faced with many obstacles,none of which he overcomes until the end. Misery is the only thing Quoyle,his aunt and daughters had ever experience. It was known as the Quoyle family curse. The book is very descriptive with the dialect it uses. E. Annie Proulx uses dialect from Newfoundland. The book is mostly written in the voice of Newfoundlanders. This technique allows you to understand how they felt, spoke and acted during that time. One difficulty to the book is that the author goes from a character talking to its thoughts in one sentence. This gives us insight to the internal conflicts of each character. It shows their true feelings toward life and what type of person they really are. It makes the novel interesting, but can make it hard to understand at sometimes. Proulx also varies in the type of characters she uses. She gave all the characters either minor or major an obstacle to overcome. Some overcame them better than others and some were there to help the main characters overcome their biggest fears. Proulx shows a balance of opposites in the novel. All the bad things happening in the beginning led to the wonderful things to come in the end. She showed that through misery you can find greatness. This book will take you over a time period in a mans life when he had to face the facts that outer beauty is not what counts. It takes you to a place where misery comes often and shows that for every bad thing something good will eventually come. Although the beginning of the book may seem boring the ending is what counts. The time it takes to read this is worth it all.
Rating:
Summary: This is a Good Book!
Review: This is really a good book! The characters are rich and engaging. The prose is wonderful. The story really drew me in and kept me reading avidly until the end. This is NOT the kind of book I usually read, but I really liked it! It is a rare book that can create such a vivid atmosphere - you almost feel like you've lived there yourself. I recommend it.
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