This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family. Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a 'head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features as bunched as kissed fingertips,' is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle's Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family's unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives. Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above seventy degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it's easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents). As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph-in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover's knot.… (more)
Jannes: Proulx focuses on one particular and personal fate, Jensen writes about a whole town in the voice of a vague, collective "we". The former places her story in modern-day Newfoundland, the later in 19th and early 20th century Denmark.
What they have in common is the ever-present sea, its influence and demands, and how the people that relies on if for sustenance has learned to accept its whims and live with the consequences of a life at sea.… (more)
I was thinking yesterday about the unforgettable last line of this book, "And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery." And of the lasting impact it had on me. One of these days, I'm going to re-read the whole thing. ( )
I've heard nothing about this, but the title pops up every now and then. It's quiet, slice of life, but very personal and preceptive. I enjoyed the setting in Newfoundland as well, that was unique. ( )
Annie Proulx's style of writing calls to mind the old saying of new shoes and how they pinch the feet until the owner gets used to them, or is it the shoes that get used to the owner? In any case, Proulx is an excellent writer, and this story required some patience on my part. At first it seemed as though just as I was getting into the story, it would make a jerk and toss me off my course until at some point the fragments seemed to align themselves and what was the final piece, was a beautiful mosaic, exquisitely rendered.
Quoyle, the main character in this novel, is an outcast with what he calls generational ill luck. From childhood, he has been bullied and shut off by his family and those around him with the exception of his friend Partridge. His wife Petal hates him, abuses and misuses him while leaving all parental duties of their two daughters to him, he finds no fulfilment in his work and it is until tragedy strikes and an aunt arrives that Quoyle is able to disentangle himself from a rather sad life leaving for a small community in Newfoundland.
It is in this small tightknit community that Quoyle finally, even though in his late thirties, blossoms. At first, Quoyle is filled with such low self-esteem and great self-loathing that he invites more contempt than pity, even to the reader. He slowly comes to a point of self-realisation, surrounded by a community that offers friendship and love.
Proulx depicts this small community with such brilliance. Its traditions, landscape, economic state, weather, kindheartedness, cruelties all done with incredible compactness.
A wonderful story. I love a good tale about reinvention and starting over and I'd especially recommend this if you do too. ( )
This was a good book made better by an excellent narrator, Paul Hecht, that was able to 'do the voices' with convincing characterization. Not easy to do when a lot of the characters are middle aged white men from Newfoundland. It got off to a rocky start. I thought it was going to be more magical realist, or at least more satirical as the characters are drawn more like caricatures at first, but over time they become the more standard stuff of a standard novel.
There is a strange undercurrent of sexual abuse throughout the book for a number of characters, which I felt was odd, particularly when it came to the main character's wife selling her children to a pedophile. I have no idea what attracted him to her in the first place - she was the least believable character in the book, but fortunately her appearance was short.
Once we get to Newfoundland the story really takes off. Lots of interesting characters as our hero begins to learn how to live and truly love. It's a voyage of discovery for him as much as for us as we learn a lot about life in Newfoundland and what it's like to live in a harsh part of the world reliant on the ocean for livelihoods and survival. I enjoyed the opening of each chapter - an excerpt from a book of knots and their uses, and how it set up a theme for the chapter.
In E. Annie Proulx's vigorous, quirky novel "The Shipping News," set in present-day Newfoundland, there are indeed a lot of drownings. The main characters are plagued by dangerous undercurrents, both in the physical world and in their own minds. But the local color, ribaldry and uncanny sorts of redemption of Ms. Proulx's third book of fiction keep the reader from slipping under, into the murk of loss.
"In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knit. there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible. . . Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
Quoyle: A coil of rope
"A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only. It is made on deck so that it may be walked on if necessary."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
In the old days a love-sick sailor might send the object of his affections a length of fishline loosely tied in a true-lover's knot. If the knot as sent back as it came the relationship was static. If the knot returned home snugly drawn up the passion was reciprocated. But if the knot was capsized - tacit advice to ship out.
"The strangle knot will hold a coil well . . . It is first tied loosely and then worked snug."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Cast Away, to be forced from a ship by a disaster."
"A Rolling Hitch will suffice to tie a broom that has no grove, provided the surface is not to slick."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
Oh make 'er fast and stow yer gear, Leave 'er Johnny, leave 'er! An' tie 'er up to the bloomin' pier, It's time for we to leave 'er!
OLD SONG
The common eider is called "gamy bird" in Newfoundland for its habit of gathering in flocks for sociable quacking sessions. The name is related to the days of sail, when two ships falling in with each other at sea would bath their yards and shout the news. The ship to windward would back her main yards and the one to leeward her foreyars for close maneuvering. This was gamming.
"On shipboard the knot is seldom called for, but in small boats, especially open boat that are easily capsized, the necessity frequently arises for instant casting off, and the SLIPPERY HITCH is found indispensable."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"The merit of the hitch is that, when snugly applied, it will not slip down the post. Anyone who has found himself at full tide, after a hard day's fishing, with his painter fast to a stake four or five feet below high high-water mark, will be inspired to learn this knot."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Voyage, an outward and homeward passage; although the passage from one port to another is often referred to in insurance polices as voyage."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
In the nineteenth century jewelers made keepsake ornaments from hair of the dead, knotting long single hairs into arabesqued roses, initials, singing birds, butterflies.<
"To prevent slipping, a knot depends on friction, and to provide friction there must be pressure of some sort. This pressure and the place within the knot where it occurs is called the nip. The security of a kot seems to depend solely on its nip."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"A cringle will make an excellent emergency handle for a suitcase."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
In Wyoming, they name girls Skye. In Newfoundland it's Wavey.
The knots of the upholsterer are the half-hitch, the slip-knot, the double half-hitch, and the tuft knot.
"The housewife's needs are multifarious but most of her requirements are not peculiar and most of what she requires is to be found in the general classifications."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Ship's Cousin, a favored person aboard ship. . ."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
"The lobster bouy hitch . . . was particularly good to tie to timber."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"The Russian Escape. A prisoner . . . secured to his guard . . . In his efforts to escape he rubs his hands together until the heels of his hands pinch a bight of the rope. It is then an easy matter to roll the bight down as far as the roots of the fingers where it can be grasped with the finger tips of one hand and slipped over the fingers of the other hand. The prisoner then pulls away and the . . . rope slips over the back of his hand and under the hand cuff lashing."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"The Pirate and the Jolly Boat. A pirate having more prisoners than he has room for, tows one boatload astern. All knives are taken away, and the boat made fast with the bight of a doubled line. The after end of the line is ring hitched to astern ringbolt. CLOVE HITCHES are put around each thwart, and the line is rove through the bow ringbolt and brought to deck. They are told to escape if they can. How do they escape?"
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Fog . . . The warm water of the Gulf Stream penetrating high latitudes is productive of fog, especially in the vicinity of the Grand Banks where the cold water of the Labrador Current makes the contrast in the temperatures of adjacent waters most striking."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
"The mesh knot is the ordinary way of tying the SHEET BEND when it is made ith a netting needle."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"The mysterious power that is supposed to reside in knots . . . can be injurious as well as beneficial."
QUIPUS AND WITCHES' KNOTS
"The difference between the CLOVE HITCH and TWO HALF HITCHES is exceedingly vague in the minds of many, the reason being that two have the same knot form but one is tied around another object, the other around its own standing part."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"If there is a vibration from the outside that tilts all your pictures askew, hang them from a single wire which passes through both screw eyes and makes fast to two picture hooks."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Deadman - An 'Irish pennant,' a loose end hanging about the sails or rigging."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
"Galley news, unfounded rumors circulated about a vessel."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
To rescue someone who has fallen through the ice, the fingers of the rescuer's hand and the victim's hand are bent together in an opposing grip.
"Fingernails should first be close-pared."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"The bight of a rope . . . has two meanings in knotting. First, it may be any central part of a rope, as distance from the ends ad standing part. Second, it is a curve or arc in a rope no narrower than a semicircle. This corresponds to the topographical meaning of the word, a bight being an indentation in a coast so wide that it may be sailed out of, on one tack, in any wind."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"A sailor has little opportunity at sea to replace an article that is lost overboard, so knotted lanyards are attached to everything movable that is carried aloft: marlingspikes and fids, paint cans and slush buckets, pencils, eyeglasses, hats, snuffboxes, jackknives, tobacco and monkey pouches, amulets, bosuns' whistles, watches, binoculars, pipes and keys are all made fast around the neck, shoulder, or wrist, or else are attached to a buttonhole, belt or suspender."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"To untangle a snarl, loosen all jams or knots and open a hole through the mass at the point where the longest end leaves the snarl. Then proceed to roll or wind the end out through the center exactly as a stocking is rolled. Keep the snarl open and loose all times and do not pull on the end; permit it to unfold itself."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"Magic nets, snares, and knots have been, and in some instances probably still are, used as lethal weapons."
QUIPUS AND WITCHES' KNOTS
Sailors once wore their hair in queues worked two ways; laid up into rattails, or platted n four-strand square stinnets. The final touch called for a pickled eelskin chosen from the brine cask. The sailor carefully rolled the eelskin back (as a condom is rolled), then worked it up over his queue and seized it. For dress occasions he finished it off ith a red ribbon tied in a bow.
