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Barkskins A Novel Annie Proulx 9780743288781 Books

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Barkskins A Novel Annie Proulx 9780743288781 Books

If ever there was a literary work that should stand as the Bible for a particular cause--in this case two causes--Barkskins would be it. The causes it champions are the treatment of Native peoples by the white Europeans who conquered the Eastern parts of North America, and the horrific way these settlers "raped" the country by devastating the forests that grew here. Both of these actions from the end of the 17th century to the present time did more to change the nation we never knew into the nation we now inhabit. Neither of these actions have ever been really dissected for the damage they did. Barkskins is that dissection.

Annie Proulx is a terrific writer. She can make unfamiliar situations such as logging, sheepherding, fishing and working on farms as familiar as what the bulk of our society actually knows now. We have no idea how hard our ancestors worked to simply survive--and how dangerous that work actually was, even under the best circumstances. We aren't, for the most part, well-versed in what it takes to cut a single tree to the ground, let alone what it took to clear millions of acres of them. How even after cutting, there were still the roots left in the ground to dig out, and what it did to the environment--the permanent changes it wrought--when the trees were gone. Food sources disappeared. Ecology changed drastically. And entire populations of people who lived in the forests and depended on the bio-systems they produced also disappeared from view. Yes, a lot of them resurfaced later--in-bred into white culture, or assimilated into other societies. But these were not the ones they had been born into, and they were not the ones that kept them alive and healthy. It was so much more than the Europeans bringing alcohol and smallpox and syphilis to the Native peoples--so very, very much more. Annie Proulx details what the "more" entailed, and how it happened. And when I say "details" I mean exactly that.

Proulx details everything. From the first logging accident in the first chapters, to the last stinking paper mill rising on the banks of a Maine river, she tells the reader in excruciating detail what happened and what its consequences were then and have become now. And it is for this reason that despite the importance of this knowledge--and despite how much this matters to us now in the era of climate change and ecological disasters--it will not be heeded. This book is beautifully written and beautifully researched. It is meticulously plotted It is fascinating--but it will be all those things ONLY to a very small group of people.

There are two reasons for this: one is that the book is huge. Many people who are more casual readers will not pick it up and start it, because it is about logging (it is, but it's so much more as well!) and because it's a thousand pages about logging. The second reason is that few people these days have the attention span needed to embrace such a story, which spans more than 300 years of history. The story begins in the 1690's and ends in 2014! Three hundred years of things to know is a lot of things that a lot of people just won't want to slog through. No matter how much this really isn't a "slog", but an absorbing, incredible story. That's a real shame, because even those people who should be interested probably will not pick this novel up and read it. They'll be missing a lot of information, and a lot of fuel for conversation. And an enriching experience unlike any that most novels impart.

I did love it, but it took me a couple weeks of hard reading to get through it. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, Native people, ecology and biology, and family stories. But I'm going to warn you ahead of time--this isn't an easy read. Too bad--because it's a great read, easy or not. And the issues it uncovers are greatly important. If enough people took the time and effort and read through this book, our lives might just change for the better. I recommend it highly for those reasons. And for the reason that Annie Proulx is a great writer who should not be so marginalized.


Tags : Barkskins: A Novel [Annie Proulx] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>THE NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER</b><BR> <b>Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Best Novel<BR> A New York Times </i>Notable Book<BR> A Washington Post</i> Best Book of the Year</b><BR> <BR>From Annie Proulx—the Pulitzer Prize-­ and National Book Award-­winning author of The Shipping News</i> and “Brokeback Mountain,Annie Proulx,Barkskins: A Novel,Scribner,0743288785,Historical,Literary,Sagas,Canada - History,Deforestation,Epic fiction,FICTION General.,FICTION Historical,FICTION Historical.,FICTION Literary.,Families,Historical fiction,Loggers,New France,AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION,FICTION General,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Sagas,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction-Historical,FictionLiterary,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical - General,PROULX, E. ANNIE - PROSE & CRITICISM,Shipping news; Brokeback Mountain; New France; Canada; New England; lumber; timber; native american; American colonies; New Zealand; Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award; PenFaulkner; annie proux,United States,FICTION General,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Sagas,FictionLiterary,Historical - General,Fiction - Historical,American Historical Fiction,Fiction

Barkskins A Novel Annie Proulx 9780743288781 Books Reviews

Disappointed. Stopped reading (listening) with only 10% of this long book left. Just couldn't feign interest any longer. I had read Close Range and The Shipping News and so came into Barkskins already a fan of Annie Proulx. With a substantial commute and regular long-distance car travel, I sprang for the audio version, which makes it even harder to lose steam--all I had to do was sit back and listen, right? (and I can't fault the narration by Robert Petkoff which was excellent.) However, in the end what was intended to be fascinating, insightful and epic turned into something disjointed, forced and trite.

I had suspicions early on, was all but convinced about half way through, but resisted giving up until nearly the end when I fully admitted to myself that I would prefer the static-y talk of AM radio to giving this novel even just a few more hours.

