The Shipping News - auf der reise ins licht

字體：小中大

The Shipping News

2017/04/07 14:23:02瀏覽982｜回應0｜推薦2

Writer:

The writer Annie Proulx, famous novels The Shipping News and The Brokeback Mountain are well known. She was born Norwich, known as 'The Rose of New England', is a city in New London County, Connecticut, United States. She is of English and French-Canadian ancestry. She spent part of years lived in Newfoundland.

Story:

Like Evie in” the Girls”, Quoyle got the same “lucky” rotten fish, Evie ch

ose to eat it, Auoyle chose to throw it away.

Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a upstate towns. His father is so mean to him that he has low self-esteem. He is a distributor of vending machine candy, all-night clerk in a convenience store, a third-rate newspaperman.

After his wife Petal run away with his boyfriend and got car accident. She left two girls behind her. Quolye’s aunt Agnes just went through her brother(Quoyle’s father) pass away. She invited Quoyle back to their hometown Newfoundland to start a new life.

It was no more a good easy place to find a job, fortunately , he got a shipping news journalist in Gammy Bird. And gave him a chance to find out the meaning of life.

Living by sea is difficult, but it’s the only way to find his meaning of life, his boss Jack is his mentor. He pays a lot of tuition by fishing. His elder son Jesson is killed by sea. So he is so reluctant to let her young son to get a bit closer to the sea. He insists him to be a carpenter. “ No matter how had the life is, we need background music”. He found out his background music and make him become the best journalist.

Quolye also finds out that his aunt who never told Quolye before is a famous upholsterer via interview the famous boats.(p.121)

On the ship of Billy Pretty, Quolye understood that Pretty’s father is a printer’s son in London. They showed him pictures of boys picking big red apples in sunny orchard, said that was Canada. That’s why his father came to Canada. Right off Gaze Island. Of those three hundred and fourteen children only twenty-four were saved by Joe Sop-that was later Skipper Joe, master of one of the last Banks fishing schooners.

Poor William Ankle was lost.and so Pretty’s father changed his name to William Pretty.(p.168) At that time, they have nothing, but it was a joinery of lives all worked together, not separated like today. Some kids are not so lucky, they got bully and died before they arrived in Canada like Lewis thorn(p.169). Some survivors turn into godless pirated spying for preying wrecks’ food and treasures.

Quoyle found out a head in the suitcase of Bayonet Melville’s who is the owner of the Tough Baby, a Dutch ship built for Hitler. (p.178)Mrs. Melville captured in Hawaii with the steward from Tough Baby, A handsome man thirty years younger than she.(p.288)

Quolye wrote an article about Hitler’s boat and gave him a chance to start to write the shipping news journalist job. It’s his first time at thirty-six to gain the compliment(p.144) A stranger’s praise change his life(p.126) Later Quolye starts to write column(p.204)andBe the page one story.

Quoyle found out that more priests connected with the orphanage. It’s up to nineteen awaiting trial.(p.217)

Behind the Shipping is filled with inventive violence and this tearing off clothes in court business(p.247)

Quolye’s shipping story makes Jack and Dennis be together again(p.262) His aunt start with new business with her old partner Mavis

Wavey’s hub Herold Prowse was in the bottom of the sea cos the lack of safe facilities. Wavey’s uncle Alving Yark built a boat for Quolye who used to be a chicken of the swimming, now he knows how to control the sea and start his adventure with love(p. 248)

Quolye’s ancestor’s house used to be heavy around him. The pressure of the past filling the room like ordorless gas(p. 263) After the storm, their old house is gone, but they decide to build anything out on the point(p.323)

The wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.(p.337) Love comes with silence step. Quolye found Wavey, his true love in hometown.

Jack’s resurrection is a great enlightenment and omen to all the suffering souls

Through the journey of the wrecking ships, find the knot of the past and presence. from corruption to resurrection. And start to knit a new rope without ending and starting.

Highlights vs self- reflection:

(p.2)Throwing him into water is a way to teach him to swim. His father can’t accept any failure, failures like an explosion of virulent cells. To his father, Quoyle is a complete failure. failure in everything His father prefer Dick , Quoye’s brother better.

He stumbles into the newspaper business through a friend he meets one night in a laundromat in Mockingburg, New York. He is not very good at it. He also meets Petal Bear, a small woman he yearns for, they share a month of happiness , followed by six years of misery,

His father suffers from liver cancer and his mother struggels with tumor. They choose suicide farewell. Neither his brother nor his aunt come to the funeral.

After his aunt showed up,

(p.34)Quoyle is an abandoned and cuckholed widower.

(p.18)His aunt’s father died of the can hook’s failing Quoye’s father died of liver cancer

His aunt, Agnes’ mom married Quoyle’s grandfather

(p.25) Quoyle hates to know nothing about greatfather. He is a fit-prone seal killing incestuous naïve kid. Petal had an affair with Geo and run away from Quoyle. Petal also sold out her 2 daughters.

His aunt invite Quoye and his children Bunny and Sunshine to go back where they started .

(p.29) She believes their howntown will make them stronger and stronger As you get older you find out the place where you started out pulls at your stronger and stronger.

Quoyle’s good friend Partridge recommends him to get a shipping news reporter job at Quoyle’s hometown Port-Aux-Basques.

(p.31) Partridge liked the rich taste of life so well himself he wished for an entrée or two for Quoyle. Amases him how the old strings still pull Quolye back to the bright track.

(p.34)Go back with a bereaved nephew and Guy’s ashes. Quolye wondered which had changed the most, place or Quoyle self?

(p.47)The old place of the Quoyles, half ruined, isolated, the walls and doors of it pumiced by stony lives of dead generations. The aunt felt a hot pang. With tons of failures, it’s hard for Quoyles to face the dead past.

(p.39) Aunt stop Bunny to call Quoyle Dummy like her wife. IT shows some respect to his father.

(p.51)Le’t help buddy with his door. “Dad, are we scared” said Sunshine. “No, honey , It’s an adventure.” Quyle didn’t want them to grow up timid. Under the heavy storm weather, Aunt wanna Quoyle to help others. And Quoyle face this chaos with adventure with courage. Life can’t beat us down. If you face it with bright sight!

(p.52) “It’s better than sleeping in the car”. They are so blissful and thanksful to anything happened to them.

(p.53)”Tell a story, Dad” said Bunny, “You didn’t tell us story for about a hundred years.” Story is the best cureall

(p.64)”Great-great-grandfather had to go to cannibalism to stay alive. We settled Flour Sack Cove, right here, only a few families left now. Buggits fished these waters, sealed, shipped out, done everything to keep going, It used to be a good living, fishing. “ Life was tough at his great great grandfather’s time, fishing used to be the best job. Time changed. Fishing is not so good, but not so bad like his great great grandfather’s time

(p.65)” They give up on the hard time and swapped them in for confederation with Canada…The electricity and roads, telephone, radio, health care, mail service, good education for kids. Some of it come in, , but not the jobs. . Canada government giving fishing rights to every country on the face of the earth, but regulating us out of business. Then the bloody Green peace trying to shut down the sealing. “

After Newfoundland

A former colony and then dominion of the United Kingdom, Newfoundland gave up its independence in 1933, following significant economic distress caused by the Great Depression and the aftermath of Newfoundland's participation inWorld War I. It became the tenth province to enter the Canadian Confederation on March 31, 1949. After the confederation with Canada. Newfoundland is hard for living on fishing.

(p.67)”…it had folded and nobody ever told the guys building the glove factory, nobody ever told Canada Manpower..”

Seems so like Taiwan. Government do some change as soon as lightning. We got no time to prepare for what had happened.

(p.69) “We run a frontpage photo of a car wreck whether we have car wreck or not”

Living is more import than the truth.. so insisitable!

(p.80)”The harbormaster punched keys, the names of ships leaped in royal blue letters, their tonnages, owners, country of registration, cargoes, arrival and departure dates…”

They put so much effort to understand the ship, cos the passion, not just job

(p.81)”The government put seventeen million dollars into upgrading this harbor two years ago. …they commence to hurl the money around.”

Compare to the harbormaster. The government hurl the money around but solve none of the problem

(p.93) “one of tragedies of real life is that there is no background music”

To find out where we are from is a best way to help us keep going.

(p.170)” …slaves to the cruel Canadian famers…Count your blessings that you’re in a snug harbor…My father taught all his children to read and write. In winter when the fishing was over and the storms wrapped Gaze Land, my father would hold school right down there in kitchen of the old house …On Christmas Day the mail boat sent them books

” It’s lucky to be alive, needs a lot of luck!

(p.171)”…There was four women in every man’s heart…..the maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman….What he knew was that women were shaped like leaves and men fell” Woman is the leaf, God gave man the leaf and be taken away by woman

(p.172) many people here depended on shipwracks to improve their lots. Save what lives they could and then strip the vessel bare. Seize the luxuries , butter, cheese, china plates, silver coffee pots and the fine chests of drawers. .There’s many houses here still has treasures that come off wracked ships.

Rubbers are the worse role in the society, but is the best role to get servived.

(p.291)”There is no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat “

The power of home is so meaning

(p.292)”They say too many local fishermen for not enough fish… where has the fish gone? To the Russians, the French, the Japs. West Germany, East Germany, Poland, Portugal, the UK, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria-or whatever they call the countries nowadays. ..And even after the limit was set, the inshore was no good.” “

200 mile limit set the fish , also the fishermen.

(p. 293) “a hard exhalation rather than a sigh.”

Today’s struggle is tomorrow’s strengh

(p.293)” We lives by rules made somewhere else by sons a bitches don’t know nothing about this place”

Seems everywhere goes like this. Some care less people control some care more people

(p.313)”Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart..I”m coming back some day… The old life was too small to fit anymore.”

The old place is too small to fit anymore. But big enough to cure the broken heart

(P.322) “The house gone… we could build a little camp out there…”

No matter the style of the house is, where is love, there is home.

(p.326) “Middle age not too far ahead, but it didn’t frighten him. It was harder to count his errors now, perhaps because they had compounded beyond counting, or had blurred into his general condition.”

Hard to count the life is right or wrong. It disguised in different appearance.

(p.331)”There is grief and loss in life. They need to understand that. They seem to think death is just sleep”

Death is eternal rest. Why resist? It renders us a sufficient chance to express our love and appreciation.

(p.332)”It may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”

That’s the reason we used to ignore it

Questions:

1. In the beginning of each chapter there is a knot, each knot has its special

meaning, what does it symbol?

(1) a window to the world, a knot to the soul

(2) find out the problem by cutting the knot or find the trace of the knot

(3) knot is a way to bind them from past to the new land.

2. Who is your favorite character in this book? Why the role draw your attention?

(1)Chapter 1. How important is is to cultivate a child at early childhood

3. Why Petal wanted Quoyle find a girl for himself? Is it fair to him?

(1) She doesn’t love Quoyle at all the beginning, she wanna get a good excuse for herself

4. When Quoyle finds out his mysterious family stories, what effect brings to him and to his aunt? Do you think the family background really has its influence to him or to her? Will you care if you find out your last generation did something evil?

(1) After he found out where he is from, it’s easier to grow himself more

5. Jack Buggit, the newspaper editor, he was a fisherman before, but he always finds some reason to stay outside, why? How is the relationship between Dennis and Jack?

(1)Jack’s older son is killed by the sea, that’s why he wanna Dennis get away from the sea

6. Among those shipping news, which column draw your attention best?

(1) (p.172) many people here depended on shipwracks to improve their lots. Save what lives they could and then strip the vessel bare. Seize the luxuries , butter, cheese, china plates, silver coffee pots and the fine chests of drawers. .There’s many houses here still has treasures that come off wracked ships.

Rubbers are the worse role in the society, but is the best role to get servived.

7. Share your interested part of the book .

(p.196) The sharpness of his gaze pierced the past. He saw generations like migrating birds, they bay flecked with ghost sails, the deserted settlements vigorous again ,and in the abyss nets spangled with scales.

