Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Proulx, Annie - Ronald Rompkey (review date September 1994)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

Ronald Rompkey (review date September 1994)

SOURCE: Rompkey, Ronald. “Island Pastoral.” Canadian Forum 73, no. 832 (September 1994): 36–37.

[In the following positive review, Rompkey praises The Shipping News for its “poetic power.”]

E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is a rich novel set in Newfoundland and strikingly free of the conventions that often define it in fiction. Here we find none of the vaunted inner strength, none of the preoccupation with the elements, none of the sentimental self-justification for living there in the first place, none of the maudlin religiosity, no celebration of those fine rugged shores, no self-conscious literary language. Instead, there is a powerful sense of a place caught in the dilemma posed by modernity. The novel is a poetic triumph, and its triumph lies in the reworking of the pastoral.

The pastoral is as old as Virgil's Georgics. It concentrates on the slow...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Loree Rackstraw (review date September 1989)
   2. Frederick Busch (review date 12 January 1992)
   3. William Green (review date 18 July 1993)
   4. Sandra Scofield (review date 1 August 1993)
   5. John Whitworth (review date 4 December 1993)
   6. John DeMont (review date 25 April 1994)
   7. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 30 May 1994)
   8. Ronald Rompkey (review date September 1994)
   9. Jane Gardam (review date 25 March 1995)
   10. B. A. St. Andrews (review date spring 1995)
   11. Ellen Akins (review date 30 April 1995)
   12. Sybil Steinberg (essay date 3 June 1996)
   13. Bharati Mukherjee (review date 9 June 1996)
   14. Ellen Akins (review date 23 June 1996)
   15. Celia McGee (review date 24 June 1996)
   16. Phoebe-Lou Adams (review date July 1996)
   17. J. Z. Grover (review date September 1996)
   18. John Sutherland (review date 7 October 1996)
   19. Caroline Moore (review date 12 October 1996)
   20. Helen Carr (review date 18 October 1996)
   21. Mark Shechner (review date winter 1997)
   22. Vicky Greenbaum (essay date December 1997)
   23. Louise Flavin (essay date spring 1999)
   24. Merle Rubin (review date 3 June 1999)
   25. Dean Bakopoulos (review date September 1999)
   26. Rita D. Jacobs (review date spring 2000)
   27. Hilary Mantel (review date 11 May 2000)
   28. Erin McGraw (review date summer 2000)
   29. John Noell Moore (review date September 2000)
   30. Michael Kowalewski (review date winter 2001)
   31. Karen L. Rood (essay date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright