Our final class discussion Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News.  Although the novel is both respected and award winning, the reaction from the class seemed to be mixed at best.  One student even proclaimed that: “She doesn’t deserve the Pulitzer Prize.”  I suppose this person didn’t think that Proulx deserved the National Book Award For Fiction, either.

Image taken from mediabistro.com

I, for one, thought The Shipping News was wonderful.  While Proulx’s writing style is very unique, I found it extremely refreshing.  Her fragmented writing style is representative of a journalist, which is appropriate considering the occupation of the main character, Quoyle.  While critics of The Shipping News may argue that this style of writing is too simplistic, and sometimes nonsensical, I think it’s ability to accurately portray the tone of a newspaper is brilliant.  Another characteristic of Proulx’s writing is the use of listing, which is used many times throughout the book.  A passage on page 9 of The Shipping News demonstrates this:  ”The truth was Punch had noticed that Quoyle, who spoke little himself, inspired talkers.  His only skill in the game of life.  His attentive posture, his flattering nods urged waterfalls of opinion, reminiscence, recollection, theorizing, guesstimating, exposition, synopsis and explication, juiced the life stories out of strangers.”  I think this writing device works hand and hand with the short, fragmented sentence structure to deliver the desired journalistic tone.

 

Image taken from my camera.

 

I also found the depiction of knots at the beginning of each chapter fascinating.  Utilizing The Ashley Book of Knots, Proulx presented an image of a know along with a quoted description.  This short opening would set the tone for each chapter.  The character of Quoyle is described perfectly by the knot presented prior to Chapter 1:  ”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.”  As we later learn, Quoyle is definitely a simple man, who gets “walked on” several times through the story.

With her ability to draw us into Quoyle’s worldand her captivating narrative, Annie Proulx definitely deserved the Pulitzer Prize.