Annie Proulx’s second novel The Shipping News (1993) won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction. Her short story Brokeback Mountain from the collection Close Range was made into a powerful film, directed by Ang Lee.
She is now 80 years old and has just published the novel Barkskins, a historical family saga that follows the descendants of two Frenchmen who arrive in the King’s newly claimed territory of New France (an area that today is made up of parts of Canada, the US and two islands that remain under French control).
Proulx hasn’t published a novel since 2002 and has spent the last ten years researching, studying, writing about and travelling to visit trees and forests of the world. Her novel has at its heart, the theme of deforestation and uses the two families to illustrate her thinking, that there is no greater protector or more harmonious dweller of a lands natural resources than those who are native to the area.
One of the characters Rene Sel, marries a native Indian woman, the other Charles Duquet, marries the daughter of a Dutch shipping magnate and from then on their destinies and the generations that follow, will navigate different paths, one family struggling to survive and to retain their identity and ways, the other creating a family empire, intent on finding a renewable resource to ensure the business continues to grow and expand.
Again Duquet saw the great weakness of the trade – surplus or scarcity. Beaver might disappear from over trapping or disease or for no discernible reason. Or the Indians took too many. He now regarded tales of immense profits in the fur trade as fables. He wanted great and permanent wealth, wealth for a hundred years. He wanted a fortune to pass on to his sons. He wanted his name on buildings. He was surprised to discover in himself a wish for children, a wish to establish a family name. The name Duquet would change from a curse to an honor.
Rene and his children learn from his Mi’kmaq wife, their mother Mari, who was a repository of answers to their many questions, for her people had ‘examined the world with boundless imagination for many generations’ already.
Over the months and years he learned from her. His relationship to Mari became a marriage of intelligences as well as bodies. They stood opposed on the nature of the forest. To Mari it was a living entity, as vital as the waterways, filled with the gifts of medicine, food, shelter, tool material, which everyone discovered and remembered. One lived with it in harmony and gratitude. She believed the interminable chopping of every tree for the foolish purpose of “clearing the land” was bad.
Parts of the novel are riveting and in particular, Proulx inhabits in an engaging manner, the characters of Charles Duquet and one of his descendants Lavinia Duke, who becomes the head of the family empire and is as ruthless as the men who became before her. It is she who Proulx sends to New Zealand in search of the enchanted kauri forests.
Yes. They have trees. Especially do they have certain ‘kauri’ trees, which experts describe as the most perfect trees on the earth, truly enormous trees that rise high with all the branches clustered conveniently at the top. The wood of these trees is without blemish, light, odourless, of a delightful golden colour, easy to carve and work, strong and long-wearing.
However, at just over 700 pages and spanning 300 years and multiple generations, it is a challenge to keep the characters in mind and as a result some make more of an impression than others, which both quickens and inevitably often slows the pace of reading, a necessary compromise perhaps when illustrating such a significant era of history through the narrative form of fiction.
It is a book of a writer’s indulgence, this is Proulx doing what pleases her; a trained historian spending her time indulging a subject that fascinates and rouses her interest which is also a major concern to her. Her book is a wake-up call, even if its lessons sadly, have been learned much too late.
“Nobody can visit the big trees again; the huge forests do not exist. The understorey has gone, and the smaller plants and animals – the ecosystem has been damaged. Change is right with us, and you can get frightened.” Annie Proulx – The Observer, 5 June 2016
I reviewed this book for Bookbrowse and also wrote an article Beyond the Book on the territory of New France, where it is currently Editor’s Pick and available to read by clicking on the link below:
Read Claire’s Review and Article at Bookbrowse
To buy a copy of the book via Book Depository, click on the link below:
Buy Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Note: This book was an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Word by Word 
I’m so interested in the forestry angle of this book but at over 700 pages, I’m just not sure I have the stamina…
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It did require stamina and perseverance, but a very thought-provoking and informative book, which could easily have been a more riveting read had she sacrificed some of the characters, but that wouldn’t have been doing justice to the project. I think it is a novel that will endure though and I’m really glad I read it.