"Days Work, consists, at least, of the dead reckoning from noon to noon, morning and afternoon time sights for longitude and a meridian altitude for latitude."
THE MARINER'S DICTIONARY
Straightjacket: A coat of strong material, as canvas, binding the body closely for restraining the violently insane or delirious, violent criminals, etc. Some confine the arms to the body, others have long sleeves, without openings, which may be knotted together.
"The slingstone hitch. . . is used in anchoring lobster pots. It may e tied either in the bight or in the end. Pull the ends strongly, and the turns in the standing part are spilled into the loops."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
"A leash for a large dog of rawhid belt lacing. Taper and skive four thongs, form a loop with the small end of the longest strand, and sieze all strands together. Lay up a FOUR-STRAND SQUARE SINNET. Surmount it with a large BUTTON KNOT. Cover the seizing with a leather shoestring TURK'S HEAD."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
There are still old knots that are unrecorded, and so long as there are new purposes for rope there will always be new knots to discover."
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
Dedication
For Jon, Gillis and Morgan
First words
Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.
Quotations
Walking keeps you smart.
fried bologna isn't bad.
Desire reversed to detestation like a rubber glove turned inside out.
We run a car wreck photo every week, whether we have a car wreck or not. That's our golden rule.
In Wyoming they name girls Skye, in Newfoundland it's Wavey.
He struggled to deaden his feelings, to behave well. A test of love. The sharper the pain, the greater the proof.
Well, I was a sucker, I believed him. I went along with everything the first ten years or so. Sure, I wanted them things, too, the electricity and roads, telephone, radio. Sure I wanted health care, mail service, good education for me kids. Some of it come in. But not the jobs. And the fishing’s went down, down, down, forty years sliding away into nothing, the goddamn Canada government giving fishing rights to every country on the face of the earth, but regulating us out of business. The damn foreign trawlers.
There was never a one from Gaze Island that voted for confederation with Canada! My father would of wore a black armband on Confederation Day. If he’d lived that long.
…what of Petal’s essence riding under his skin like an injected vaccine against the plague of love?
How short the days were getting. He looked at this watch, astonished how the months had fallen out of it.
Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. “I’m coming back some day,” they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore.
For Archie was an expert at dividing the affairs of life into men’s business and women’s business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man’s business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.
Last words
And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family. Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a 'head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features as bunched as kissed fingertips,' is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. An aunt convinces Quoyle and his two emotionally disturbed daughters to return with her to the starkly beautiful coastal landscape of their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Here, on desolate Quoyle's Point, in a house empty except for a few mementos of the family's unsavory past, the battered members of three generations try to cobble up new lives. Newfoundland is a country of coast and cove where the mercury rarely rises above seventy degrees, the local culinary delicacy is cod cheeks, and it's easier to travel by boat and snowmobile than on anything with wheels. In this harsh place of cruel storms, a collapsing fishery, and chronic unemployment, the aunt sets up as a yacht upholsterer in nearby Killick-Claw, and Quoyle finds a job reporting the shipping news for the local weekly, the Gammy Bird (a paper that specializes in sexual-abuse stories and grisly photos of car accidents). As the long winter closes its jaws of ice, each of the Quoyles confronts private demons, reels from catastrophe to minor triumph-in the company of the obsequious Mavis Bangs; Diddy Shovel the strongman; drowned Herald Prowse; cane-twirling Beety; Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio; a demented cousin the aunt refuses to recognize; the much-zippered Alvin Yark; silent Wavey; and old Billy Pretty, with his bag of secrets. By the time of the spring storms Quoyle has learned how to gut cod, to escape from a pickle jar, and to tie a true lover's knot.
▾Library descriptions
No library descriptions found.
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
From the get-go, Quoyle is a loser. Not only is he physically unattractive with a "great damp loaf of a body," but he is also not too bright. His father despises him, and his brother, constantly taunts him. He drifts from job to job, never able to keep one for more than a few months. He gets married, only to have his wife sell their two daughters to a child pornographer and leave him. The Shipping News describes Quoyle's psychological and spiritual rebirth. Left with two children to raise after he rescues them, and no job, he returns to Newfoundland, the land of his ancestors. A sometime newspaper reporter, he gets a job reporting on shipping news with a local publication, and becomes a minor celebrity. Gradually he is transformed into a loving father and a valued neighbor.
-----------------------------------
When Quoyle's two-timing wife meets her just deserts, he retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters and family members all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As Quoyle confronts his private demons  and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - he begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
)
)
)
Google Books — Loading...
Wikipedia in English
9