Not as big a break between the last book and number 23 fortunately. Number 23 of the year is Just Fine the Way it Is: Wyoming Stories 3 by Annie Proulx. As you may surmize from Proulx's rather frequent presence on this list, I'm a fan of hers. I love her blunt, descriptive narrative, especially in her short stories.
Proulx can make Wyoming sound beautiful, but I also don't think she ever romanticizes it; Wyoming's beauty is double-edged, it can take your breath away permanently if you let it.
Most of these stories are quite nearly downright depressing. Most end with unhappiness and anger and death. No matter what some do to appreciate/impose themselves on the landscape of Wyoming, they end up dead for their troubles.
There were a couple of departures here, mainly a couple of short stories about the Devil and his remodelling of Hell. They're quite humourous, especially when Proulx makes mention that she thinks Revenue Canada is FAR scarier than the IRS. She would know, she splits her time between Wyoming and Newfoundland.
Overall, I enjoyed these stories again, and a couple of them really kicked me in the gut, the way Brokeback Mountain did. Which is both a good thing, and a bad thing. Much like Wyoming itself I guess.
Showing posts with label Anne Proulx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anne Proulx. Show all posts
Friday, October 03, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
I'm actually a couple of books behind on this, I read two more during my vacation but have yet to write anything. I think that's the first time I've ever fallen behind on the writing, its usually the reading I fall behind on...
ANYWAY! Books 19 and 20 are That Old Ace in the Hole by Anne Proulx and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
That Old Ace in the Hole deals with Bob Dollar, originally from Denver, where he was raised by a junk store owning uncle after his parents basically abandoned him on the uncle's doorstep, trying to find his place in the world. He's finished college and rather aimless (yeah, we've all been there), so he takes a job with Global Pork Rind, a big business pork farming company, scouting out big spreads of land that can be converted to hog farms. He's given a list of instructions by his not very symapthetic new boss (ie. find some place to set up base of operations, find out a little history to the town, don't tell them why you're there, befriend some of the natives, etc.) Soon he''s holed up in a tiny Texas town called Woolybucket, where he settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease''s Old Dog Café, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old Texas ranch owners will hold on to their land, even when their children want no part of it.
It's a novel about history and family and all the ways those are intertwined. Bob's personal history is not easy, but isn't bad either. When his parents abandoned him at age 8, he was taken in by his Uncle Tam, who owns a second hand/junk store. They live upstairs from the store, and are pretty poor, but Tam is kind and good to Bob and never makes his nephew feel like a burden. Bob wonders a lot about his absent parents, but they don't figure too prominently into the story. What Bob though is really looking for, is a place where he feels he belongs.
Once Bob gets to Woolybucket, he immerses himself into the culture of the town, and into the town (and surrounding county), listening to countless stories told to him and reading a journal detailing the first surveying of the surrounding county in the late 1800s. The narrative of the novel is told in lots of flashbacks that aren't really flashbacks, as we get to know the colorful characters of Woolybucket.
As always in a Prouxl novel, the characters are slightly off-kilter, there's lots of strange happenings, a little bit of tragedy, lots of good language, and just plain great description of the landscape. Prouxl's just so good at describing surroundings. The ending of this novel left me feeling kinda... unsatisfied at first. It is basically a happy ending, but at first it felt too pat to me, but once I thought about it, it really wasn't, as it was the logical ending that was being proposed from the beginning, and I, like Bob himself, didn't see that right away. So basically, Anne's yet to let me down.
Number 20 of the year is A Farewell to Arms. Even now, a couple of weeks after finishing this puppy, I realize I don't have much to say about it, even though its a great piece of literature, etc. The thing is, found this book wildly divergent in its tone. It takes place during WWI, on the Italian front, and tells the story of American ambulance driver Lt. Henry, and his love affair with English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Despite there being a war on, Henry seems to have a pretty sweet life. He's living in an Italian villa with others (mainly Italians) fighting the war, in particular a surgeon who is Henry's best friend. He meets Catherine and begins wooing her, and much of the first part of the novel is taken up with going to cafes and drinking wine and teasing the local priest; WWI in Italy sounds nearly idyllic here in comparison to dying in the mud of the trenches on the Western Front. I did find the relationship between Catherine and Henry to be almost... pathetically juvenille and even a little creepy at first. Catherine seems so... desperate for Henry's approval and love that it made me uncomfortable. She seems more invested in the relationship at first than he does.
