Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

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!