Books: “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx

Already now May and I am seven books behind in writing. Hard to get back into the groove…
I have been reading books still steaming from the press, which is new terrain for me. Hardy, Tolstoy was the entry point, went back for Milton, Maugham is my safe place. Last year I was on a WWII historical fiction bender, and I have since been dipping my toes in “modern,” while venturing in and out of the parallel universes of “Sci-Fi” and equally bizarre, “Japanese Literature.” Further yet is a clear pond of unknown depths: “New Releases.” So far, I am having mixed feelings.  My next entry is “The New Wildnerness.”
The Shipping News is one of my favourite movies. And so when I saw the title peeping through a pile of books, I reached for it, knowing I will be swept far away. The story takes place in Newfoundland, Canada. True to its name, it is a place that is far from the polite urban circuit; all the way East, with hard Atlantic winds, snow-storms, and frozen bays during long winters. It is more Iceland without dainty fairies; where a great white dog with a blood-red mouth haunts dreams, and sailing ropes knotted with curses are found on pillows. It is rough, with jagged rocks and people – where strange violent expressions of love mirror village-threatening storms. A neighbour is ready to migrate to the Caribbean for the winter. His friends, go on a bender to send him off – but in drunken fury, sink the boat with a baseball bat. The next morning he stands in front of the wreckage, half crying, half in relief – he knew we was leaving too late, and the ice would have trapped him. His friends knew it too. Some kinda love.

Aunt and her soft-spoken nephew, Quoyle, along with his two daughters, uproot their lives and go back to their ancestral home. Here, amongst gangs, half-drown fishermen, and a decapitated husband, the broken family heal. The story is of going back through the past, facing ugly history, and coming out on the other side. And of love – how if we believe we only deserve it in its tortured form, that is all we get. There is a softness to all its hardness: like the detail of a piping hot seal blubber pie against the grey skies that Wavy makes for a budding love. And I wonder: is it the perspective of woman, or is it Proulx’s grit, or is it both, that make the characters that are so flawed, not pitiful, but absolutely loveable.

“Paralyzed and fading on the dock, unable to speak; who knew what thoughts crashed against the washline of his seizing brain as the kids and wife bent over, imploring Father, Father. No one said his name, only the word father, as though fatherhood has been the great thing in his life.”

“They say if you do sums ten times a day you’ll never get senile. But that argues that bankers should be geniuses, so that’s not right. Thickest heads in the world.”

“The mesmerizing voice, the father fixing his child in place with his starting eyes, inching down the evil slope on the wrong side of everything, then grasping the child’s arm, her hammer falling away, he saying “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move,” hearing the painted hammer clatter on the rock below. And Quoyle safe on the rungs, Bunny pinned between his chest and the ladder.”

“Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull’s eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought calm and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?”