Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Not perfect, but imaginative and striking
Comment: Some people really do not like this book. Some have given it one star in a review, and others have complained that it does not stand up next to Proulx's much more famous "The Shipping News", yet I feel moved to come to its defence. This is Proulx's first novel, and, for those who do now know the storyline, it begins with the collapse of a family unit on a small farm and goes on to chart the progress (in inverted commas) of the members of that family across the geography and time of the United States in the 20th century.
The fiercest accusation levelled at this book is that it lacks a plot, and I would be inclined to agree, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, I often find that otherwise good books are spoiled by their plots, and many of my favourites have no plot at all. This is an episodic, thematic approach to writing, but one could argue that this is perhaps closer to how we experience the world than a meticulously planned thriller which leads you by the nose to its ravishing conclusion.
Proulx does take a gloomy view of the world in this book, but again that is to be applauded, but that places it in a very fine tradition of American writing (think of how relentlessly depressing "The Grapes of Wrath" is, and that book is twice as long as this). It is not perfect, and it needs to be read quickly for it not to become slightly tiresome, but it is a fine, and adventurous piece of fiction.
Customer Rating:
Summary: good, but not worthy from this author
Comment: A good book, really a very good book, but still a little disappointing from this author. Another fairly grimy down-to-earth account of Americans' inhumanity to Americans, but the book is more like Accordian Crimes in the respect that it lacks a totally punchy central plot and is more a set of interesting cameos. Not my taste, but certainly worth reading. Quite interesting bits about fossils! However I'm still looking out for another book as good as The Shipping News!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A glorious read.
Comment: "Postcards" is a darker work than Proulx's better known "The Shipping News" but all the hallmarks are there. The descriptions of nature are breathtaking, the dialogue acute, the control consummate. The author unerringly chooses the right phrase, or positions the right word just so. This is the work of a master water-colourist in prose. Without giving too much away, it is the story of two lost lives. The first occurs on page one but it is the chronicle of the second that forms the rest of the book, poor damaged Loyal sending back his postcards - loyal by nature as well as by name. While brother Dub gets rich and fat in real estate, Loyal battles against everything the elements can throw at him - rockfall, fire, snow - then picks himself up, tries again. The passing of the years and the changing of the times are beautifully and poignantly laid out, and I have to say that so unbearable did I find it at times that I could only manage to read some parts of the novel in short bursts. I haven't been so moved by a book in years as I have been by the story of Loyal Blood. Six stars out of five.
Customer Rating:
Summary: AWFUL
Comment: If i could give it zero stars i would it was uninteresting from the start I could not keep up with the extreme numbers of new characters introduced every chapter till it reached the end one word to describe this book. AWFUL
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, but so depressing
Comment: Proulx is an amazing writer, and I was deeply drawn to her characters. Having grown up in a small town in New Hampshire, the Blood's saga was a little too familiar-accidents, lost love, cold family relationships, and the loss of the simplicity of a past age(which was actually never all that simple). While I appreciated her talent, this story was just so bleak, that I had to put it down for days before I was compelled to pick it up again.
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