bog_elfin's review against another edition
5.0
This beautiful, personal, incredibly well-researched novel combines history, ecology, culture and impeccable literary style to explain how North America as we know it came to be. One of the more moving works I've encountered lately, and educational as well. Excuse the pun, but Barkskins gets at the root of the current predicament humans and nature are experiencing.
jaclynday's review against another edition
5.0
Whether or not one actually likes the content of this book, it has to be respected for its meticulous research and epic, cross-generational scope. Spoiler: I liked the content too, and with family connections to the logging industry in Canada and farming communities in Nova Scotia, I felt comfortably/uncomfortably at home with these characters. I’m sure it’ll end up being one of the finest books I read this year. (Also, word to the wise: Proulx does not care about your attachment to various characters.)
lynnenad's review against another edition
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
eric_roling's review against another edition
4.0
A tremendous new work by Annie Proulx. Spanning multiple centuries, it tells the stories of two family lines that immigrate to North America together and work in the lumber trade. One family is Mi'kmaq and experiences racism and struggle but also exhibits great industriousness. The other founds a lumber empire and various generations build, squander, and rebuild that inheritance. Proulx does a good job of focusing on important figures in a generation and telling their story, then giving us a fast forward to the next important generational stage. Given this, there are a ton of characters, of which the important ones are well developed, and others are mere glimpses. Tracking familial relationships was a huge challenge, with a number of similar names or vague relations. There is a family tree in the back to help once you are done. Of course, the forest itself plays a huge role as a character in the study. Proulx lays it on quite heavy about the grievous damage that man did to the forests and nature, as well as how badly we abused Native Americans. Both are undeniably true, of course, and they weigh on the narrative. But the telling itself is superb, and this was a wonderful, if heartbreaking, journey across generations.
mverdoorn's review against another edition
3.0
Wow, this was long. It spanned nearly 400 years, so obviously some stories were more interesting than others. But because it was so ambitious, it felt like as soon as one story got interesting, you moved on to a new generation.
stitchandwitch's review against another edition
4.0
"Barkskins" is the story of colonization, the story of globalization and the story of climate change. It demonstrates how all those things tie together to the human race which, in itself, is a web of intertwined lives and knots of heartbreak. It is all-encompassing, with heartwarming moments for everyone, and horror for everyone. It is traumatic, as it covers in horrific detail so much of the genocide that has happened on Turtle Island and around the world. It’s a history of America, and a history of the entire world, all in one hefty tome.
lilyspunner's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book. It’s first and foremost an environmental book focussing on the loss of American forests but intertwined with family history and the destruction of the native American people and their loss of land. It was enthralling and upsetting
bookly_reads's review against another edition
5.0
As a brick-sized paperback in my hand Barkskins felt like a thing utterly of the Earth, and it took me through the span of an oak tree’s life, forcing me to watch its human characters grow and die and grow and die again. I would most compare it to Octavia Butler’s multi-generational Lilith’s Brood trilogy, which is the only other story that has made the emotional truths of colonization so real to me. Barkskins was not a page-turner, but I feel entirely enriched by it and wish it could somehow be condensed so that it could be realistically implemented in American English or history lessons. But it can’t be condensed: The broad brushstrokes of history come forth as emotional truths only when rendered in this exquisitely well-researched detail.
Barkskins made me really feel how inevitable the hypercapitalism of America was once the settlers came, as the hardiest and most psychopathic of our white ancestors flourished in their self-created systems of corruption, dominating those who would live more modest but less harmful lives. The impossible trials of the Native Americans/First Nations peoples feel realer to me as well, as I could grasp the utter futility of trying to salvage back the “old ways” in the midst of an ongoing genocide. Through this book I felt more clearly what it might be like to be left so entirely without options, and then blamed for your own hard lot in life.
At the same time, anyone still under the impression that Europeans are the world’s great innovators is disproven heartily by Annie Proulx’s laying out of the absolute idiocy of most of the settlers:
“The forests are infinite and permanent.”
“God’s sake, how on earth does [someone] ‘manage’ a forest? Cut ’em down!”
During one point a settler is asked about the future of America’s forests, about complex topics like erosion and old growth vs. plantations. Repeatedly his answer is to merely assign the fate of the entire continent to God’s will. It is as if Christianity completely numbed their minds, made their brains impenetrable to all curiosity or wisdom. Later Egga, a Mi’kmaw boy whose parents sent him to a residential school in the hopes that he could assimilate and ascend of ladder of social mobility, is treated viciously and assaulted by “genocidal nuns and priests. The children [who went to the residential schools] were never again wholly Mi’kmaw.” All of this savage behavior paints the Europeans as brutes in a way I was perfectly aware of factually but had never felt to my core emotionally. This is the highest purpose of fiction.