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I will keep it in mind for my summer reading when I usually tackle one big book.
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This is on my TBR and I am keen to read it though 300 years? Sheesh!
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320 actually, it took me a while to finish it, it could easily have been more than one novel, I almost wish it was as there were a few characters that could easily have carried their own stories.
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Sounds like a very fair review, Claire. I’m not sure I’ve got the stamina for a 700-page novel, but I enjoyed reading about it here! (This must have been your summer chunkster for 2016? I seem to recall that you tend to read one every year.) I’ve enjoyed some of her Wyoming stories in the past, Brokeback included.
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Actually I read it in June so it doesn’t really count as my summer chunkster and I also read it on the kindle, which also makes books seem almost similar in weight!
I think my summer chunkster is going to be Marlon James, I have the physical book and it’s sitting there looking at me from the shelves and promises to be a very different read!
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Ah, right! Best of luck with the Marlon James. I’ll be very interested to hear what you think (haven’t read it myself, but a couple of friends from my book group were reading it not so long ago).
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But first Jean Rhys 🙂
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I don’t think this one’s for me but I admire your tenacity in getting through it, Claire. I loved the economy of Proulx’ short stories and enjoyed The Shipping News but felt that Accordion Crimes buckled under the weight of her research. I wondered if you felt Barkskins has similar problems.
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I don’t think it was the research that exposed its flaws as a novel, I think it was the sheer number of characters due to the time period covered. There are a few that really came to life, particularly on the exploitative side of the two families, but too many lost at the wayside, weakening the alternative proposition. I actually wrote the article about New France because the novel gives you a hint at that history but forces you to go elsewhere to actually find out the facts, I was astonished to discover that there remain today, two islands of French citizens living in French territories, Euro and all, 25 km off the coast of Canada.
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That’s amazing! And how odd for the inhabitants.
I think I might become distracted, trying to keep track of so many characters.
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I take it you’re taking about Saint Pierre and Miquelon, here in France, I think everybody has heard the names, although I’m not sure how many people could point to them in at atlas
Pat
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Hi, much like you Susan, I admired and enjoyed the shipping news, slogged to the end of accordion crimes which put me off picking up the Ace in the Hole which I still have lying around somewhere, I guess based on Claire’s write up (it’s been well over twenty years since I read any of her books) I would better be advised to dig out the Ace
Pat
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I hadn’t read anything more of hers since The Shipping News, which I liked but didn’t love, so I was curious to know what she’d been so passionately indulging in all these years without publication and I like it all the more for it being a work of love.
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Thanks for the return
Pat
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I think I can say that I’m grateful to Claire for saving me from this one, Pat! Haven’t read Ace in the Hole but I loved Close Range.
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Hi Claire, I am about 80% finished with Barskins and though I am enjoying it immensely do find it difficult to keep characters straight. Thanks for a great review, Cheers, Brenda
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Yes, that is one of the main challenges and the advantage perhaps to reading a print version where its easier to flick to the family tree. The kindle version had the family tree at the back and the print was too small even when enlarged for me to read.
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Wonderful review, Claire! I haven’t read an Annie Proulx book yet. I have The Shipping Book on my shelf. Hopefully one of these days I will read it. Barkskins looks like a wonderful book. I loved what you said about the book – “It is a book of a writer’s indulgence, this is Proulx doing what pleases her” 🙂 The theme of the book is very relevant to today’s times and I love that tree. I hope it is still there in New Zealand. Thanks for this beautiful review, Claire. I will look for this book.
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Interested in the motives that have driven Proulx to spend so long researching & writing I’ve been deliberating over this one… although given the size it would have to be an eCopy or the audible version as I struggle to hold doorstoppers for long. But, saying that, given your comments on the length of time it spans and vast cast I’m not so sure either medium would help me ‘keep tabs’ so I’m thinking that maybe it’s one I’ll just have to enjoy reading about rather than actually reading… and hearing what others make if it, what a great post to start with! Thanks Claire☺
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