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sunn_bleach's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Goddamn. Okay, first - there is a plot here, and you'll see it as you work through our Midwestern-by-transfer Molly Bloom's psychoses and obsessions. But just like "Ulysses" (God, what a comparison), you're getting into the absoluteness of a single life. Tons of references, foibles, worries, obsessions, and ennuis that wouldn't make a lick of sense to anybody who isn't her - and that's the point. You're not supposed to get it all, other than the deep stress of mere existence in 2019 Ameri[c/k]a.
So, at 700 pages in, it clicked. Yeah there's an undercurrent of suburban angst through this, but as it progresses I realize it's much more than that. It's the kind of excoriation of the destruction of civilization and settlement, especially the myths that we tell ourselves as Americans both the topical one of our "taming of the land", but also the deeper myth that we can live sustainably. And we can't! We've destroyed it. Our backyards and homes are ecological wastelands with sterile lawns. Did you know there used to be buffalo in Ohio until the early 1830s? Now it's parking lots everywhere, and it's called a triumph of humanity.
In this book, there's a story about a mountain lion and her cubs on the edge of humanity - in the beginning, it's unclear where she is as it sounds like it's on the savannah, but she interacts with humans more and more until her cubs are taken from her by "do-gooders" who think they're lost kittens. This tension on the edge of nature and humanity - really a destroyed nature with a lion so desperate to say the land is still hers - becomes the undercurrent of our Ohio housewife's monologue, where everything she feels and says has the undercurrent of a painful awareness that this land is a lie, it was built on lies, and her fears and worries are reflective of the more insidious alienation that is at the very heart of the American Myth.
All because I said I liked "Satantango" earlier this year and one of my buddies was like "hey so there's this book on ducks you might want to check out..."
So, at 700 pages in, it clicked. Yeah there's an undercurrent of suburban angst through this, but as it progresses I realize it's much more than that. It's the kind of excoriation of the destruction of civilization and settlement, especially the myths that we tell ourselves as Americans both the topical one of our "taming of the land", but also the deeper myth that we can live sustainably. And we can't! We've destroyed it. Our backyards and homes are ecological wastelands with sterile lawns. Did you know there used to be buffalo in Ohio until the early 1830s? Now it's parking lots everywhere, and it's called a triumph of humanity.
In this book, there's a story about a mountain lion and her cubs on the edge of humanity - in the beginning, it's unclear where she is as it sounds like it's on the savannah, but she interacts with humans more and more until her cubs are taken from her by "do-gooders" who think they're lost kittens. This tension on the edge of nature and humanity - really a destroyed nature with a lion so desperate to say the land is still hers - becomes the undercurrent of our Ohio housewife's monologue, where everything she feels and says has the undercurrent of a painful awareness that this land is a lie, it was built on lies, and her fears and worries are reflective of the more insidious alienation that is at the very heart of the American Myth.
All because I said I liked "Satantango" earlier this year and one of my buddies was like "hey so there's this book on ducks you might want to check out..."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Gun violence, and Murder
e11en's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Gun violence
jordanfeht's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Seriously one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read. I thoroughly enjoyed living inside this suburban housewife’s head, as she thought of pies and grief and mothers and daughters.
“The fact that there’s no room in the whole of Ohio for my needs, my desires, my dilemmas, my tragedies, my flat tires, my mommy, Mommy, the fact that I want my mommy….”
5/5 stars
“The fact that there’s no room in the whole of Ohio for my needs, my desires, my dilemmas, my tragedies, my flat tires, my mommy, Mommy, the fact that I want my mommy….”
5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence
Moderate: Grief
keegan_leech's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
It's hard to express what I liked so much about this book. At times, I found it very difficult to read. Typically not because of the unusual style, the single train of thought. It's actually surprisingly easy to just drift along, letting the words flow over you and through you. But because the novel consists so heavily of the fears and worries and everyday stresses of another ordinary person, it can be very difficult to read when you'd like to get away from your own fears and worries and everyday stresses.
It took me months to read, not because of the length or the density of the writing (although it is a very long book), but because I so often found myself unable to pick it up and worry alongside the narrator. Worry about gun culture and colonialism in the United States, about whether the windows of her house need re-varnishing, about ongoing environmental catastrophe, about whether a person can ever recover from the death of a parent, about what her daughter thinks of her favourite musicals, about the cruelties of industrial poultry farming, and so on for 1000 pages.... It was just difficult to read sometimes.
