Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful Book
Review: Ms. Proulx's writing is hard to get use to at first, but after a while you get use to this. What's amazing is how the short abrupt sentences really fit the character and the story. The people in this book are strange but they have strong emotions and true fears. This book does not over exagerate emotions, just like in real life, nor does it overdo the action such as so many other books. This book is interesting in the secrets revealed and just the feeling you get from it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Patience of Job
Review: "The Shipping News" is the story of Quoyle, a man who doesn't quite fit in...anywhere. He wasn't the greatest son, or the greatest husband, or the greatest father, or even the greatest employee. Still, we can't help but like Quoyle because he knows he isn't the greatest and he cares. He wants to do something about it. He gets his chance when his wife, Petal, abducts and sells their two young daughters and then is killed in an auto accident.Quoyle's Aunt makes a sudden and quite fortuitous appearance, en route to her ancestral home, a small fishing village in costal Newfoundland. She suggests that Quoyle and his daughters (yes, he gets them back, and it gives absolutely nothing of the plot away to let you know this) tag along with her and, needing a change of pace, Quoyle agrees. In Newfoundland, Quoyle's luck doesn't really seem to improve much. He finds work at the local paper, "The Gammy Bird," covering the "shipping news," which basically entails reporting which ships have docked and which have just left port. He meets a variety of interesting people and, along the way, he tries to improve his life. Does he succeed? Yes and no. I found "The Shipping News" to be both good and not so good, in very different ways. It's a slow book and one in which it takes a very long time to become engrossed. It is a book that has to "grow on you." I know other books are like this, but none of them should be. Whether quiet or thriller, melancholy or madcap, a good book (and a good writer) grab the reader on the very first page and pull him in, with the very first sentence, if possible. The characters in "The Shipping News" are very interesting, eccentric characters who want to make changes in their lives, but we didn't see that until far too many pages had been turned. Proulx's style of writing is different. Choppy, with missing verbs, incomplete sentences. This would have been fine with me, (I enjoy it when an author tries something new with style), but Proulx didn't vary the choppy sentences with any longer ones. She wouldn't have had to compromise her style to give us a little break from the staccato rhythm of her story. As it was, it almost gave me a headache. The descriptions of Newfoundland were beautiful. Maybe a little too beautiful. Proulx seemed to care more about "selling" us on the beauties of Newfoundland than she seemed to care about her characters. These were very good characters, marvelous creations (despite far too many "cute" names), but they simply didn't do anything that could cause us to care about what happened to them and to their lives. And whose fault was that? I realize this is a quiet book about a quiet man attempting to make quiet changes in his life. But quiet doesn't have to mean slow and ponderous and yes, sometimes boring. It really does take the patience of Job to finish all of this book. And what about the symbolism? I like symbolism in a book. I think it adds much to the atmosphere, but the symbolism in "The Shipping News" was heavy-handed, to say the least. The book was meant to be bleak, I realize that, and it works best bleak, but the symbolism could have used a lighter touch. Proulx could have trusted her readers a little more. We do get it; we really don't need to be hit over the head...every time. I very much prefer character driven books over plot driven books, but I do need for the characters to do something or feel something or be involved with something. To simply sit there and wait just isn't enough. The end of the book almost works. It would have worked if Proulx could have resisted the urge to give us that heavy-handed bit of foreshadowing. I didn't expect or want the book to end in a sugar-and-spice happily-ever-after scenario, so I'm glad Proulx didn't give in to that. I don't know what more I can say about "The Shipping News." Parts of it were ponderous and parts of it were beautiful. Parts of it were very beautiful. I think they were just the wrong parts.
