Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Barkskins
Annie Proulx
Review by Priscilla Comen
Barkskins
Annie Proulx
Review by Priscilla Comen
Barkskins by Annie Proulx (pronounced "Pru") is a major saga that covers 300 years of man’s determination to destroy the forests of Canada and the north-eastern United States. The first wood cutters came from France and took the land from the Indians wherever they wanted. Rene, the central figure in this saga, married an older Indian woman who knew how to make medicines from plants. She values the trees but is alone in this. She and Rene have several children who are considered savages by the white settlers. Duquet is the other main character who is indentured to the master Trepagny. Duquet’s teeth are rotten and he eventually loses all of them. Later, when he is rich, he will have a set of teeth carved from ivory.
Author Proulx takes time to get every detail right as she delves into each character. She was in her 50s when she began writing and won a Pulitzer Prize for “Shipping News” and many other prizes through her years as a writer. She researched this book for ten years and presents all sides of human nature. The forests are really the main characters, but the humans are good and evil. After Rene’s children are adults and have their own teepees, they are slaughtered by the English, who think of them as half-breeds and worthless. Sadness and violence permeate this story, which is based on true history and good research. Rene’s other offspring move to Maine where they cut pine and float the logs down rivers to the southeastern ports and on to England where they are used as masts for large sailing ships. River work was the most dangerous, and more Indians were drowned than anyone. Author Proulx describes how the logs flow down rivers and often become a dangerous jam, crushing a man to death.
In the 1700s, the English, the French, and the colonialists were always at odds with one another and Proulx shows them talking at pubs and arguing at dinner parties. She sets the scenes visually. Many crises occur as Duquet’s sons, some of them adopted orphans, and Rene’s grandsons, journey to Holland together to find Duquet’s family there. They form a big corporation. Boston grows to 150,000 people, England seizes New France, and sugar and molasses from the West Indies raise more money than timber. Whales are killed for their oil and Ben Franklin’s inventions revolutionize most homes. Proulx advances time with these events.
Roads and houses take the place of forests as men think the trees will be available forever. Proulx describes the places and times expertly as fires destroy the timber and towns. Cholera also takes its toll of lives. Have we learned anything since those days? Did the logging make our country or break it? Pre-cut doors, cupboards, and frames were fabricated and shipped to the prairies where needed.
Find this fascinating book on the new fiction shelf of your community library.
Author Proulx takes time to get every detail right as she delves into each character. She was in her 50s when she began writing and won a Pulitzer Prize for “Shipping News” and many other prizes through her years as a writer. She researched this book for ten years and presents all sides of human nature. The forests are really the main characters, but the humans are good and evil. After Rene’s children are adults and have their own teepees, they are slaughtered by the English, who think of them as half-breeds and worthless. Sadness and violence permeate this story, which is based on true history and good research. Rene’s other offspring move to Maine where they cut pine and float the logs down rivers to the southeastern ports and on to England where they are used as masts for large sailing ships. River work was the most dangerous, and more Indians were drowned than anyone. Author Proulx describes how the logs flow down rivers and often become a dangerous jam, crushing a man to death.
In the 1700s, the English, the French, and the colonialists were always at odds with one another and Proulx shows them talking at pubs and arguing at dinner parties. She sets the scenes visually. Many crises occur as Duquet’s sons, some of them adopted orphans, and Rene’s grandsons, journey to Holland together to find Duquet’s family there. They form a big corporation. Boston grows to 150,000 people, England seizes New France, and sugar and molasses from the West Indies raise more money than timber. Whales are killed for their oil and Ben Franklin’s inventions revolutionize most homes. Proulx advances time with these events.
Roads and houses take the place of forests as men think the trees will be available forever. Proulx describes the places and times expertly as fires destroy the timber and towns. Cholera also takes its toll of lives. Have we learned anything since those days? Did the logging make our country or break it? Pre-cut doors, cupboards, and frames were fabricated and shipped to the prairies where needed.
Find this fascinating book on the new fiction shelf of your community library.