Annie Proulx: Fine Just The Way It Is

I'm falling behind, so I'm going to post briefly about the books I've read over the next few days. The posting, not the books. The books have been read, they're not going to be. Oh, you know what I mean.

This was my other Christmas book from my husband, and I, of course, liked it a lot. By now it's been weeks since I read it so I can't remember which short story was my favourite, sadly, but I do remember that my least favourite were the "funny" ones on the "Satan redecorates Hell" theme. Oh, now I remember my favourite, a really sad story about two youngsters at the end of the 19th century who get married and plan this great life in their remote cabin, and then it's all ruined. It's like a memorial over all those people in history who where nobodies and have never been remembered - only buried, if they're lucky. Very moving.

Annie Proulx: Accordion Crimes

Oh, this book is the best yet. Where Postcards was a little disorganized, what with the postcard bits being both hard to read and a little random, and The Shipping News a little bit too happy, this one is just about perfect. And imagine, when I started reading it, I didn't really want to, I struggled a bit. I wanted to read something less challenging I think, something that wouldn't dig into my soul. But very soon this had me hooked, and I couldn't put it down.

In the late 19th century a poor Sicilian makes an accordion (from bits he's stolen from his previous job), and when he emigrates to the USA with his son the accordion goes with him. The instrument is going to make his fortune, that's the plan, but his life comes to a violent and sad end, and the accordion passes on. And so we get a story of America, of immigrants who cling to their culture and language and music, of minorities whose families have been on the continent a long time now but who are still not yankees, and of the African-American tragedy, the ones who were first (well, second) but who never counted. It's just beautiful. The woman can write about polka music and make it sound like the most heart-wrenching dramatic thing ever.

I wrote on the scrap of paper I was using as a bookmark that there was one passage I wanted to quote, because it sums up so well why Annie Proulx is such a wonderful writer:

That poor man a machine for working, the bruised hands crooked for seizing and pulling, for lifting boxes and baskets, for grasping. The arms hung uncomfortably when work stopped. He was made for work, eyes squinted shut, the face empty of the luxury of reflection, mouth a hole, stubbled cheeks, a filthy baseball cap, wearing a cast-off shirt until it rotted away. If there was beauty in his life, no-one knew it.

That really moved me. I think she's Nobel Prize material.

Annie Proulx: Postcards

I'm seven books behind now, so I'm going to have to hurry to make the blog match my reading (I'm on book eight, the Ngaio Marsh I mentioned).

As expected, I loved this book. In the 1940s a young man commits a murder in a corner of his father's (one day to be his) farm. To conceal this he runs away, and spends the next 40 years moving about the West, taking odd and any jobs - mining, trapping, bone hunting for paleonthologists... for a while he has a farm, but loses it. He sends postcards home but never has a return address, so he never finds out what has happened to his family and their farm. Instead he keeps an image in his memory of how it was. We read what happens to him, and to his family, and to the US during these 40 years. It's tremendously moving and I devoured it. One of those books you can't put down.

My one quibble is that the postcards sent, that are reproduced at the start of every chapter, are illegible in the small print of the paperback. It ruins the story a little, to be honest.

The Wikipedia entry on Annie Proulx teaches me that she has written some science fiction stories early in her career. I'd love to read them.

Annie Proulx: The Shipping News and Close Range

I’ve been reading all this Proulx at that time of year just before the new greenery has started growing, when it’s as though only the skeleton of nature is there. The bare bones of it all, ready for sculpting as it were. Even though the forest is full of trees you can see so far. No leaves obscure your line of vision. The ground is flat, covered in dead grass, and it feels as though I could walk anywhere, just fix my gaze on a spot far away and start hiking. I can’t see any obstacles – or rather, they are all in plain view; they haven’t been hidden yet. Even though I can tell that it’s all ready for new growth, bursting with life, it also seems so vulnerable. It’s such a contrast to the almost perversely opulent wealth of foliage brought by July. Walking into the forest then you are surrounded by different shades of green, it all closes in on you and I for one get these ideas of building a secret house deep in among the trees (an idea that has stuck with me for many years, ever since I read The Prince of Central Park by Evan Rhodes as a child). In these months of spring such an idea seems ludicrous, there is no secrecy no matter how much you’d want it. You can’t even thrown an apple core under a bush and expect it to be hidden – all rubbish comes out in the open.

This may sound like a post about Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest, but no, I do have a Proulx-y point: I wonder if part of how much I’ve enjoyed her books is the fact that I’m experiencing a similarly bare landscape as the ones she writes about. Or, at least it feels like bareness is a huge part of it – a wide open sky, endless plains or endless sea … sparsity and rough weather (the last bit perhaps doesn’t apply to my situation. It’s been a bit cold and windy, sure, but that’s it.). I suppose in a way I’ve only had to look out the window to relate, to get my own illustrated version of what I’m reading. Nature suiting the tone of the novel.

I’ve seen the film made of The Shipping News, some years ago. I can’t remember that it made a great impression on me. I think I was kind of interested in how it had an edge of grit and pain, even though it was mostly lost in Julianne Moore’s lovely face. This edge was an echo of the book, I see now, of all that Annie Proulx writes. Like I said before, she writes about people. And bad things happen to people, and yet they go on living, and perhaps they even turn out wonderfully well, considering. Possibly Lasse Hallström was a good choice of director, since when he’s at his best he does a fine job of showing real people. But the novel is much more complex, shows a lot more nuances and delves more into the many more or less quirky characters that populate the pages. A scene in the book that’s a little bit funny would in the film become slightly cheesy I think, “local odd-balls dropping one-liners in pub” typ of thing. But it all works on paper. It’s very very good.

Close Range is the collection of short stories that includes Brokeback Mountain, of cinematic fame. I still haven’t seen the film, but the short story is great. All of them are, but some I like more than others. There are more marvellous names, by the way and of course: Scrope, Freeze, Muddyman, Wrench. Some of the stories are realistic, others, like A Pair A Spurs have a fantastic edge.

I've been thinking about all the things I would like to say about Proulx for more than a week now, but they slip my mind. I'd like my words to be a punch in the face, a command to read this author, but I fall short of that. So just take my word for it. I seldom read authors that really touch me, that make me remember so much of what they've written, but this is one of them. One of those that make you genuinely glad that you haven't read all the author has written yet. You still have some to look forward to.

Annie Proulx: Bad Dirt - Wyoming Stories 2

I haven't even seen Brokeback Mountain, folks.

Curiosity prompted me to get this, and also, short stories are good to read when interruptions are frequent (darn those nightly rounds when I'm working). I'm glad I did, because I found it quite marvellous. Not that every story was a masterpiece, but it was on the whole very good. In Proulx nobody is a hero I think, instead people are just people. This sounds simple, but most authors can't really write that simply, just about people. It's odd.

Some of the stories are about a little three-bar town called Elk Tooth. These are a little more humourous and feature the same sets of characters. A bit more crazy, like the one with the game warden who discovers an opening straight to hell in the forest, to which he commences to bring the poachers he catches.

I'm also enamoured with the names. Does everyone in Wyoming have fantastic names? Wolfscale, Conkle, Cokendall, DeBock.

And most of all she manages to make us fall a little bit in love with Wyoming. Without glorifying anything, least of all the people, remember, she tells us that it's worth loving. It inspires devotion and love. Maybe this love destroys it too. But I'd like to go there and see the clear sky...