However, about half way through the novel comes a pretty good shift in tone. The war actually intrudes and then we're reminded how Hemingway is one of the best there is at describing war. Henry is driving at the front when he gets wounded. He sees comrades die, and isn't even entirely sure he'll walk again. He is transferred to a hospital, and so is Catherine. Once again, things become almost idyllic as he and Catherine deepen their relationship (and it becomes very, very physical), and so the tone of their relationship switches too, where I felt that Henry was more invested in it than she was. But maybe that's just because he finally arrived at the emotional place she was, while hers remained unchanged. But, the war intrudes again and Henry is sent back to the front.
At this point, the war is going badly for the Italians and they are facing a hard push by combined Austrian/German forces. They cannot hold the line, and so retreat, but the retreat becomes more disorganized and scary than the actual fighting does, with demoralized men and frightened nationals picking out scapegoats from their own army and executing them for deriliction of duty in mock 'trials'. Henry is singled out for this form of 'justice', but manages to escape. He basically goes AWOL and ends up finding Catherine. At this point, he is done with the war and he and Catherine (who is now pregnant with Henry's child) go to Switzerland (after narrowly avoiding arrest) to await the birth of their child. Their idyllic life returns.
However, honestly, the ending of this novel is so gawdawful depressing that I threw it down with those very words. Yes, sometimes Hemingway likes to end on a down note, like in For Whom the Bell Tolls, although that one didn't feel so down, or on a very up note (literally) in The Sun Also Rises. Needless to say, I preferred both of those books over this one. The ending really did make me not like it.
ANYWAY! Books 19 and 20 are That Old Ace in the Hole by Anne Proulx and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
That Old Ace in the Hole deals with Bob Dollar, originally from Denver, where he was raised by a junk store owning uncle after his parents basically abandoned him on the uncle's doorstep, trying to find his place in the world. He's finished college and rather aimless (yeah, we've all been there), so he takes a job with Global Pork Rind, a big business pork farming company, scouting out big spreads of land that can be converted to hog farms. He's given a list of instructions by his not very symapthetic new boss (ie. find some place to set up base of operations, find out a little history to the town, don't tell them why you're there, befriend some of the natives, etc.) Soon he''s holed up in a tiny Texas town called Woolybucket, where he settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease''s Old Dog Café, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old Texas ranch owners will hold on to their land, even when their children want no part of it.
It's a novel about history and family and all the ways those are intertwined. Bob's personal history is not easy, but isn't bad either. When his parents abandoned him at age 8, he was taken in by his Uncle Tam, who owns a second hand/junk store. They live upstairs from the store, and are pretty poor, but Tam is kind and good to Bob and never makes his nephew feel like a burden. Bob wonders a lot about his absent parents, but they don't figure too prominently into the story. What Bob though is really looking for, is a place where he feels he belongs.
Once Bob gets to Woolybucket, he immerses himself into the culture of the town, and into the town (and surrounding county), listening to countless stories told to him and reading a journal detailing the first surveying of the surrounding county in the late 1800s. The narrative of the novel is told in lots of flashbacks that aren't really flashbacks, as we get to know the colorful characters of Woolybucket.
As always in a Prouxl novel, the characters are slightly off-kilter, there's lots of strange happenings, a little bit of tragedy, lots of good language, and just plain great description of the landscape. Prouxl's just so good at describing surroundings. The ending of this novel left me feeling kinda... unsatisfied at first. It is basically a happy ending, but at first it felt too pat to me, but once I thought about it, it really wasn't, as it was the logical ending that was being proposed from the beginning, and I, like Bob himself, didn't see that right away. So basically, Anne's yet to let me down.
Number 20 of the year is A Farewell to Arms. Even now, a couple of weeks after finishing this puppy, I realize I don't have much to say about it, even though its a great piece of literature, etc. The thing is, found this book wildly divergent in its tone. It takes place during WWI, on the Italian front, and tells the story of American ambulance driver Lt. Henry, and his love affair with English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Despite there being a war on, Henry seems to have a pretty sweet life. He's living in an Italian villa with others (mainly Italians) fighting the war, in particular a surgeon who is Henry's best friend. He meets Catherine and begins wooing her, and much of the first part of the novel is taken up with going to cafes and drinking wine and teasing the local priest; WWI in Italy sounds nearly idyllic here in comparison to dying in the mud of the trenches on the Western Front. I did find the relationship between Catherine and Henry to be almost... pathetically juvenille and even a little creepy at first. Catherine seems so... desperate for Henry's approval and love that it made me uncomfortable. She seems more invested in the relationship at first than he does.
However, about half way through the novel comes a pretty good shift in tone. The war actually intrudes and then we're reminded how Hemingway is one of the best there is at describing war. Henry is driving at the front when he gets wounded. He sees comrades die, and isn't even entirely sure he'll walk again. He is transferred to a hospital, and so is Catherine. Once again, things become almost idyllic as he and Catherine deepen their relationship (and it becomes very, very physical), and so the tone of their relationship switches too, where I felt that Henry was more invested in it than she was. But maybe that's just because he finally arrived at the emotional place she was, while hers remained unchanged. But, the war intrudes again and Henry is sent back to the front.
At this point, the war is going badly for the Italians and they are facing a hard push by combined Austrian/German forces. They cannot hold the line, and so retreat, but the retreat becomes more disorganized and scary than the actual fighting does, with demoralized men and frightened nationals picking out scapegoats from their own army and executing them for deriliction of duty in mock 'trials'. Henry is singled out for this form of 'justice', but manages to escape. He basically goes AWOL and ends up finding Catherine. At this point, he is done with the war and he and Catherine (who is now pregnant with Henry's child) go to Switzerland (after narrowly avoiding arrest) to await the birth of their child. Their idyllic life returns.
However, honestly, the ending of this novel is so gawdawful depressing that I threw it down with those very words. Yes, sometimes Hemingway likes to end on a down note, like in For Whom the Bell Tolls, although that one didn't feel so down, or on a very up note (literally) in The Sun Also Rises. Needless to say, I preferred both of those books over this one. The ending really did make me not like it.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Book 7 is The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. This is the first novel of her's that I've read, previously I've only been exposed to her short stories, and this only came about because I loved Brokeback Mountain so much, which was in her Close Range collection of short stories. So, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from a full-length novel of hers.
The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994, so obviously some people thought it was a good book. And they are right, for I did enjoy it. I've often thought Proulx to be an American version of Alice Munro, another author whose short stories I really enjoy. Both are excellent at conveying a very set time and space, both portray small town life and all the quirks of character and life that go with it, and both have an... off-kilter style of writing that can sometimes leave you feeling... almost uncomfortable. But anyway, I bring Alice Munro up here as a comparison simply because she sets her stories in small town Canada (usually Ontario), whereas most of Proulx's stories I've read use Wyoming as a backdrop. But with the Shipping News, Proulx journeys to Canada as well.
The novel is set (mostly) in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. It is very much a 'fish out of water' tale, the main character, a rather pathetic individual named Quoyle, is taken advantage by pretty much everyone in his life. He doesn't have the best relationship with his family (his parents don't seem to really support him much, and the brother sounds abusive in that way siblings can be), he is repeatedly hired and fired from his job at a local newspaper, and his wife makes no secret of cheating on him and basically abandoning him to look after their two little girls, whom Quoyle dotes on. Problem is, he also dotes on his nasty wife, whom he always thinks will calm down and return the burning love he has for her. It's all quite sad really.
But Quoyle's life begins to change when his parents participate in a sucide pact (father loses his job and they have no savings), his horrible wife dies in a car accident (after kidnapping the two girls and selling them to a pedophile for a few grand) and Quoyle's tough old bird aunt arrives in his life and convinces him to accompany her to their family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. Acquring a job there in record time and realizing that there is nothing for him in the States, he agrees.
Slowly but surely, Quoyle does put his life together. He becomes good at his job (writing the Shipping News column for the local paper), his parenting skills are actually quite good, he is accepted by the town (he actually has a group of friends) and he slowly, but surely finds love with townie Wavey, whose treatment by her husband sounds rather reminiscent of Quoyle's treatment by his wife.
Proulx does a great job of portraying Newfoundland. She doesn't shy away from the social problems of living there, the lack of jobs due to government mishandling of our fisheries resources, the sexual abuse (this story was written not long after the Mount Cashel Orphanage story was already well known across Canada) and just the hardships associated with living on the Rock.
It's a hard place to live all right, constant storms, not a lot of arrable land, the fish stock so many of them depended upon pretty much depleted, and it would be easy to see that these people might be depressed or hopeless, but they're not. They're resourceful and they're pretty darn happy overall, and pretty fiercly devoted to their way of life. Its not a stubborn devotion either, but one fueled by love.
This book actually has a happy ending. Which kinda suprised me as so mahy of Proulx's short stories, well, they end badly. But here, things started badly and ended well, with a lot of weirdness on the way.
The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1994, so obviously some people thought it was a good book. And they are right, for I did enjoy it. I've often thought Proulx to be an American version of Alice Munro, another author whose short stories I really enjoy. Both are excellent at conveying a very set time and space, both portray small town life and all the quirks of character and life that go with it, and both have an... off-kilter style of writing that can sometimes leave you feeling... almost uncomfortable. But anyway, I bring Alice Munro up here as a comparison simply because she sets her stories in small town Canada (usually Ontario), whereas most of Proulx's stories I've read use Wyoming as a backdrop. But with the Shipping News, Proulx journeys to Canada as well.
The novel is set (mostly) in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. It is very much a 'fish out of water' tale, the main character, a rather pathetic individual named Quoyle, is taken advantage by pretty much everyone in his life. He doesn't have the best relationship with his family (his parents don't seem to really support him much, and the brother sounds abusive in that way siblings can be), he is repeatedly hired and fired from his job at a local newspaper, and his wife makes no secret of cheating on him and basically abandoning him to look after their two little girls, whom Quoyle dotes on. Problem is, he also dotes on his nasty wife, whom he always thinks will calm down and return the burning love he has for her. It's all quite sad really.
But Quoyle's life begins to change when his parents participate in a sucide pact (father loses his job and they have no savings), his horrible wife dies in a car accident (after kidnapping the two girls and selling them to a pedophile for a few grand) and Quoyle's tough old bird aunt arrives in his life and convinces him to accompany her to their family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. Acquring a job there in record time and realizing that there is nothing for him in the States, he agrees.
Slowly but surely, Quoyle does put his life together. He becomes good at his job (writing the Shipping News column for the local paper), his parenting skills are actually quite good, he is accepted by the town (he actually has a group of friends) and he slowly, but surely finds love with townie Wavey, whose treatment by her husband sounds rather reminiscent of Quoyle's treatment by his wife.
Proulx does a great job of portraying Newfoundland. She doesn't shy away from the social problems of living there, the lack of jobs due to government mishandling of our fisheries resources, the sexual abuse (this story was written not long after the Mount Cashel Orphanage story was already well known across Canada) and just the hardships associated with living on the Rock.
It's a hard place to live all right, constant storms, not a lot of arrable land, the fish stock so many of them depended upon pretty much depleted, and it would be easy to see that these people might be depressed or hopeless, but they're not. They're resourceful and they're pretty darn happy overall, and pretty fiercly devoted to their way of life. Its not a stubborn devotion either, but one fueled by love.
This book actually has a happy ending. Which kinda suprised me as so mahy of Proulx's short stories, well, they end badly. But here, things started badly and ended well, with a lot of weirdness on the way.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Oh my goodness I have been neglecting this thing. Not neglecting reading though of course, I could never do that. But I also do know I haven't been reading as much as I used to. Not replacing it with watching TV though (even though hockey has of course returned to the airwaves now), but the problem with dating someone who has a larger comic book collection than you do, is that there are more comics to read. So yeah, reading a lot of comics, no so much books.
But, books I HAVE finished in the last while... Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories II by Annie Prouxl and The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era by Norman F. Cantor. Both of these books were purchased in Stratford when I went to see Coriolanus with G, and that was in July. Tells you how busy my summer was, huh?
I enjoyed Bad Dirt as much as I liked Prouxl's first short story collection. Many of these stories took place in the same towns as other stories, and that gives them a nice homey (read: claustrophobic) feeling to what is a very large state. I thought it was a nice touch. Some of them had a bit more of a supernatural element to them, which was definitely interesting, and there was still a lot of despicable people getting their comeuppances. And in one story I was tickled to see one of the characters spell his name the same way that G spell's his :)
The Last Knight was a wonderful look at the end of the Middle Ages mainly focused through the life of John of Gaunt, one of the very wealthy, very powerful sons of Edward III. Gaunt was brother to Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) and one of England's ruling Plantagenet family. He became, through marriage, the Duke of Lancaster, and so became the patriarch of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenets, one of the two families who would later become embroiled in the War of the Roses. Anyway, in modern terms, Gaunt would be considered a billionaire, that's how wealthy he was at the time, and like any member of the ruling class, being it part of a medival society or a capitalist one, he was pretty fond of the status quo. That's not to say he didn't also sometimes flirt with progressive thinking, in fact, Gaunt was a patron for quite some time of Chaucer's, so he did promote the arts. But overall, Gaunt was a product of the 1300s and was not quite ready to move into a more modern era, Not that the 1400s were all that modern mind you, but medieval society was definitely changing during the end of Gaunt's era. Anyway yeah, very interesting, historical read. Cantor also has a book out about the Black Plague, which also sound neat, I may have to check it out as well.
I'm also nearly finished One Knight Only, the second of Peter David's Arthurian themed books. Rather less humourous than the first one, this one seems to be David's rather visceral reaction to 9-11. Arthur is now President of the United States, and not only has his administration had to weather an extremely brutal terrorist attack on US soil (David doesn't go into details about the kind of attack, but the 9-11 parallels are inescapable), but also, after the US retaliates against the terrorists, they then make it personal by having Gwen (the First Lady, natch) assasinated. Well, almost assasinated. So of course, Gwen, hovering near death necessitates the need for a Grail Quest. I'm always up for a good Grail Quest, but this one is made quite interesting in that the Grail's new keeper (and I use 'new' in a very loose sense here) is someone who is quite possibly the first 'hero'. And he makes for a very good contrast to Arthur's more modern hero. All in all, its a good read so far, a little bombastic and rah rah America, but overall, its also a good treatise on free will and human rights against dictatorships and whatnot and I am very interested in seeing how it gets all played out.
Also recently, did a comfort rereading of Pamela Dean's Tamlin for the umpteenth time.
Next up on the bedside table is Neil Gaiman's Anasasi Boys.
But, books I HAVE finished in the last while... Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories II by Annie Prouxl and The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era by Norman F. Cantor. Both of these books were purchased in Stratford when I went to see Coriolanus with G, and that was in July. Tells you how busy my summer was, huh?
