The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by Annie Proulx

"Quoyle

A coil of rope

A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only.

It is made on deck, so that it may be

Walked on, if necessary.

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS"

“There was a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering.” 

"Did he believe that pap, the aunt wondered? She guessed that this was Quoyle's invention, this love-starved Petal. Took one look at the arctic eyes, the rigidly seductive pose of Petal's photograph, Quoyle's silly rose in a water glass beside it, and thought to herself, there was a bitch in high heels."

“For Quoyle was a failure at loneliness, yearned to be gregarious, to know his company was a pleasure to others.”

“Thirty-six years old and this was the first time anybody ever said he'd done it right.

“And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.” 

“Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought clam and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?” 

“Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore.” 

“We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up.”

“A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.”

“For Archie was an expert in dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.” 

“No, they didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand. There was a joinery of lives all worked together, smooth in places, or lumpy, but joined. The work and the living you did was the same things, not separated out like today.” 

“The house was heavy around him, the pressure of the past filling the rooms like odorless gas.” 

"There's two ways of living here now. There's the old way, look out for your family, die where you was born, fish, cut your wood, keep a garden, make do with what you got. Then there's the new way. Work out, have a job, somebody tell you what to do, your brother's in South Africa, your mother's in Regina, buy every goddamn cockadoodle piece of Japanese crap can. Leave home. Go off to look for work. And some has a hard time of it. . . . Now we got to deal with Crock-Pots and consumer ratings, asphalt driveways, lotteries, fried chicken franchises, Mint Royale coffee and gourmet shops, all that stuff."

"Quoyle lay in the heather and stared after her, watching the folds of her blue skirt erased by the gathering distance. The aunt, the children, Wavey. He pressed his groin against the barrens as if he were in union with the earth. His aroused senses imbued the far scene with enormous importance. The small figures against the vast rock with the sea beyond. All the complex wires of life were stripped out and he could see the structure of life. Nothing but rock and sea, the tiny humans and animals against them for a brief time. . . . Everything, everything seemed encrusted with portent."