The Shipping News

Now that I have time to sit down and write about The Shipping News, I am having trouble remembering much about it. Please don't take this as an indication of how impactful the book was but more as an indication of mental exhaustion... or atrophy.

The Shipping News, winner of the Pulitzer in 1994, is about a man named Quoyle who falls in love and marries a "free-spirit" named Petal. To put it bluntly: "There was a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering. In another time, in another sex, she would have been Genghis Khan." However, through a series of unfortunate events, Quoyle is given a chance to start over with his aunt and two children, Sunshine and Bunny, when Petal dies in a car wreck, living him enough life insurance to move to Newfoundland, the land of his ancestors.

Quoyle gets a job there writing the shipping news for the local newspaper. His finds a new start among his co-workers and community members. And he even eventually finds love again. Not the all-consuming passion that he felt for Petal, but love that comes as quietly as night creeping into the shadows at the slow swing of day. Of course, more happens in the 345 pages, but I would hate to ruin it all for you.

While there were some oddities that stood out (i.e. - They called each other by seemingly formal titles: Aunt and Nephew.) and the book was a little slow to get into, it was overall a great read. I found myself neglecting chores just to sit and read it. As with many of the Pulitzer winners thus far, it was more about character development than plot line, it definitely honors the human experience, the falling away of the old to make room for the new, and the interconnectedness of us all.

Fourteen years after This Shipping News was published, we experience a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. As BP incompetently attempts to repair it, I read a chapter in which Quoyle exclaims, " No one hangs a picture of an oil tanker on the wall." Oh that we have come so far. But we have all experienced it: Those were the good old days. Each generation longs for the familiar, for the way that it was. Even in a sleepy ol' town. Especially in a sleepy ol' town. "There's two ways of living here now. There's the old way, look out for your family, die where you was born, fish, cut your wood, keep a garden, make do with what you got. Then there's the new way. Work out, have a job, somebody tell you what to do, your brother's in South Africa, your mother's in Regina, buy every goddamn cockadoodle piece of Japanese crap you can. Leave home. Go off to look for work." As Edith Wharton so nicely put it, there is good in the old ways, but there is good in the new as well.

But it all comes down to love, love for each other and love for yourself:

"For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery."

Happy reading...

From my home town...

If I am being completely honest, I have avoided reading Alice Walker... at least anything was wasn't assigned for a class. Consider me a victim of the green-eyed monster. Alice Walker was born in raised in my home town of Eatonton, GA and has managed to do what I can only dream of doing: she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple in 1983. And rightly so.

I was a little apprehensive about reading The Color Purple as my mom read it for her English class a couple years ago. After telling me a little bit about the storyline, I wasn't sure if this was something I was ready to tackle. It is a tough book, and Walker doesn't sugarcoat anything. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I finished.

A brief summary for those of you who may not have read it yet:

The main character is an African American girl named Celie, who finds herself raped and pregnant by her "father." Her father takes away the babies, and she thinks they are dead. She marries a Mr. _____ (his last name is never known) to escape and to help her sister, Nettie, escape the same fate. He is not much of a good man either and has a girlfriend on the side. In the end, however, Celie is able to make peace and finds contentment in her life. She learns to make a living for herself by sewing pants and ends up inheriting her parents house and finding her two children.

While at times I found myself pitying Celie and the circumstances in which she found herself, she never gave up on hope, and in the end, she had everything she wanted. It may not have come around in the most conventional way or the easiest, but in the end, it was everything she wanted and needed.

I am proud to say that Alice Walker came from my home town of Eatonton, GA. Like Celie's need to spread her wings and experience something new, I, too, could not wait to get out of Eatonton. To leave and never look back. But again, like Celie, I get homesick for the familiar. For the people that knew me when I was young, innocent, and stupid and still liked me in spite of it. I went back "home" earlier this summer, the first time in almost 10 years. My family now resides elsewhere, and I have had no reason to venture into the city limits. Somethings had changed, but it was a lot like I remembered.

Thomas Wolfe may say that you can't go home again, but Alice Walker says that you can. I think I like Alice Walker's idea better...

I have also finished reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (1994). But that is a topic for another day. Up next, I am thinking either Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller (1934) or Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948).

Until then... happy reading.

The Optimist's Daughter

Andy and I finally finished it. Actually, we finished it about a week ago as it was due back at the library on the 6th, I just haven't taken the time to write about it. Judge me as you will. However, give me some credit as I have spend the last two days taking care of a rather sick baby. But I digress...

