A review by bookishwendy
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
4.0
I picked this one up on audio, on a whim--apparently I hadn't yet had my fill of "dudes stumbling around in the North American woods" after finishing [b:Mason & Dixon|413|Mason & Dixon|Thomas Pynchon|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925333l/413._SY75_.jpg|1935] (I know, I know)--but after Pynchon, this equally hefty book-monster read like a breeze. I also happened to read Barkskins concurrently with [b:Homegoing|27071490|Homegoing|Yaa Gyasi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1448108591l/27071490._SY75_.jpg|47113792], a book which coincidentally also follows two different yet intertwined families over multiple centuries. What made Barkskins stand out to me were the rich layers of historical detail and sensory descriptions, and also the moments of unexpected humor. A certain infamous wig, which literally *pops up* again for a reprise when least expected, felt like Pynchon had gotten his hands briefly on Proulx's keyboard. Reader, I laughed.
Not that this book isn't rife with horrific and highly dramatic deaths of all kinds, to include the long and painful demise of the North American forest. While loggers were surveying ancient untouched pine forests, and causing deforestation mudslides, and crushing their own limbs, and setting deadly fires, I kept thinking back to the poetic opening chapter with the indentured French logger René Sel experiencing the virgin Canadian forest for the first time...and I'm struck with profound sadness over all of nature that has been lost to us forever.
There were plenty of memorable characters especially in the first 3/4 of the book, as the viewpoint switched back and forth between the descendents of two French loggers, one who founds a logging company, and the other who marries a local Miꞌkmaw woman, and whose children return to her people. However, I found the generations featured in the last bit set after the 1950s somewhat less memorable. Also, this is the point where the book gets up on its soapbox. Having suffered through 300 years of "showing" already, the telling at this point struck me as too on the nose.
This book gave me a hell of a hangover. I might actually have had my fill of the "dudes stumbling about in the woods" genre. For now.
Not that this book isn't rife with horrific and highly dramatic deaths of all kinds, to include the long and painful demise of the North American forest. While loggers were surveying ancient untouched pine forests, and causing deforestation mudslides, and crushing their own limbs, and setting deadly fires, I kept thinking back to the poetic opening chapter with the indentured French logger René Sel experiencing the virgin Canadian forest for the first time...and I'm struck with profound sadness over all of nature that has been lost to us forever.
There were plenty of memorable characters especially in the first 3/4 of the book, as the viewpoint switched back and forth between the descendents of two French loggers, one who founds a logging company, and the other who marries a local Miꞌkmaw woman, and whose children return to her people. However, I found the generations featured in the last bit set after the 1950s somewhat less memorable. Also, this is the point where the book gets up on its soapbox. Having suffered through 300 years of "showing" already, the telling at this point struck me as too on the nose.
This book gave me a hell of a hangover. I might actually have had my fill of the "dudes stumbling about in the woods" genre. For now.