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All rights reserved.The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994)
| Synopsis In this lively dark comedy, a hapless man named Quoyle is grief-stricken after his no-good wife dies in a car crash. He packs up his dog, his children, and an ancient aunt and returns to the old family home in the town of Killick-Claw, on the coast of Newfoundland, where he gets a job with the local newspaper covering the shipping news. Gradually, with the help of some members of the local population (in particular a young woman named Wavey), Quoyle becomes able to handle his life and become a good father to his children. THE SHIPPING NEWS won Annie Proulx the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. It was made into a movie in 2001, starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, and Judi Dench.
Publisher's Note E. Annie Proulx focuses on a Newfoundland fishing town in a tale about a third-rate newspaperman and the women in his life-- his elderly aunt and two young daughters-- who decide to resettle in their ancestral seaside home. The transformation each of the character undergoes following move is profound. A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, "The Shipping News" enlightens readers to the powers of E. Annie Proulx's storytelling genius and her expert evocation of time and place. She is truly one of the most gifted and original writers in America today. | Find errors in the product description? Submit a catalog update request now. | ||||||||||||||||
Reviews  Much better than the film and I thought that was good! As with most books made into film, the book is by far better but in this instance I saw the film first and read the book recently as a selection from our book club. What I wasn't prepared for was to love the book so much I can barely remember any details of the film...and at the time I loved it too. There's no question as to why the author won such a prestigious award for this book. Her use of the English language to describe the experiences in this book is brilliant. I found myself completely wrapped up in the characters...the ones I liked and the ones I disliked so much so that I began thinking about them when I wasn't reading the book. Wondering what they were planning to do, I even found myself wanting to visit Newfoundland despite the bleak picture painted in the novel. I really cared about Quoyle, his family and his friends as though I knew him too. It's not often a book can draw me in so completely but what pleasure when it does! Review ID: 10000000002786822 Was this review helpful? Report this review   Annie Proulx's Shipping News: An uplifting book about food , misery and insuranceReview created: 10/29/02 by: pageclot -- a member of Epinions Pros: In a quiet way, uplifting and gently humourous Cons: Suffers from typical writer obsessions with food, flora and fauna. Many years ago, a co-worker/friend of mine (Jeff) highly recommended The Shipping News to me, saying "You'll love it! It's about this depressed guy who winds up in Newfoundland writing about boats. The humour is just like yours, deadpan and dry. You'll really relate to this guy." I never got around to reading it, although his words did linger in my thoughts when I saw the (to me) rather baffling screen adaptation (with Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, and my favourite Canadian actor, Gordon Pinsent). The film moved me to buy the book, hunker down and read it in a comfy chair while... Review ID: 10000000000142000 Hearts Heal On The RockReview created: 10/04/00 by: miridunn -- a member of Epinions Pros: lively original writing; great characters; a tale as strange as any truth Cons: fragmented sentences a recurring technique Hive spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood. . P.1 Thirty-six year old Quoyle, a born loser, relocates from the States with his two young daughters to their ancestral home in Newfoundland -- his unfaithful and nymphomaniacal wife having sold the daughters to a pornographer photographer and dying in a freak car crash. Quoyle is scarred by both his wife s life and death, not understanding the difference between love and desperation, unable to later recognize the purity of a growing affection and attraction. He is scarred by his father s constant disapproval; he is... Review ID: 10000000000142009  This book won a what?Review created: 11/20/04 by: altecocker -- a member of Epinions Pros: It has what might be described as a subtle humor that permeates the book. Cons: Annoying "style" of writing, vague plot,shallow characters and not much point. I heard this book won a Pulitzer Prize. Moreover, it won a National Book Award and several other prizes, My son-in-law loved it; he gave it to my wife to read. She loved it. My son-in-law is an English Professor. My wife is..well, ...my wife. How could I not read it? So I read it. I read most of it, again, assuming I must have missed something the first time. It s only three hundred pages and some change, so it wasn t a terribly long task, but neither was it a pleasant one. If I missed something the first time, I also missed it the second. I didn't have the heart to try again. What, on earth,. Review ID: 10000000000142001 A tale worth telling.....Review created: 11/20/02 by: sandimck -- a member of Epinions Pros: Very different story line and writing style...both totally intriguing!<BR/> Cons: Maybe the writing style....until you get used to it. This is the first Annie Proulx work I've read..and only did so because it was our book club's selection. I found it to be engrossing, insightful, and interesting. Proulx's writing style was so different that it took me a while to get used to her fragmented sentences and curt, shorthand way of getting her point across. Once I quit 'fighting' her intentionally choppy and unique way with words...I got into the book completely. Quoyle, the main character, has nothing going for him.....he's beyond ugly: "A great damp loaf of a body. At six he weighed eighty pounds. At sixteen he was buried under a. Review ID: 10000000000142008 A K. Johnson ReviewReview created: 03/28/00 by: kjjrj -- a member of Epinions Pros: Author creates story with literary risks that define its atmosphere Cons: Not all of the risks work fully Annie Proulx has written a novel that seems to defy all the rules of a novel, and yet, in a strange way the reader can't understand, it seems to work. Even when the reader is certain shouldn't. The author breaks these rules without disturbing their underlying principles, and the reader is unsure how to react, but feels that for some reason, it works. Quoyle, the main character, is a passive character, as if his only role in this story is to comment on his environment. He is certainly not emotionally intriguing, and the reader can only stumble through the story with him. The point of view... Review ID: 10000000000142002 Epinions.com ratings are not included in the item's average rating. Links in this review may have been removed. |
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