This was another title I wrote down after browsing in a bookstore. The author is Annie Proulx (of Brokeback Mountain fame) and clearly a talented story teller. The title sounded familiar and after talking to my sister, I remembered that they made a movie based on this story. I'll have to rent it to see if it does justice to the wonderful writing.
A colorful book in a very drab setting, Newfoundland, each chapter begins with a title heading and description from Ashley Book of Knots that introduces the subject matter to come. The main characters are unusual, interesting and richly developed. The author varies her writing style depending on what is happening with the book. She writes with choppy and incomplete sentences when she narrates certain characters and with fluid and descriptive prose when creating a landscape. I wouldn't say it's a page turner....I could definitely put it down, but I really cared what happened to Quoyle and his daughters and Wavey and Beety and Dennis. I liked seeing them progress and improve and become closer.
I don't think I'd ever want to live in a small, isolated area. Seems like a lot of freaks and geeks congregate together and weird stuff happens. But that provided some of the quaintness of this book. Very well crafted.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Book Review #14 - The Shipping News
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1 comment:
Holy cow book review #14. Now that is impressive. I will give it to you, if I can put a book down (or it looses my interest) it collects dust for months. I was also bummed last night to find out my bookclub was very VERY conservative. I mentioned several of the books that I knew you had read along with some other friends....of course they were like, "Um have you personally read that." well no but my friend has. Well we don't want to read it because at least one of us needs to." My thought was whatever. Where is a fun book club like Lucy's when I need it.
On another note we ended up finally choosing a fun one for next month: Freak Economics. At least that one will be normal. After that who knows!
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