Rating: 
Summary: The Shipping News
Review: Clearly the Pulitzer Prize judges were either from a country that feared it was losing its tourist trade to Newfoundland or from a fishing industry that felt it was losing business to cod or they were all Alfred Hitchcock fans and loved that every description of food was so disgustingly unappealing (note: Hitchcock purposely made all food in his films look disturbing). The book was bleak. That's all. The ending was predictable in character growth and the events and we were given a happy ending (and I like happy endings). However, there were 337 pages and only about 30 of them were given to actual plot. Several story lines which could have been interesting were left hanging to give us more room for empty and endless descriptions. If the author's purpose was to make sure that tourism never finds its way to Newfoundland, well, she succeeded with me. As for character growth, apparently many are seeing something I didn't. Quoyle's growth was in spite of himself. He didn't embrace it, he resigned himself to it and finally "settled." There was no exploration of his inner feelings about the growth, we were presented with it at the end. The characters were as gloomy as everything else in the book. As for the writing, yes, it was different. Daring? Well, not to me, but that's merely an opinion. It was certainly difficult enough for the editor to make several mistakes - mispellings and even a couple of words left out. I'm fighting the urge to go back over it with a red pen. I just keep thinking that though different is sometimes interesting, that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. To be fair though, my taste runs more to story. If you love words and vivid description and need very little story, this would probably be a book for you. Though written more like screenplay descriptions, the author captured her mood and scene perfectly at every moment. I must admit, though, I'm dying to see the movie now just to see what sort of story they saw in this book. Clearly I missed it.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible Story
Review: This book has definitely made it into my top 10 favorites. I was worried that I could not get into it at first, but once I did, I could not put it down. It was beautifully written, I could imagine myself in Newfoundland hearing the roar of the ocean.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing prose and thought provoking characters
Review: As a 36-year old hack writer for a third rate new paper Quoyle didn't expect much out of life. His father treated him like a huge disappointment. His brother regarded him as a waste of space and let him know at every opportunity. His wife cheated mercilessly with any man she met. And, his boss fired him every time college interns were available at a lower rate. You get the sense that this man's sense of self-worth was so low that he considered himself a slug and deserving of the abuse that was heaped upon him. He finally gets a break, or so it seems, when his wife runs off with another man. Unfortunately, she took Quoyle's young daughters with her. His frantic search for them ends in Texas where they are poised in the clutches of a pedophile with a camera. His wife sold them. Luckily, the wife is killed in a dreadful car accident. Still astonishingly, Quoyle mourns deeply for his beloved wife. Enter the long lost Aunt who suggests they all move back to Newfoundland, their ancestral homeland. Does his life turn around? Not really. Newfoundland is a harsh land with a fumbling economy. The beauty of this novel is the prose. Written from the mind of a newsman, Proulx presents direct sentences and occasionally a headline to tell her story. The characters were also intriguing. The women were either horrid, children, lesbian or strangely silent. As she is a female writer, I was surprised that she gave a stronger voice to the men. The charm of this point of view was that the theme of different types of women in a man's life played throughout the story. Through the misery of life around him, Quoyle eventually learns that he can love with out misery and he can overcome the viciousness of his father's sins.
Rating:
Summary: That which does not kill me . . .
Review: Nietsche asks us not to read his books "like a looting soldiers," choosing appealing passages at random from his aphorisms; instead, we are to read ourselves into "a passionate mood" in order to perceive the short rays of light that will lead us onward and upward. Annie Proulx gives a the story of an outsider, somebody who is a little slow, a little off, a shy - whose world is less than great. Way less than great. She hints at his character in the first line of the book - "Quoyle: A coil of rope". He will be used. He falls into both opportunities and his own private hell. I liked the style of the writing, the quirkiness of the characters, the strangeness of the setting, the magic of it all. It reminds me of Vonnegut (Welcome To The Monkey House, Slaughterhouse Five, The Sirens Of Titan). I hope you enjoy it also.
Rating:
Summary: Different Perspective
Review: Not a traditional perspective on life for a Texan, which is why I recommend it. It is inventive and truthful, looking at life in Newfoundland. Proulx does not try to solve the mysteries of life; nor does she paint the picture of life "happily ever after". Rather, she honestly shows how those mysteries of life accumulate to become life itself.
Rating:
Summary: Better at the end
Review: I bought this book to read on the airplane, and it was a good diversion for a long flight. It took quite a while to get into the book and for me to care what happened to these characters, but I did and in the end I enjoyed seeing Quoyle triumph, even if only in a limited way. The writing style gets a little tiresome, because it is a little too staccato, but the style fit the characters and the place and provided kind of a sensation of the place, which is harsh and difficult. Overall, I liked it.
Rating: 
Summary: Forget it!
Review: I don't think I even read to page 100, just could not get into this book. I read constantly and keep track of the books I read by author, by year to make sure I don't pick up one that sounds good that I have read before.
I think the main reason I checked this out from the library was because it had been made into a movie. All I could think about when I started it was the description of the main character sure didn't fit Kevin Spacey!
So giving this one star even is not a qualified rating. Sorry but no thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Boring... and the language didn't help
Review: I have pick this book up and set it down several times, hoping that with each time I would be hooked. But it never came. The language is disjointed and fractured, the plot is lacking and not terrible original. The prose, however, is original. But I still couldn't get past the fact that I just didn't care about the characters and what happened to them. Usually, if I can't get through a book, I shelf it from 4-6 months and try it again because sometimes my frame of mind interferes with my ability to enjoy a book. I mean, I picked this book up because the synopsis made it sound interesting. I really couldn't care less about the reviews since most of these same people endorse a number of what I feel are really [bad] books. But I'll be back in a few months.
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