I enjoyed Bad Dirt as much as I liked Prouxl's first short story collection. Many of these stories took place in the same towns as other stories, and that gives them a nice homey (read: claustrophobic) feeling to what is a very large state. I thought it was a nice touch. Some of them had a bit more of a supernatural element to them, which was definitely interesting, and there was still a lot of despicable people getting their comeuppances. And in one story I was tickled to see one of the characters spell his name the same way that G spell's his :)
The Last Knight was a wonderful look at the end of the Middle Ages mainly focused through the life of John of Gaunt, one of the very wealthy, very powerful sons of Edward III. Gaunt was brother to Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) and one of England's ruling Plantagenet family. He became, through marriage, the Duke of Lancaster, and so became the patriarch of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenets, one of the two families who would later become embroiled in the War of the Roses. Anyway, in modern terms, Gaunt would be considered a billionaire, that's how wealthy he was at the time, and like any member of the ruling class, being it part of a medival society or a capitalist one, he was pretty fond of the status quo. That's not to say he didn't also sometimes flirt with progressive thinking, in fact, Gaunt was a patron for quite some time of Chaucer's, so he did promote the arts. But overall, Gaunt was a product of the 1300s and was not quite ready to move into a more modern era, Not that the 1400s were all that modern mind you, but medieval society was definitely changing during the end of Gaunt's era. Anyway yeah, very interesting, historical read. Cantor also has a book out about the Black Plague, which also sound neat, I may have to check it out as well.
I'm also nearly finished One Knight Only, the second of Peter David's Arthurian themed books. Rather less humourous than the first one, this one seems to be David's rather visceral reaction to 9-11. Arthur is now President of the United States, and not only has his administration had to weather an extremely brutal terrorist attack on US soil (David doesn't go into details about the kind of attack, but the 9-11 parallels are inescapable), but also, after the US retaliates against the terrorists, they then make it personal by having Gwen (the First Lady, natch) assasinated. Well, almost assasinated. So of course, Gwen, hovering near death necessitates the need for a Grail Quest. I'm always up for a good Grail Quest, but this one is made quite interesting in that the Grail's new keeper (and I use 'new' in a very loose sense here) is someone who is quite possibly the first 'hero'. And he makes for a very good contrast to Arthur's more modern hero. All in all, its a good read so far, a little bombastic and rah rah America, but overall, its also a good treatise on free will and human rights against dictatorships and whatnot and I am very interested in seeing how it gets all played out.
Also recently, did a comfort rereading of Pamela Dean's Tamlin for the umpteenth time.
Next up on the bedside table is Neil Gaiman's Anasasi Boys.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
I've been sick for the last three days with the worst cold I've had in a very, very long time. Didn't feel like doing much reading because my head hurt, but I did manage to finish Close Range. Overall, I really enjoyed the stories. Her descriptions of Wyoming are beautiful and yet stark, and she never lets you forget how unforgiving the country can be, death is an everyday part of the lives of all the characters, and many meet unpleasant ends. Her characters are harsh, hard-living, sometimes noble, but often not types. There was one story that was only a page and a half long, but with the best 'makes you laugh in a VERY uncomfortable way' punchline ending ever. As I mentioned, also included in this collection is the story, Brokeback Mountain, which was the main reason I picked this up. The story is very similar to the movie, and its not very long, but there are chunks of dialogue in the movie straight out of the story, and I now realize that the screenwriters of the movie did a really fantastic job of filling in the details after Annie's wonderfully stark prose supplies you with the initial ideas. Plus, Ang Lee totally captured exactly how Annie sees Wyoming. I think it was a beautiful translation, and I was so happy to see that some of my favourite moments in the movie did indeed come right out of the story. Brokeback Mountain comes out on DVD on Tuesday, and I am definitely going to pick it up so I can watch it and then reread the story.
Next on the reading list is Join Me, where Dan Wallace, one of the co-writers of Are You Dave Gorman? inadvertantly starts a cult. Sounds amusing :)
But I am taking a brief time out to reread Watchmen, as I reread V for Vendetta this past weekend in what was supposed to be a warm up to go see the movie. Which I didn't go see, because I was sick. But somehow, a really bad cold and political unrest/anarchy seemed to go well together.
Next on the reading list is Join Me, where Dan Wallace, one of the co-writers of Are You Dave Gorman? inadvertantly starts a cult. Sounds amusing :)
But I am taking a brief time out to reread Watchmen, as I reread V for Vendetta this past weekend in what was supposed to be a warm up to go see the movie. Which I didn't go see, because I was sick. But somehow, a really bad cold and political unrest/anarchy seemed to go well together.
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