Despite this, I really would encourage anyone to try the book. Although I was often intimidated by it, I found it to be an immensely rewarding experience. It is an experiment that may not accomplish all it set out to do and may be a lot to take in, but which is exceptionally illuminating for the questions it forces you to ask while reading. I think that anyone who teaches say, an honours-level English literature course, could teach this novel on its own for a semester course, and have new discussions about it with their students for years on end. There is so much in the book to provoke thought and interest and exploration.
Even the most basic aspects of the book provoke interesting questions. There is a glossary of acronyms at the back of the book. I doubt that all of them are used in the book itself, and there isn't a practical reason for the glossary to be there, but it fascinates me! Why is it so important that I, the reader, be able to flip to the back of the book and check the two included definitions of "CGI"? Why have the definitions been "sanitized for your comfort" (for example "POS", is defined "piece of [scat]", square brackets in the original)? Why, since we're asking about the choices made in the book, is it called "Ducks, Newburyport" in the first place? It's a regularly-repeated phrase in the book, but not one that would feel defining or even especially noteworthy if it weren't the title.
There's more to the book than intellectual curiosity. At times I was enthralled, overcome with emotion, or wrapped up in the story (I was actually surprised to discover how much of a narrative there is in the book, because like the everyday stories we tell ourselves, it's a narrative that only really comes together in hindsight). Just the fact that the setting of the novel is so mundane, makes for a unique and charming read. But so much thought has gone into this novel, which elevates it from charming and unusual, to something that I'd urge people to seek out and try.
A decade from now, Ducks, Newburyport might not be remembered as a ground-breaking work of experimental literature. It might not even be a book that I remember or think of often. But right now, I can't stop thinking about how it made me feel, and how it made me think. I really do believe that the most anyone can ask of any book is that it provoke them, at least a little, that it change something about how they think, or make them feel something that they wouldn't have otherwise. In my case, this book has done all that and more.
It took me months to read, not because of the length or the density of the writing (although it is a very long book), but because I so often found myself unable to pick it up and worry alongside the narrator. Worry about gun culture and colonialism in the United States, about whether the windows of her house need re-varnishing, about ongoing environmental catastrophe, about whether a person can ever recover from the death of a parent, about what her daughter thinks of her favourite musicals, about the cruelties of industrial poultry farming, and so on for 1000 pages.... It was just difficult to read sometimes.
Despite this, I really would encourage anyone to try the book. Although I was often intimidated by it, I found it to be an immensely rewarding experience. It is an experiment that may not accomplish all it set out to do and may be a lot to take in, but which is exceptionally illuminating for the questions it forces you to ask while reading. I think that anyone who teaches say, an honours-level English literature course, could teach this novel on its own for a semester course, and have new discussions about it with their students for years on end. There is so much in the book to provoke thought and interest and exploration.
Even the most basic aspects of the book provoke interesting questions. There is a glossary of acronyms at the back of the book. I doubt that all of them are used in the book itself, and there isn't a practical reason for the glossary to be there, but it fascinates me! Why is it so important that I, the reader, be able to flip to the back of the book and check the two included definitions of "CGI"? Why have the definitions been "sanitized for your comfort" (for example "POS", is defined "piece of [scat]", square brackets in the original)? Why, since we're asking about the choices made in the book, is it called "Ducks, Newburyport" in the first place? It's a regularly-repeated phrase in the book, but not one that would feel defining or even especially noteworthy if it weren't the title.
There's more to the book than intellectual curiosity. At times I was enthralled, overcome with emotion, or wrapped up in the story (I was actually surprised to discover how much of a narrative there is in the book, because like the everyday stories we tell ourselves, it's a narrative that only really comes together in hindsight). Just the fact that the setting of the novel is so mundane, makes for a unique and charming read. But so much thought has gone into this novel, which elevates it from charming and unusual, to something that I'd urge people to seek out and try.
