The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (2001)

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, is particularly good about this book? Could it be the distracting, overly stylized writing such as the constant use of sentence fragments that detracted from, rather than improved the rhythm? Could it be the frequent sentences (or fragments) often several in one paragraph, that were started by conjunctions? These rarely seemed to have purpose, and when they did, the purpose was lost by the over frequent use of the device? The more traditional uses of the full panoply of punctuation, dashes, semi-colons, parentheses, single quotation marks, etc. would have served the rhythm much better, and not been so distracting. My impression was of a self conscious cuteness run amuck. It s a good idea to first understand the rules of grammar, syntax, and construction, before one chooses to break them all. O.K., I can t really think that the Pulitzer committee would reward horrible sentence structure, apparently as a mysterious device to produce some set in the reader to improve the receptiveness to the story. No, I fervently hope that this was not the draw of the book. So, what on earth was it?

Maybe it was the clever and tortuous plot, but probably not that, either, as there was virtually no plot. Possibly the brilliance was in the character development, but no, only one character was developed, and that one not very much. How about memorable and complex characters? I rather don't think that could be it, either. All of the characters were shallow (the men more than the women). And, the protagonist could be arguably described as having no personality. (See, beginning a sentence with a conjunction can be a useful device, just not three times a paragraph, for no apparent reason.) Maybe the committees were wowed by the clever choice of names of places to emphasize the story, such as, "Lost All Hope," "Never Once," "Bad Fortune," or the ever popular, "D*i*l*d*o*." To continue this cute trend, the character names were somewhat whimsically chosen, also, Sunshine, Bunny, Petal Bear, Wavey, Tert, Billy Pretty, even the character's names sported original spellings, Aunt Agnis, Herry. There is one common name, Wayne. Interestingly, he is a dog. Our hero's name is Quoyle (the same as the limp coil of rope on which deckhands walk in case we miss his character. Moreover, just to ensure that we understand his personality, he is accorded no visible first name. Actually, that is consistent with the literary depth of the character.
O.K., as far as I am concerned, its merit cannot be the writing style, the story or plot, or the characterizations. Moreover, Proulx appears to be enamored with metaphors. The book rests heavily on descriptive prose. In so doing it uses metaphor after metaphor, broken up by the occasional simile. Eventually, that gets a little thick, too. Perhaps there is something in the whole that far exceeds the sum of its parts. So, let us examine that.

The story. (See, a sentence fragment.) Quoyle, an unattractive slob of a man, is leading a loveless life. Actually, no one, certainly including himself, loves him. His parents committed suicide, choosing what is called a dignified end. He does have a friend, but he moves far away. Quoyle is also physically unattractive, fat, physiognomically challenged, and "drooping." But to compensate for these shortcomings, he has no particular skills, either socially or occupationally. Then he gets married to a nymphomaniac. Along with a number of other things in this story, the reader is left to invent the reason for this union, at least on his wife s part. She bears him two daughters, that we are lead to believe are his, sleeps around a great deal, sells the children, and dies in a car wreck while running off with her lover. Quoyle regains his daughters and is then convinced by a very handy aunt, Agnis Hamm, to move with her to his ancestral home in Newfoundland. Aunt Agnis, too, is bereaved. Her long time lover, Irene Warren (who was apparently blessed with one of the rare common names in this book so that she could bequeath it to Agnis dog.) Quoyle, who now has a bit of money from his wife's insurance policy, moves to Newfoundland and begins working as a reporter (really thinly diguised fiction writer) for the local newspaper the Shipping News. This is the start of Quoyle's character development.

The Shipping News is a newspaper in the literal meaning of that term only to the extent that it reports the comings and goings of local ships. Virtually everything else constitutes a reprise of old auto accidents, rapes, and another disaster or two, replete with the same pictures, used repeatedly. The staff comprises a group of ill defined, and strangely named characters who are defined primarily by one characteristic each. These defining characteristics are, each, the source of anxiety for that person, andthe assignment for writing in the Shipping News. For example, the lonely bachelor writes a column of interest to women, Quoyle writes of auto accidents (invented) because his wife (the only woman who ever even sort of loved him) was killed in one. In case the reader misses this subtlety, one of the staff of the paper explains it to Quoyle. Lots of symbolism is O.K., but not when it is always pointed out by the author, who, apparently thinks that the reader might not get it.

Quoyle works very hard in this barren, cold, and strange land, populated by strangely named people and featuring truly ghastly sounding foods. (I don t have the heart to repeat these.) He succeeds, well, sort of, certainly more than ever before; he finds love, self acceptance, and, eventually, happiness of a rather muted sort. Some of this is funny. There is an inherent humor (albeit a trifle black) in the writing that actually suffuses the book as a whole. But, for me, at least, it wasn't worth it. The symbolism is anything but subtle. Each chapter begins with a quote from a book of knots (which, Proulx says, inspired this book). Each quote foreshadows and explains the point of the chapter. I have to admit that I truly don t get the accolades that have been accorded this book. Other people must have seen more to it than I and I have to consider the possibility that the differences between my response to it and that of many others may not be only taste. If it communicates, amuses, and pleases other people to the degree that it apparently has, it must have some merit. But I am writing this review to express the way it struck me, and I cannot believe my response is unique. I don't know what characteristics in the reader will predict which of the highly polarized responses will be evoked in which reader. But people with similar educational levels, not generally dissimilar tastes, and very similar love for literature, evidently have very disparate views of "The Shipping News." Mine is not favorable and that is the only one that belongs in this review.


*That splendid editing program that doesn't recognize such arcane symbols as quotation marks or apostrophes, and has the vocabulary of a particularly dull fourth grader, would not accept the name of this town without modification. But later, I will tell you how I really feel about that wondrous program. Will somebody ever do something about it?