More books
Jun. 27th, 2008 08:05 pmSeveral years ago, I read this, nodding my head along with much of it. However, I always thought that maybe The Shipping News was getting a bad rap in that article, and perhaps it has some good points. (Mostly because it's set in Newfoundland, and I apparently have a weakness for Canada [c.f. S&A, dS, etc.].)
Ohhhhhhh, no. No, every word in that article concerning this book is true. I tried to read it this week, and got about thirty pages in before I had to give up. It was either that or throw it across the room. During those thirty pages, my chief thought was, "I'd like to buy a verb, please." Proulx can't seem to go more than a paragraph without a sentence fragment: "A great damp loaf of a body." "Then, at a meeting, Petal Bear. Thin, moist, hot." "Growls from his shirt." Lord. Fragments are fine in small doses, but not all the time. Then they become less for effect than for self-conscious pretention.
On the other hand, Peter Ho Davies's The Welsh Girl, which I also read last week, is wonderful. It's set in Wales, during WWII. It involves a German POW, a Welsh girl (obviously), a German expat kinda-Jew (he has complicated feelings about his identity), and an English child evacuee, among other people. There is a not-exactly love story, an escape from a prison camp, and an unsuccessful interrogation of Rudolf Hess, among other things. It's hard to describe, but it's very good nonetheless.
Now I am on to Ivanhoe, for real this time, because it's part of the syllabus for the coming semester's 19th Century BritLit course. I haven't read a book while underlining passages and annotating them in over two years. Strange how quickly it comes back.
*
In completely different news, go listen to this, because it's purty.
Ohhhhhhh, no. No, every word in that article concerning this book is true. I tried to read it this week, and got about thirty pages in before I had to give up. It was either that or throw it across the room. During those thirty pages, my chief thought was, "I'd like to buy a verb, please." Proulx can't seem to go more than a paragraph without a sentence fragment: "A great damp loaf of a body." "Then, at a meeting, Petal Bear. Thin, moist, hot." "Growls from his shirt." Lord. Fragments are fine in small doses, but not all the time. Then they become less for effect than for self-conscious pretention.
On the other hand, Peter Ho Davies's The Welsh Girl, which I also read last week, is wonderful. It's set in Wales, during WWII. It involves a German POW, a Welsh girl (obviously), a German expat kinda-Jew (he has complicated feelings about his identity), and an English child evacuee, among other people. There is a not-exactly love story, an escape from a prison camp, and an unsuccessful interrogation of Rudolf Hess, among other things. It's hard to describe, but it's very good nonetheless.
Now I am on to Ivanhoe, for real this time, because it's part of the syllabus for the coming semester's 19th Century BritLit course. I haven't read a book while underlining passages and annotating them in over two years. Strange how quickly it comes back.
*
In completely different news, go listen to this, because it's purty.
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