The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
New longish interview with Annie Proulx (GuardianUK/Observer, Sunday June 5 2016
southendmd:
Thanks, John, for posting.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: southendmd on June 05, 2016, 05:39:55 pm ---Yes, I reviewed it five years ago:
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,46240.msg604846.html#msg604846
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 27, 2011, 10:21:13 am ---I finished BirdCloud and enjoyed it.
To me, it didn't resemble the review posted above. Hardly "shelter porn", the description of building the house is a recurring motif, set among fascinating and deep accounts of both her ancestors and the land itself. I kept thinking of Michener: extensive geology, geneology, surveys of flora and fauna--but with footnotes!
In fact, she reveals little of herself in any direct manner. She doesn't really discuss her writing or her living family. Rather we see her through her interactions in the building of the house, and in her attitudes toward the land, and her understanding of time slipping away. The book seems more about the land than about her. She has said that place and climate determine one's destiny. The land, like her long and curious lineage, is both eternal and ephemeral, brutal and brilliant.
One example is a tall, narrow window she built to frame the view of the tree favored by a pair of bald eagles. In a passage right out of one of her stories, the tree is soon felled by weather, and the eagle window is now useless, an excellent metaphor for her house endeavor, and the futility of trying to wrangle nature.
She does seem reluctantly reliant on her crew for survival, and they are merely two-dimensional. That she loves birds more than people is not surprising in one so reclusive.
Of course it's easy to take phrases or sentences out of context and pronounce them to be precious. However, in context, they sounded perfectly natural. In fact, I found this nonfiction to be more readable than much of her fiction prose.
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--- Quote from: southendmd on June 05, 2016, 05:41:37 pm ---Thanks, John, for posting.
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Thanks, Paul! :)
Jeff Wrangler:
That description of Barkskins reminds me of the sort of thing James Michener used to do, where he'd start with the dinosaurs, or something, and then bring the story down to the present day.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: southendmd on June 05, 2016, 05:39:55 pm ---Yes, I reviewed it five years ago:
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,46240.msg604846.html#msg604846
--- End quote ---
Thanks, Paul. Obviously I'd forgotten all about that, and, indeed, about the book. Now I feel that I want to read it.
Too many books, too little time. I've got four books on the go, right now.
Sophia:
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on June 05, 2016, 04:54:46 pm ---
You're welcome, Sophia! :-*
Good question. Not me, unfortunately.
By the way--isn't anyone going to comment to say:
"Tent don't look right." Also--where are the beans?? :laugh:
(Also note: if that had been a, say, 2007-2016 photograph rather than a 1960's-ish vintage photo, one would probably assume that the young woman was looking at her iPhone...)
Wild at heart: Proulx as a young woman camping in the woods near her home. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian.
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You are so right, John. I feel like I want to write a complaint letter to The Guardian and ask how dare they post a picture without a proper BBM tent. It's so rude! Forget the letter I will send a package with Bettermost cans.
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