8. From your point of view, does it brings you anything new?

(1)”Before me” by Rebecca Daughty:” I had a cup, you brought the tea. I had a boat, you brought the sea. I had a drum, you brought the beat. I had a dream, you made it sweet. Now I am a bird and you are my song”. Love makes everything complete!

(2)Tagore”Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

(3)Newfounland means” Quaerite prime regnum Dei “,the kingland of God”

The best way to arrange the knot is to cut it! Quolye found out a better way to arrange the knot by finding the first trace of the line.

(4)p.336”For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintop give off cold fire, forests appear in midocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain and misery.” Magic is the code from God to render us the hop, love and blessing to face tomorrow’s wind!

(5) Even without wings, we can fly with our nostalgia love

Golden Sentence:

(1)p.11 “A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim”

(2)p.146 “Everyone, alive could clench possibilities”

(3)p.193”The ocean twitched like a vat cloth spread over snakes.”

(4)p.197”The Bay crawled with whitecaps like maggots seething in a broad wound”

(5)p.238”The road shone under a moon like a motorcycle headlight”

(6) p.29”As you get older you find out the place where you started out pulls at your stronger and stronger.”

(7)p.19”A elegant rite of The Dinified Exit Society.”

(8)p.196” The sharpness of his gaze pierced the past. He saw generations like migrating birds, they bay flecked with ghost sails, the deserted settlements vigorous again ,and in the abyss nets spangled with scales.”

(9)p.249”I doubt a man can bring up two little girls on his onw…I doubt it can be done without some savage talk and nervous breakdowns all around”

Discussion:

1. Quolye is the metopher of coil，(p. 1)” spiral coil of one layer only it is made on deck , so that it may be walked on if necessary”,keep walking, no matter down and out，we will find our way out.

2. Lesbian Agnes is raped by half-brother,Quoyle’s father,her hatred deep inside her. The resentment makes her dump his ashes into toilet. While Agnes fount out by Quolye’s journalist story that (p.178) Melville’s head in the suitcase who is the owner of the Tough Baby, a Dutch ship built for Hitler. is killed by Mrs. Melville captured in Hawaii who also got same destiny like Agnes of being raped . Agnes felt her soul redeemed.

3. Jack is very optimistic to deal with his lost of elderson and safe his younger son Dennis life, he also opens a chance to Quolye to have a chance to start his shipping news opportunity but it’s a little magic that he is drown and alive again by coughing caused by being pinned by lapel accidently.

4. Wavey and Quolye fell in love again while found out they got same destiny abanded by being cheated.

5. Quolye is her aunt Agnes own kid, at the age of conservation. She couldn’t say anything even about her accomplishment, from other’s interview. Quolye found out Agnes is the best upholstery. Till the end. Agnes face her real life and admit it.

6. The old Quoyles dragged the house across the ice, How tough the life is, go through such a miserable time, Quoyle found out again his power of existence again.

7. Quolye’s ancestors are pirates who are bad enough to survive in the worse time. Their ancestor cut other’s nose, and are not allowed to live in the town, so they need to move away. After reading the book , give us a chance to understand the different point of view of the pirates.

8. No matter who you are, once you are the imigrants, you got to be prepared to be treated like negro.

9. Positive Boss Jack , his son Dennis and colleague Bill help Quolye go through hard time. At the same time, they also get help from Quolye, All of the hometown citizen changed the view to see the world.

Conclusion:

1.(Helen): Joyful and deepen discussion was led by Betty's complete preparation. It's a great book that enlightened each character's features of facing the dark side of life in such a remote place-🏔Newfoundland . Through the plot narration,we learned that only to co-work and accept the true of you then you may know how to undo the coil of knots in every path of life journey. God's blessing to those unable to come today

2.(Florence) We have a sharp discussion for the book - The Shipping News which are led by Betty Chung, she gave us a front guide to the book, and then we probe into the each question that Betty elaborately manages for us. I love the book for their each character that the author, Annie Proulx set pen to them, vigorously, and darkly comic. When we asked what character draw your attention to the book, each member has different view of points, Carol loves Quoyle, Lydia loves Jack, Betty loves Petal, who ( Emma? Helen?) says she loves Aunt. Ha,Ha, so interesting. To the end, Emma, our wisdom sister, quotes an essay from "Before" by Rebecca Daughty: I had a cup, you brought the tea, I had a boat, you brought the sea, I had a drum, you brought the beat. I had a dream, you made it sweet. Now I am a bird and you are my song". She elaborates "Love makes everything complete".

