'As she spoke she changed in some provocative way, seemed suddenly drenched in eroticism as a diver rising out of a pool gleams like chrome with a sheet of unbroken water for a fractional moment.'īecause that passage came early in the book, it got me worried. I also wondered if I was going to find the imagery heavy going: Changed the talk to descriptions of places he had been, Strabane, South Amboy, Clark Fork.' 'But Partridge, dribbling oil, said 'Ah, Fuck it.' Sliced purple tomato. I stumbled over sentences like the following: At first I wondered what Proulx had against relative pronouns and conjunctions.

Personally, at just over halfway mark, I'm on the Kendrew-MajorWhipple side of the fence – although it took me a while to get there. So what is it about the style in the Shipping News? Is it (as Partridge says of one of Quoyle's early pieces of journalism) 'like reading cement'? Or, as that line might suggest, is it rather witty? I have since read Postcards, and after Cormac McCarthy I find Proulx wonderful when describing landscape.' Many people have told me that they find Proulx difficult and hard going but I found her quite the opposite. Kendrew agreed: 'I fell out of love with fiction for many years and it was this book that persuaded me to fall again. Excellent characterisation and plotting too.' MajorWhipple too had worries about the pace, saying: 'It's a terrific work although the pace might not suit everyone.' Although he went on to note: 'For me it was the perfect marriage of style and setting. It's worth sticking with it as the description of a bleak Newfoundland winter and the emergence of the key characters is beautifully done.

I found it really hard work and it took me ages to really get into it. Shavedlegs wrote: 'I agree with the comments about her writing style. Even many of those that like the book seem to find it difficult. This prose style seems to be the sticking point.

E annie proulx the shipping news