I’ve only read The Shipping News
My experience of The Shipping News was what I call “one of THOSE reading experiences”. I can count “THOSE” reading experiences on almost one hand. By that I mean: intensely personal. The book almost BURNS me. It’s a fiery experience. I feel pointed out by the book. I feel recognized. I feel SEEN. I think: “How on earth could this author know about what goes on in the deepest recesses of my soul?” It’s almost embarrassing, that feeling. You don’t want people to know your own pettiness, your own sadness, your own cruelty, your lies. I am DIFFERENT when I finish the book, because of this recognition factor. You can’t have “one of THOSE reading experiences” too often. It takes too much out of you.
Other books that were like that for me:
— Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn
— Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
— Atonement, by Ian McEwan
These books cut me open to myself. I don’t think I will ever put myself through Geek Love again. (However, I don’t want to make this sound too bleak and grim. These aren’t, on the whole, depressing books. Well, Atonement is, actually. These aren’t gloom and doom books. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m not talking about SAD books. I’m talking about books that feel like they were written FOR me.) These are books that describe the human condition in such a way that I feel KNOWN. The spotlight shines onto the darker corners. These books slice back any artifice I might hold onto. These books made me look into the abyss. My own abyss. To see my own sham, my own drudgery, my own redemption.
THOSE reading experiences.
Does anyone know what I’m talking about here??
The Shipping News was one of THOSE books for me.
There was a good 5 or 6 months in 1994 when it seemed like everyone was reading that book. I saw people on the El train reading it. My entire family read it. Everyone talked about it. My parents KEPT ASKING ME: “Have you read it yet? Have you read it yet?” I remember, to this day, how my dad described the book to me. The characters, what it was about … EVERY conversation I had with my parents: “Have you read The Shipping News yet?” Finally, I would just cut to the chase before they even asked: “I’m doing great, I got cast in this, I’m doing that, and NO, I haven’t read The Shipping News yet.” Everyone seemed to think that I, in particular, should read the book.
So, of course, I didn’t read it. You never do anything just because 5,000 people tell you HAVE to.
I was madly in love with someone in 1994. And he, too, was on the “YOU OF ALL PEOPLE HAVE TO READ THE SHIPPING NEWS.” chorus-line. He went on vacation at one point, to Florida or something? Can’t remember. Anyway, he came back … this was when we were in the flirty unexpressed part of the whole thing … madly in love but not admitting it … and he said, “I thought about you my entire vacation.” “You did?” “Yeah. I sat on the beach and read The Shipping News and I just kept wanting to tell you how much you would love this book. It reminds me of you.” “It does?” “Totally!” “Why?” But he never could say why. All he said was, “The lead character is this … kind of loser guy … a sad sap … who has a really big chin … and he gets a job on a newspaper … and he starts to see his entire life in terms of headlines … ” That was all he would say. I still couldn’t get a line on why this book reminded him of me. Loser guy? Sad sap? Big chin? And … this to you says SHEILA? You wanna explain that to me??
On the very same day that this man told me “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK”, I came home and there was a package in my mailbox from my parents. I opened it up, and there was a dern copy of the book.
It makes me laugh, in retrospect. They were DESPERATE for me to read it. They just KNEW how I would respond to it, and they could. not. wait. for me to read it on my own.
And I’m not exaggerating … I got the package on the same day I talked with Love-Man. I laughed out loud when I pulled out The Shipping News, like: “Okay, universe, okay, I GET THE MESSAGE!”
Long story even longer (see this is why this book means so much to me … it’s all wrapped in that year – 1994 – a WACKO year if ever there was one):
I still didn’t read the damn book though, at that time … because my life got NUTS. Love-Man and I ended up not working out … and everything was a big feckin’ disaster. And suddenly I couldn’t bear to even LOOK at The Shipping News. It seemed to represent him or something. Whatever. I was really upset. I remember being bummed out, though (in addition to all the other stuff I was bumming on) – thinking: Wow, I’ll probably never read that book now.
But I did. A year later. I had moved from Chicago to New York by then. Everything was different, including my zip code. My entire life had changed in 6 months. So I picked up that book.
And never. EVER. wanted it to end.