A decade from now, Ducks, Newburyport might not be remembered as a ground-breaking work of experimental literature. It might not even be a book that I remember or think of often. But right now, I can't stop thinking about how it made me feel, and how it made me think. I really do believe that the most anyone can ask of any book is that it provoke them, at least a little, that it change something about how they think, or make them feel something that they wouldn't have otherwise. In my case, this book has done all that and more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Colonisation
Moderate: Cancer, Gun violence, Suicide, and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Police brutality, Stalking, Murder, and Sexual harassment
That's a lot of content warnings! Most of that content is mentioned in passing, with little more detail than might be in a news headline or summary. It's relatively clinical, and even the topics which appear most often or most directly tend not to be covered in detail. If it's "minor" then it's probably no more distressing than what you'd see in a news feed. However, loss of a parent, while there are almost no details mentioned, is a very persistent theme. Maybe not "graphic", but it's mentioned almost constantly throughout the almost 1000 pages. I've also given colonisation a "graphic", because of a very explicit quote describing a massacre of native Americans, althougholivianw's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Truly magnificent! I am in awe of the author, I can’t imagine how she kept track of each strand, tying them together beautifully in the end.
The way this was written made what could have been a bit of a slog for me an absolute pleasure to read. Each tangent mimicking my own mind, so I found that I could get swept alway with the narrator without much effort on my part.
As with all of the very few “long” books I’ve got through, I’ll miss this book now that I’ve finished it!
The way this was written made what could have been a bit of a slog for me an absolute pleasure to read. Each tangent mimicking my own mind, so I found that I could get swept alway with the narrator without much effort on my part.
As with all of the very few “long” books I’ve got through, I’ll miss this book now that I’ve finished it!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Gun violence, Violence, and Mass/school shootings
madscientistcat's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Police brutality, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, and Murder
mc_easton's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Stylistically related to John Dos Passos, especially his U.S.A. trilogy, and the wilds of Robert Coover’s narrators (think A Public Burning), Ellmann tacks her ship in a different direction. If you’ve always wished a woman would hijack these experimental voices in service of a pie-baking, suburbanite housewife, then this is the novel for you. It may sound like I’m mocking Lucy Ellmann’s 998-page beast, but I emphatically am not. I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of assigned and recommended reading where men—most often a businessman or a wayward politician—spend hours on a train or behind the wheel of a car fretting over sales records or poll numbers, why breakfast tasted off, and whether he’ll be able to get it up that night. It’s high time that a mother baking pies, reflecting on her recovery from cancer, and worrying about toxins in drinking water gets equal literary treatment.
First, whatever else you may have heard, there is a story. But the narrator cannot get out of her own way—or the story’s—and this is the story, too. So we have the engine of a traditional plot, complete with foreshadowing, escalation, and a climax that made me weep and laugh hysterically all at once. We have an unexpected heroine and a villain, and the villain is quite easy to spot for any feminists out there—which adds to the suspense.
But for sheer page count, all that is the tiniest sliver. What makes up the bulk of this novel is stream of consciousness as the narrator goes about her life in a state of constant anxiety and complicated grief. She is exactly the white Gen X women I’ve known, and one senses Ellmann (in her mid-sixties) has both profound compassion and a shade of frustration with the generation right behind her own.
Punctuating this stream of consciousness, however, is the narrative of a cougar—also a mother—trying to survive in the landscape that humans have blighted. These passages are swift and deft—and very, very short. They are delivered in close-third from the cougar’s perspective, and the juxtaposition is powerful.
While our narrator frets endlessly (and ineffectually) about environmental destruction and her family’s safety, here we have another mind—one that is wholly engaged with reality here and now, who makes choices and takes action, and whose every thought is fit to purpose. In case you think I’m reaching, this is also the juxtaposition at the heart of the climax as well as the final lines of the novel. Ellmann is doing a lot with these pages, but above all, she is inviting us to stop spinning our wheels for a minute and instead just take action, however small that act or uncertain the outcome. It’s beautiful, really, to be reminded that we can save lives and even (hopefully) the planet if we just get out of our own way.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation
alisonvh's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I think I liked this book? It's definitely unlike anything else I've ever read, but once I got used to the writing style, it was actually went pretty quickly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence and Sexism
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Racism
olibussell's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence
lexiereadsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Grief, Mass/school shootings, and Death of parent
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