Thank you, Betty for your great lead. We have many disappointments for our consultant, Clive, he missed the attendance, Newfoundland is his homeland, we are curious to his presence and give us more details. Okay, he gives us his thoughts about the book.

3.(Clive): Annie Proulx, it's fair to say, knows her weather. Wind, snow, rain, lots of rain, storms, odd strange moments of sunshine and then, fog: "Fog against the window like milk..." "The sullen bay rubbed with thumbs of fog" … "green of grass stain, tilted in fog." On she goes.

The Shipping News is a much lauded novel and it is the sort of novel that divides people. People either love it or hate it. Proulx’s prose style seems to be the sticking point. Even many of those that like the book seem to find it difficult. I think it is the case that it is hard work to get through this novel. It's worth sticking with it as the description of a bleak Newfoundland winter and the emergence of the key characters is beautifully done. It is definitely a slow burner. It's a challenging novel also because e pace might not suit everyone.

Front and center is Quoyle, an unprepossessing lump who goes from a loveless childhood in upstate New York to a half-loveless marriage to Petal Bear, a sharp-tongued woman who gives him two daughters (Bunny and Sunshine) and six years of suffering that Quoyle gladly absorbs, not knowing that life can offer anything else.

Then Petal is killed in a car accident, and Quoyle's Aunt Agnis, who has all the gumption her nephew lacks, moves the family to their ancestral home in Newfoundland to start a new life. It's not easy; their house, perched grimly on a rock, is uninhabitable in winter, "mean and hopeless" year-round. But Quoyle, a "third- rate newspaperman," is hired by the paper to cover car-wrecks and shipping news and is soon writing zippy columns, an improbable late-bloomer at 36; he also courts, ever so slowly, a widow called Wavey, who clings as foolishly to the sainted memory of her husband as Quoyle does to that of Petal. Proulx pumps up this low-key material with a splash of local color (old salts in the newsroom), a pinch of melodrama (headless corpse washes ashore), and a rattle of skeletons in the family closet.

4.(Emma): Unlike elegant Pilgrims sailed with Mayflower of good facility from England to USA who live on farming, the other savages and orphanges sailed on the ship of no facility to Newfoundland who live on fishing. After the Great Depression, Newfoundland gave up his independence and become the tenth province of the Canadian Confederation. Under the Canadian’s negotiation with the green peace. Newfoundland lost the competition to live on fishing. Under the hardship, Along with Aunt Agnes and two kids, Quolye came home with lost and indignity of parents and wife and, Agnes with raped heart and lesbian life. Untangling the knot of where we were, we will find the knot where to go. Quoyle’s name is the metaphor of coil, at the end. He refind his own coil with dignity.

2. Shippingnews:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7354.The_Shipping_News

3.Newfoundland:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B4%90%E8%8A%AC%E8%98%AD%E8%88%87%E6%8B%89%E5%B8%83%E6%8B%89%E5%A4%9A

4. Port-Aux-Basques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel-Port_aux_Basques

5.Tuckamore: https://www.google.com.tw/search?q=tuckamore&safe=strict&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiurJa3wd3SAhUGEpQKHQptBv0QsAQIIA&biw=1280&bih=617&dpr=1.5

6.Riviera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riviera

7.Killick-Claw: http://www4.rncan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique/ACGUU

8. Annie Proulx: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Proulx

9.Loonies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie

10.Flour Cove: https://mapcarta.com/24255524/Map

11.Ontario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario

12.knot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot

13.Killick-Claw: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/23/specials/proulx-shipping.html