EVER.
I will NEVER forget my experience reading that book. It shimmers in my memory. I laughed out loud. I had searing pain at times. At times, I was just SEARCHING for clues … clues as to why Love-Man had thought of me so much when he read it. It’s about a bunch of weirdos who live in Newfoundland. Why was that book so full of me for him? I will never know. But I do know that The Shipping News is also so full of HIM for me. I mean … it’s about pain, and redemption … about finding what it is that you DO, and then doing it like Hercules. It’s about thinking that you have a “lot” in life. That you have a certain path, and then … often with wrenching results … you go another way. But … I can’t even talk about what that book is about. It’s not ABOUT what it’s about.
The writing is startlingly good. It’s a rare rare thing, to come across an original voice. Proulx’s voice in that book is original. It’s funny, it’s biting … each character has a different and distinct speaking pattern, accent. Everyone has secrets. Things are left unexplained. And the PLOT. This is not a book where nothing happens. The plot is out of control. So interesting. You are introduced to a small three-dimensional world, full of weirdos, cranks, curmudgeons, and lonely hermits. And yet … while they may not be “likable”, in any sense, you end up LOVING them. Yes. LOVING them.
My experience, by the end of that book, was painful. It wasn’t that anything bad happened. No. It was that it brought up all this weird LOVE in my heart – for these characters, for the Love-Man, for my parents and siblings, for Annie Proulx – love that HURT. Like, you want to clutch your heart and say “Ouch.”
I know I’m belaboring this point but I don’t give a crap.
The last paragraph of the book is not just amazing – it’s transcendent. Transcendent. After spending time with all the crabs and secretive curmudgeons and unpleasant people in the book … to have Annie Proulx draw back the curtain … and let the HEART flow forth … in that last paragraph … It was almost too much for me.
And yes. Love-Man in Chicago was a huge part of my response. When I finished the book, I SO wanted to go back in time and talk with him about it … talk about every tiny detail. But the time for that was long long past.
And so The Shipping News is one of those reading experiences I will never forget. I am a better person, I swear to God, for having read that book.
I loved it so much that I refused to see the movie. Kevin Spacey as Quoyle???? Are you out of your goddamned mind?? NOT. If they had cast John C. Reilly, then MAYBE I would have considered seeing it.
Years passed.
Then … oh my God … so exciting … Annie Proulx came out with another one! The Accordion Journals or whatever. I bought it IMMEDIATELY. Another book from the woman who helped me grow, who gave me a reading experience I will never forget!! Whoopee!
That accordion book STANK. UP. THE. JOINT.
In a way, I admire that she didn’t choose to write Shipping News II, and tried something totally different.
But I couldn’t even get through 2 chapters. I put it down. Devastated.
And never read any of her work since. Although I have to say, she’s always on my radar.
Erin, at Critical Mass, is the reason why I have babbled on like this thus far. She is a big Annie Proulx reader herself, and many of her posts about Proulx have made me think quite a bit. Annie Proulx didn’t just have a success with The Shipping News – she hit the jackpot. That book was EVERYWHERE. And so … what does a writer do? Following a jackpot book?
She’s got a couple of short story collections out right now, which I have not read. I was so crushed by how awful Accordion Yadda Yadda was that I decided to just let my memory of Proulx stay pure. The Shipping News was one of THOSE reading experiences. And I don’t expect her to do that for me every time … I know, I know … but it’s still hard to not look for that kind of transcendence every time.
Erin is reading Proulx’s latest collection right now.
Great observations there, and some great excerpts.
I guess I need to ease my way back into Annie Proulx’s world … since I’ve been out of it for so long, and since The Shipping News was such a formative book for me. I must forgive her for not giving that to me every time. I must, if I am a true fan, go where she wants me to go. At least give it a SHOT.
I picked up a copy of Geek Love based on your recommendation last week. I’ll be starting it this weekend. I shall report back on it.
Postcards is a very worthwhile read: dense, grim and bleak, and ultimately not a patch on Shipping News — but then again, what is? It’s tortured and I needed to get my head into its dark space before it became fun (it was a chore book for a while there), and at the end of the day I didn’t feel the need to do much exploration after it was done. But I was glad I made the trip.
Shipping News was luminous: what a gift. I loved it so much that I didn’t bother to see the movie, since I knew from cast alone that it had to suck and I refuse, dammit, refuse to have that experience tarnished.
I had the exact same experience with The Shipping News. It absolutely blew my mind. And i was depressed–DEPRESSED–when it ended. I mean, yes, as you said, the ending was amazing. But that was one of the worst cases of “post-novel depression” that I’ve ever had.
And, eerily enough, as I read it, I too thought JCR would have been a perfect Quoyle. He’s just that damn good.
I’ve come to the conclusion that some books (or author’s voices) have only a small window of opportunity for a particular person. Anytime outside of that window, and ya just don’t get it, period.
From 1991 to 1993, I read everything Carlos Castenada ever wrote. It CHANGED the way I saw the world.
I tried to crack one of the books open in 1995, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Even the portions I highlighted barely made any sense. The window had passed.
I dropped the whole lot of books at Goodwill last week.
P.S. If you came across and read the Shipping News for the first time today, do you think it would have the same effect on you?
Scotter:
Absolutely. It’s a classic book – and had nothing to do with a phase I was going through.
Richard Bach on the other hand – whom I’ve written about. I was ADDICTED to his books. Kind of like you with Carlos Castenada … but once that phase passed, I could barely get through them anymore.
The Shipping News is a great book. I’ve read it again, and loved it again since then.
The Dave:
Really? You thought of John Reilly too? I mean … the guy is supposed to be a big hulking LUMP, with a huge chin … that embarrasses him. He is not supposed to be good-looking AT ALL. He is supposed to be a MESS. John C. Reilly … I thought he was MADE for that part. Also that inner pain that he has going on.
Ah well. If I were in charge of the world, I would have cast John C Reilly and Lily Taylor in those lead roles. But I am not in charge of the world, and so we got Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore. AND the movie a flop. So there you go.
The Accordion whatever (Crimes, maybe?) was the first Proulx novel I read, or rather *tried* to read. I also struggled to get through even two chapters, and ultimately abandoned it. Because it flat-out sucked so much, I have always assumed I would similarly loathe The Shipping News and have never picked it up. But you’re turning me around on this!
A novel I’ve always felt a really eerily personal connection with is Nabokov’s Lolita. Weird, I know, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the plot per se (no parallel experiences in my life). I’m not sure what it is, really. Partly it’s the way he just revels in language, in words themselves. It’s an absolute celebration of the English language. There’s a critic’s blurb on one of the editions I have that says as much, but there’s no way NOT to see that, especially if you are a writer yourself. He clearly delights in the act of choosing words, putting them together, playing with them. It’s amazing. But there’s more to it than that. I know exactly what you mean about feeling exposed, as if your soul has been peered into. Yet I cannot identify what it is about Lolita that does it to me. I’ve never tried, really. Perhaps an essay is in order! Anyway, no other Nabokov novel has ever quite lived up to the Lolita experience for me, and I’ve tried so hard. I’ve got a shelf full of his books, but I’ve always ended up putting them down and just rereading Lolita instead. I’m like some kind of crazy Lolita evangelist — I recommend it to anyone who will listen (and many who don’t).
P.S. Read Lolita!!
Lolita is an incredible, incredible book. One of the best of the century, without a doubt. The quality of observation is completely matched by the quality of writing; it’s wry and unbounded, funny and grotesque. The only other Nabokov I’ve found that approaches that kind of beauty is Pnin, which is brief and tender and marvelously done – you might like that one.
Thanks, Linus — I will definitely check out Pnin on your rec!
Unlike Underworld, I did make it all the way through Accordion Crimes because I’d been traveling a lot, and it was my post-9/11-waiting-at-the-airport book. I needed that much time to finish that long, uphill slog. When I finally finished, I wanted to take a shower.
Way back when, I had a transcendent summer where I read Geek Love, The Risk Pool, Prince of Tides (another instance of a great book butchered into a crappy-ass movie), and American Psycho. Of them all, Risk Pool was my favorite, and I’ve been a huge Richard Russo fan ever since.