No doubt Proulx was at her best when masterfully telling agenda-less stories--creating wonderfully off-kilter characters and story-lines with stunning prose. Although this talent is still visible in Barkskins, it seems faded and misapplied, like Picasso painting for detergent ads. Perhaps Proulx felt a need to turn her life’s work toward some higher purpose and chose an environmental theme. At times the characters devolve into hardly more than cardboard cut-outs woodily mouthing axioms and principles of either forest ecology, unbridled greed or Native American history. One gets the impression that a suddenly didactic Proulx started with a set of principles or view-points, both modern and historical, and sketched characters to match, pushing each to the stage in their turn to deliver their line so that the next would have context for theirs.

Proulx story-telling that once seemed born of a finely-tuned, if slightly-twisted, genius, in Barkskins turns toward the manufactured and formulaic. Now I’m all for saving the forests, treating everybody fairly and employing ethically sound and sustainable business practices, but a 700-page parable to teach all of these lessons proved a bit tiresome. One wonders, moreover, with the “moral high-ground” so fully claimed from a modern politically-correct point of view, whether some big-name reviewers backed away from a proper criticism of the book--perhaps afraid of being labelled a hater or doubter or simply out of respect for Proulx’s prior accomplishments.

Might have to go re-read "Pair a Spurs" or "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World" to restore my admiration for Annie Proulx!
I'm a little less than halfway through, which is to say I'm on page 289. Yes, exquisite writing, and a wonderful sense of place and time, historical time as it was actually lived. But, and of course I knew this going in, there are all of these tress coming down, decade after decade, and with them the world and way of life and reason for existing of the native people. It's depressing to witness this on the page. So there's that. Yesterday I found myself wishing for a plot device, a withheld secret or something, anything, that would make me want to keep turning the pages. I feel there is nothing to look forward to be a cascade of short lives, linked by their family tree relationships to the progenitor immigrants, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet. These lives all go by (after some larger time spent with Rene and Charles) so quickly like grains of sand running through an hourglass. The banality of almost everyone, or I suppose their hardscabble existences, make for uphill reading. Though, even where a character has the time and resources to cultivate an inner life (Outger Duke and his wife Beatrix come to mind), the reader is not given the enjoyment of these lives, only a desultory inventory, such a bitter cousin might hazard. I find this book bleak.
If ever there was a literary work that should stand as the Bible for a particular cause--in this case two causes--Barkskins would be it. The causes it champions are the treatment of Native peoples by the white Europeans who conquered the Eastern parts of North America, and the horrific way these settlers "raped" the country by devastating the forests that grew here. Both of these actions from the end of the 17th century to the present time did more to change the nation we never knew into the nation we now inhabit. Neither of these actions have ever been really dissected for the damage they did. Barkskins is that dissection.

Annie Proulx is a terrific writer. She can make unfamiliar situations such as logging, sheepherding, fishing and working on farms as familiar as what the bulk of our society actually knows now. We have no idea how hard our ancestors worked to simply survive--and how dangerous that work actually was, even under the best circumstances. We aren't, for the most part, well-versed in what it takes to cut a single tree to the ground, let alone what it took to clear millions of acres of them. How even after cutting, there were still the roots left in the ground to dig out, and what it did to the environment--the permanent changes it wrought--when the trees were gone. Food sources disappeared. Ecology changed drastically. And entire populations of people who lived in the forests and depended on the bio-systems they produced also disappeared from view. Yes, a lot of them resurfaced later--in-bred into white culture, or assimilated into other societies. But these were not the ones they had been born into, and they were not the ones that kept them alive and healthy. It was so much more than the Europeans bringing alcohol and smallpox and syphilis to the Native peoples--so very, very much more. Annie Proulx details what the "more" entailed, and how it happened. And when I say "details" I mean exactly that.

Proulx details everything. From the first logging accident in the first chapters, to the last stinking paper mill rising on the banks of a Maine river, she tells the reader in excruciating detail what happened and what its consequences were then and have become now. And it is for this reason that despite the importance of this knowledge--and despite how much this matters to us now in the era of climate change and ecological disasters--it will not be heeded. This book is beautifully written and beautifully researched. It is meticulously plotted It is fascinating--but it will be all those things ONLY to a very small group of people.

There are two reasons for this one is that the book is huge. Many people who are more casual readers will not pick it up and start it, because it is about logging (it is, but it's so much more as well!) and because it's a thousand pages about logging. The second reason is that few people these days have the attention span needed to embrace such a story, which spans more than 300 years of history. The story begins in the 1690's and ends in 2014! Three hundred years of things to know is a lot of things that a lot of people just won't want to slog through. No matter how much this really isn't a "slog", but an absorbing, incredible story. That's a real shame, because even those people who should be interested probably will not pick this novel up and read it. They'll be missing a lot of information, and a lot of fuel for conversation. And an enriching experience unlike any that most novels impart.

I did love it, but it took me a couple weeks of hard reading to get through it. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, Native people, ecology and biology, and family stories. But I'm going to warn you ahead of time--this isn't an easy read. Too bad--because it's a great read, easy or not. And the issues it uncovers are greatly important. If enough people took the time and effort and read through this book, our lives might just change for the better. I recommend it highly for those reasons. And for the reason that Annie Proulx is a great writer who should not be so marginalized.