Met by Zoom, 3rd December 2020. Apologies from Steve.
This is the 2nd novel of Annie Proulx who published her first in her 50s. Since then she has published a number of novels and also short stories – Brokeback Mountain being a well-known one of the latter. She is inspired by landscapes and the way in which geography/topography fashions people and language. She has a house on Newfoundland and spends part of the year there – presumably the summer part!
There was general agreement that this was an interesting, very well written, very unusual book, full of well-drawn characters, evocative descriptions of Newfoundland lifestyle, landscape, seascape, weather, the Gammy Bird newspaper, and food.
Examples include:
Rock ledges like black metal straps held the sea to the land.
The Heavy Weather was a log room with a filthy linoleum floor and the smell of a backed-up toilet, vomit, stale smoke and liquor.
…the children rushed at Quoyle, gripping him as a falling man clutches at a window ledge, as a stream of electric particles arcs a gap and completes a circuit. The fog against the window like milk, dense as cotton waste, carried a coldness that ate into ones bones
…a yellow day on Monday – the sky cast was an ugly yellow like a jar of piss.
An amazing beginning with the description of Quoyle’s tormented childhood, body and life:
And brother Dick, the father’s favourite, pretended to throw up when Quoyle came into the room, hissed Lardass, Snotface, Ugly Pig, Warthog, Stupid, Stinkbomb, Fart-tub, Greasebag… pummelled and kicked until Quoyle curled, hands over head, snivelling, on the linoleum. All stemmed from Quoyle’s chief failure, a failure of normal appearance.
The reader has to catch the rhythm of the writing – many short sentences lacking verbs or other grammatical normalities as well as all the local vocabulary, and cadences which well conveyed the quirky speech patterns of the locals: Leave me take that saw boy.
The isolated communities are buffeted by nature and change which inevitably leads to decay of local industry and migration of the population in search of employment and a better life. And all the details of boats and boat-building which, while they may be lost on non-boat-people. add detail and believability to description of activities which have always been central to the lives of ‘Newfies’, but which are now in terminal decline.
The place names: Lost all Hope, Bad Fortune, Never Once, No Name; and the names of many of the characters: Partridge, Pretty, Nutbeem, Tert Card, Alvin Yark, and Benny Fudge whose face seemed made of leftover flesh squeezed roughly together. Another character had a face like cottage cheese clawed with a fork.
There is quite a shocking amount of abuse vying for space in the Gammy Bird, but the story also has instances of wry and self-deprecating humour from Quoyle. And in many ways this is a story of both obsessive destructive love and and a slowly developing life-affirming love that is without pain or misery. The affection between Quoyle and Wavey is very beautifully and touchingly described, with an occasional small glance or touch building slowly. Also Quoyle’s unreserved love for his children, and the activities and interruptions of the children all rang true, as well as the traumas, fears and misunderstandings which can be part of many young lives.
It was agreed that Proulx had undertaken a lot of research to write this book, with detailed interviewing of many local people, so that many of her stories seemed to ring true, or to at least have a ring of truth to them.