The Optimist's Daughter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, was an easy read ... if you are a Southerner and if you read like you talk. I had no problems, and while Andy grew up in a town as far south as you could get without being in Florida, he had difficulty making it through the first chapter. For that reason, I read to him; I am about as Southern as they come. But let me clarify: Southern Country, not Southern Belle.

The book is set in Mississippi, the home state of Ms. Eudora Welty, and is about Laurel, who comes back home to Mississippi from Chicago when her father gets sick. He ultimately dies, and Laurel is left to suffer his ridiculously self-centered wife, Fay (Laurel's stepmother). There was a great deal of gossip and old ladies talking. And while Andy didn't like it, it felt a little like home to me. Welty didn't wax romantic; she simply wrote about what she knew, and like Laurel, she knew a little bit more about the world beyond the state line. However, it is often said to write well, you must write what you know. Welty did this and did it well.

While I didn't care much for the story line (and truthfully it was a very simplistic one comparatively), I felt a connection to the characters and the writing itself. The women may have been nosey old gossips, but they made no apologies and Welty didn't criticize.
I would much prefer to reread A Worn Path, but The Optimist's Daughter was worth the read.

In my procrastination of writing about The Optimist's Daughter, I finished another book on the list of Pulitzers: The Color Purple, Alice Walker1983. However, I will wait to discuss that one. Currently, I am reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, 1994 winner. This one may take a while. However, in my absence, I will attempt to get Andy to share his thoughts Welty's The Optimist's Daughter.

Until then... Happy reading.

There was good in the old ways. There was good in the new order too.

So, I did it. I finally finished The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (Pulitzer 1921). And while I would be the first to admit that I didn't really care for the book, I will also be the first to admit that I was able to find meaning in the work, and in that regard, I found pleasure. In the end, it was worth the read.

Perhaps is was the affluent 1920's New York setting that originally turned me off, Jane Austen without the enduring Elizabeth Bennett and Elinor Dashwood. Perhaps it was reading this work from a modern women's perspective that made my stomach churn. Whatever the reason, I was able to find solace in the beauty of her words (and, believe me, there were plenty to choose from). At 353 pages, I was reminded of something a fellow reader once said: " I tend to stay away from the early works. They described things in too much detail." Here, here.

The story is told from the perspective of Newland Archer, and upon first introduction you learn that is freshly engaged to the Diana-like May Welland. However, within the first few chapters, you learn that his affections are easily swayed by her infamous cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who has fled back to New York from Europe after scandalously separating from her husband. (Funny how standards change over time.) Secret rendezvouses ensue despite the nuptuals, and while Newland dreams of running away with his bohemian soulmate, the only act of adultary is commited in their minds and a few stolen kisses. (Sorry to ruin it for you. I know you were about to run out and buy a copy.)

Newland struggles with the clastrophobic sameness of his upper-class existance and faults May, his new wife, for her inability to challenge the norm. Countess Olenska, on the other hand, is the Yin to May's Yang. She prefers good music, literature, and conversation over "dictates of Taste." Newland, despite his desires, ultimately follows the path most becoming of a gentleman of means and became "in short, what people were beginning to call a 'good citizen,'" living "a life that had been too starved..."

I guess this was the part that spoke to me the most. We tell our children that they can be whatever they want to be, but do we really mean it? Are we really saying you can be whatever you want to be as long as it fits in with what I find acceptable? Will you still display pride in your child if they deviate from the perceived norm? For the more liberal thinkers, I think the answers to these questions come a little bit more easily, but there are still those, like the Archers and the Wellands, that will critize and disown for fair less.

When the book was first published in 1920, The Nation said, "Wharton describes the customs of a vanished age as familiarly as if she loved them and as lucidely as if she hated them." Rightly so. Wharton has a way of painting the people in such a away that you cannot decipher whether she admires or dispieses the society of which she writes. Her objectiveness alone showcases an amazing talent for storytelling, but combined with her timeless tale of innocence lost, this novel is much deserving of the Pulizer Prize. Well done.

I am not quite sure what will be next on the list for me. I will have to wait until the library opens on the 6th. However, Andy and I still have about 50 pages left in The Optimist's Daughter (Eudora Welty) before we can call it completed. Planning for a birthday party has left us little time to read. With that behind us now, I should be posting my next review in a matter of days. I know you will be waiting with great anticipation, but until then...

Happy reading.