I also now see so much of our past in our present. The thoughts of the greedy head of a lumber company, rich from inherited wealth, could easily be applied to many situations today:
She urged editors to praise the manliness and toughness of shanty men, inculcating axmen with the belief that they could take extreme risks and withstand the most desperate conditions because they were heroic rugged fellows; the same sauce served settlers into the third generation, who believed they were “pioneers” and could outlast perils and adversities. Loggers and frontier settlers, she thought, would live on pride and belief in their own invulnerability instead of money.
I think about our overworked and underpaid teachers and doctors being praised constantly as superhuman “heroes.” Lavinia Duke’s mindset also seems perfectly comparable to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, men so unfathomably greedy they wish to leave our ravaged Earth behind to exploit the solar system.
These are just my first meandering thoughts. Again: Barkskins isn’t a page-turner, but I’m very glad to have read it. As companion reads I highly recommend Richard Powers’s The Overstory and Octavia Butler’s aforementioned Lilith’s Brood.
Barkskins made me really feel how inevitable the hypercapitalism of America was once the settlers came, as the hardiest and most psychopathic of our white ancestors flourished in their self-created systems of corruption, dominating those who would live more modest but less harmful lives. The impossible trials of the Native Americans/First Nations peoples feel realer to me as well, as I could grasp the utter futility of trying to salvage back the “old ways” in the midst of an ongoing genocide. Through this book I felt more clearly what it might be like to be left so entirely without options, and then blamed for your own hard lot in life.
At the same time, anyone still under the impression that Europeans are the world’s great innovators is disproven heartily by Annie Proulx’s laying out of the absolute idiocy of most of the settlers:
“The forests are infinite and permanent.”
“God’s sake, how on earth does [someone] ‘manage’ a forest? Cut ’em down!”
During one point a settler is asked about the future of America’s forests, about complex topics like erosion and old growth vs. plantations. Repeatedly his answer is to merely assign the fate of the entire continent to God’s will. It is as if Christianity completely numbed their minds, made their brains impenetrable to all curiosity or wisdom. Later Egga, a Mi’kmaw boy whose parents sent him to a residential school in the hopes that he could assimilate and ascend of ladder of social mobility, is treated viciously and assaulted by “genocidal nuns and priests. The children [who went to the residential schools] were never again wholly Mi’kmaw.” All of this savage behavior paints the Europeans as brutes in a way I was perfectly aware of factually but had never felt to my core emotionally. This is the highest purpose of fiction.
I also now see so much of our past in our present. The thoughts of the greedy head of a lumber company, rich from inherited wealth, could easily be applied to many situations today:
She urged editors to praise the manliness and toughness of shanty men, inculcating axmen with the belief that they could take extreme risks and withstand the most desperate conditions because they were heroic rugged fellows; the same sauce served settlers into the third generation, who believed they were “pioneers” and could outlast perils and adversities. Loggers and frontier settlers, she thought, would live on pride and belief in their own invulnerability instead of money.
I think about our overworked and underpaid teachers and doctors being praised constantly as superhuman “heroes.” Lavinia Duke’s mindset also seems perfectly comparable to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, men so unfathomably greedy they wish to leave our ravaged Earth behind to exploit the solar system.
These are just my first meandering thoughts. Again: Barkskins isn’t a page-turner, but I’m very glad to have read it. As companion reads I highly recommend Richard Powers’s The Overstory and Octavia Butler’s aforementioned Lilith’s Brood.
lacywolfe's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this epic read about the Sel and Duke families. It spans generations and covers quite a number of characters and locales, which makes for a super lengthy novel. The writing and story are so beautiful that it makes it worth the while, for me, at least. The story begins in New France and continues through to modern day America following the two family's involvement in the timber industry.
I grew up in an area where timber is big business, so perhaps that lends to my interest. Proulx certainly did her research to get things right (or at least they sound right to me!). I actually enjoyed reading about all the people she thanked at the end for assistance in putting the massive book together.
I grew up in an area where timber is big business, so perhaps that lends to my interest. Proulx certainly did her research to get things right (or at least they sound right to me!). I actually enjoyed reading about all the people she thanked at the end for assistance in putting the massive book together.
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Barkskins is epic historical fiction , set mostly in Canada. It follows the contrasting fortunes of two young Frenchmen and several generations of their descendants. It deals with themes like greed, capitalism, deforestation, colonialism and Indigenous peoples, and climate change. I enjoyed it but frequently wanted to shout at the characters “No those forests will not be there forever, especially at the rate you are chopping them down”.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism