That Old Ace In The Hole
From Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx comes "That Old Ace in the Hole, " an exhilarating story brimming with language, history, landscape, music, and love.Bob Dollar is a young man from Denver trying to make good in a bad world. Out of college and aimless, Dollar takes a job with Global Pork Rind, scouting out big spreads of land that can be conve...more
Published
(first published 2002)
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I resent myself a little for not liking Annie Proulx more than I do. I WANT to like her. I read the descriptions of her books and I want to read them. I buy her books. I start reading.
And that's it.
I just can't get into them.
Her use of language is brilliant, her ideas interest me - and yet, I'm unable to relate emotionally to anything she writes. This is the third of her books that felt like that to me. I found myself enjoying her short stories quite a lot, but her novels just can't hold my int...more
And that's it.
I just can't get into them.
Her use of language is brilliant, her ideas interest me - and yet, I'm unable to relate emotionally to anything she writes. This is the third of her books that felt like that to me. I found myself enjoying her short stories quite a lot, but her novels just can't hold my int...more
Based on having read this book and The Shipping News, it is clear to me that Annie Proulx is an author as concerned with place as with plot. Both books are as much, or perhaps even more, about the settings in which they take place, as the characters who inhabit them. Proulx has a fondness for remote areas - rough, bleak and harsh and it perhaps the special bonds of community that form in such places that draws her interest so. That Old Ace in the Hole takes place in the Texas panhandle and for a...more
Before reading That Old Ace in the Hole, one should read the first sentence. “In late March Bob Dollar, a young, curly-headed man of twenty-five with the broad face of a cat, pale innocent eyes fringed with sooty lashes, drove east along Texas State Highway 15 in the panhandle, down from Denver the day before, over the Raton Pass and through the dead volcano country of northeast New Mexico to the Oklahoma pistol barrel, then a wrong turn north and wasted hours before he regained the way,” it rea...more
This was a disappointing and slow-going read for me. I usually love Proulx, but this just didn't grab me.
I began to like it more when I began to read it more as an ethnographic study of a town in the Texas Panhandle. Bob Dollar is interesting, but never really grows into his own as the leading player of the novel. Clearly, he isn't her endgame. Instead, he's the framework for Proulx's examination (character sketches, histories, family trees) of Woolybucket. He comes to Woolybucket as a location...more
I began to like it more when I began to read it more as an ethnographic study of a town in the Texas Panhandle. Bob Dollar is interesting, but never really grows into his own as the leading player of the novel. Clearly, he isn't her endgame. Instead, he's the framework for Proulx's examination (character sketches, histories, family trees) of Woolybucket. He comes to Woolybucket as a location...more
At first, this book feels so slight and inconsequential, the language aloof and noncommittal about its own plot and setting and characters, that it's physically hard to keep reading. You pick it up, a few hundred well-crafted words about places and people wash over you, not unpleasantly, and then you put it down and forget about it immediately. The characters have bizarre, colorful names (one of my least favorite elements of this novel; the name choices are over the top to the point of distracti...more
I am new to 'goodreads' but thought that I would contribute by adding the books that I have read over the past year. It's a bit difficult to write a review months later. I remember enough about all of these books. They were 'good reads' or 'worthwhile reads' in my humble opinion. I am attempting to discuss what stood out for me.
As a school teacher, I came across a wonderful donation option. A book for a dollar - any book, so I filled up a box for my students. For some odd reason, I held onto 'Th...more
As a school teacher, I came across a wonderful donation option. A book for a dollar - any book, so I filled up a box for my students. For some odd reason, I held onto 'Th...more
Proulx, Annie. THAT OLD ACE IN THE HOLE. (2002). ***. A young man, Bob Dollar, is just out from college, but still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life – other than the fact that he doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps and work as a watchmaker. After taking a series of dull jobs, Bob decides that he wants a job with opportunities; one that will give him a chance to grab the brass ring, even if it starts him out at some lowly position. With risk-taking now as an option, he t...more
There's plenty that's low-down & dirty here, but the sheer lack of misanthropy surprised me. Is Proulx getting soft? I LIKE it. There's some clunky backstory & stilted exposition, esp at the beginning, but I never much cared because it all engaged me.
I picked up this book just after flying over some unusual buildings in the middle of nowhere & found her descriptions of industrial hog farms matched what I'd seen exactly. A nice young man gets hired to scout for hog farms in the Oklaho...more
I picked up this book just after flying over some unusual buildings in the middle of nowhere & found her descriptions of industrial hog farms matched what I'd seen exactly. A nice young man gets hired to scout for hog farms in the Oklaho...more
Even though I thought this book had it's flaws, it was interesting on many levels, and funny some, and I learned a lot about the Texas Panhandle.
I'm just glad that:
1) The main character was a white young man. If he was Black or Hispanic or Female instead, no way would he have fit in quite as nicely! You have to give the author credit for admitting so in the book. Actually, it's a good thing Bob was from Denver and not, say, California...
2) Bob Dollar was not visited by his uncle Tam and his 'fr...more
I'm just glad that:
1) The main character was a white young man. If he was Black or Hispanic or Female instead, no way would he have fit in quite as nicely! You have to give the author credit for admitting so in the book. Actually, it's a good thing Bob was from Denver and not, say, California...
2) Bob Dollar was not visited by his uncle Tam and his 'fr...more
I can just picture Annie Proulx writing this stuff in her place in Wyoming, and sort of smiling to herself, thinking "wait 'til they get a load of this one" Her characters and the towns in the Texas panhandle where this novel is set have the most bizarre/weird/interesting names. The main character, Bob Dollar probably has the most "normal " name of anyone. He is trying to find property to buy for a hog farm. People don't want hog farms near them, or at least they do not want to be downwind of on...more
Annie Proulx is a patient writer. the plot set up may be Bob Dollar's quest to seek out suitable land for a huge hog-raising corporation but once this purpose is established, we are well into the novel before Proulx settles down to fulfill this quest. the two-thirds of the book have little to do with the job Bob has been hired to do. she's not in a rush, but takes her time, asking us to savour this literary visit to the Texan town of Woolybucket.
Annie Proulx is a generous writer. every character...more
Annie Proulx is a generous writer. every character...more
That Old Ace In The Hole follows a still-wet-behind-the-ears agribusiness agent as he leaves his native Denver for the Texas panhandle in search of property his employer can buy cheaply for factory hog farms. The story is more than a little reminiscent of the 1983 film "Local Hero" in its treatment of the main character's developing attachment to the place he's been sent to destroy, and the contrast between the locals' superficial lack of sophistication and the native savvy that lurks just benea...more
I nearly didn't finish this book. After two chapters I was going to stop reading but curiosity got the better of me...and I'm glad it did. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is one of my all time favourite books so I thought I would give this one a go. The inside cover blurb's describe the book as having humour and being funny - I didn't think it was funny at all. I also did not like any of the characters very much. Bob Dollar frustrated me because of his inability to fully grasp and embrace the b...more
Dec 08, 2008
Carol
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Carol by:
Laura Gerrity
Shelves:
fiction-historical
Well, I finished it! Mostly out of respect for the person who sent it to me, who usually recommends good books. So some people like this book, maybe it was just poor timing for me... Anyway, it is about the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle country. I think I would have preferred to read non-fiction about the panhandle. The characters were characatures, treated with a kind of distain. Even the main character was 2-dimensional, there was not much empathy for any of the characters. The plot was weak, altho...more
Jan 24, 2010
Rosina Lippi
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
reviewed-here
Proulx does her usual magic here, poking and twisting at her characters until they spill the beans, wringing the language dry. Amazing, really. She is one of the few truly unique stylists of the present day.
This novel, however, lacks overall narrative cohesiveness. I found my mind wandering away at times, something that has never happened to me before with any of her writing.
This might be a good time to mention a rather infamous essay published in The Atlantic Monthly in 2001. It's called "A R...more
This novel, however, lacks overall narrative cohesiveness. I found my mind wandering away at times, something that has never happened to me before with any of her writing.
This might be a good time to mention a rather infamous essay published in The Atlantic Monthly in 2001. It's called "A R...more
I am not a stranger to Annie Proulx’s fiction; back in 1996 I read The Shipping News, her 1993 novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994 (back when she was E. Annie Proulx). Deep into this book, I had the feeling that in some ways the plot of this book was in many ways the same as that of The Shipping News, , which is not a bad thing at all, except this book is set in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle country instead of in Newfoundland. And this is a book that I very much enjoyed read...more
Bob Dollar is sent into the small towns of the Texas Panhandle to scout sites for industrial hog farms. Who might be willing to sell the family ranch? Since hog farms are generally despised, he has to work undercover. He moves into the tiny town of Woolybucket, lives in a bunkhouse, and starts to get to know all the peculiar residents of the place and a bit of the history of the panhandle.
The book is delightfully meandering, as we learn the history and background of lots of the citizens of Wooly...more
The book is delightfully meandering, as we learn the history and background of lots of the citizens of Wooly...more
This book is about Bob Dollar; a graduate of Denver University not knowing what he wasn’t to do with life. He gets a job at Global Pork Rind to scout land for them in north Texas. He is sent there, not knowing what it will be like. He finds a town, called Woolybucket, where he tries to blend in. He first faces opposition as the “new person in town”. He rents a small place in the town and grows on the people. He then starts finding out where he could buy land but people also start realizing why h...more
The story of Bob Dollar. He grows up in Denver, living with his uncle after his parents abandoned him when he was 8 years old. At age 23, after graduating from college, he gets a job with Global Pork Rind, a giant conglomerate. His job is to scout the countryside to look for land where they can set up their hog feeding operations. He is sent to the Texas Panhandle to a mythical place called Wollybucket County. There he proceeds to become enamored of the local people, history and culture. His job...more
I would be in heaven if every book was at least as good as this one. This story of a young man with no direction who takes the odious job of seeking out properties to buy for an international pig farm corporation is so full of compelling characters that you wish some of them could have been borrowed by less interesting books to perk them up. This book is rich in its sense of place despite the fact that the place is as flat, colorless and seemingly uninteresting as the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles....more
I loved Annie Proulx's prose and the whole story of The Shipping News. This is also well told, with a stories-within-the-story quality that reminds me so of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books, and which I just love. The characters were well drawn overall -- I love the Dutch windmill fixer and the cowboy monk -- and it was deliciously long, with the dust of the prairies practically rising off the pages. I also really appreciated the inclusion of CAFOs and Great Plains restoration in a novel. But I ju...more
This book reads somewhat like a group of short stories, similar in some ways to "Close Range," one of the author's books of Western short stories. This story is set in the Texas Panhandle and the related background stories concern the people who settled the Panhandle region and have lived there since the days of the freight wagons, which preceded the railroads. The main character is a young man who moves to the region as a scout for the corporate mega-hog farms, who want to buy more land for the...more
I probably wouldn't have selected this book on my own - a friend gave it to me, but I really liked it. It is a story of a young and naive man, Bob Dollar, trying to buy property for a hog farm corporation in the Texas panhandle. Using this story line, Annie weaves in numerous stories of life on the panhandle. Her characters and descriptions are wonderful. She has so many characters that at times you wonder where the book is headed, especially because some of her stories take place in the present...more
Proulx obviously falls in love with her subjects, which, in this case is the Texas panhandle. I enjoyed learning about the history of the region as she told backstory upon backstory. Reminds me of James Michener's writing. Bob Dollar's search for his place in life is rich with fascinating details and emotional complexity -- the signs of a gifted writer. All of that said, this book could have been shorter. Some characters simply weren't needed; I'm thinking particularly of the whole tangent about...more
Reading Proulx's books is like watching a Cohen brothers movie, which is to say utterly unique. As another Goodreads reviewer commented, the setting of the story is as important and vivid as the characters. The characters themselves are strange yet familiar, larger than life yet homey. As in "The Shipping News", we are treated to numerous vignettes from the past which gradually intertwine with present events in a disarming way. It's fine writing. The Cohen-esque quirkiness may be offputting at f...more
I was looking forward to reading this book when my neighbor who moved out of the country gave it to me as I really liked The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes. But it was shaping up to be one of the worst books I've ever read until I came across a line that really rang true for me: "There are so many people in the world now that there is not enough elbow room." That sentence, and the somewhat surprise twist at the end, added another star to my review and made it an okay book. At times it seemed...more
I didn't expect to like this, but I quickly fell in love with the characters and the story. The book had the feel of an oral history, everyone having a different take on events, contradicting one another.
I thought the book was going to end of a cheesy yay Old Town America kick, but I don't think it did. It can be interpreted that way, and was, but I think there was a definite feel of idealism and whether that is good or not, do you believe in something and have hope, or do you lose all hope and...more
I thought the book was going to end of a cheesy yay Old Town America kick, but I don't think it did. It can be interpreted that way, and was, but I think there was a definite feel of idealism and whether that is good or not, do you believe in something and have hope, or do you lose all hope and...more
Enjoyed this book--love the main character's name, Bob Dollar. Was interesting to read about the landscape and history of the Texas panhandle as well as the Oklahoma panhandle. Proulx must have done a lot of research into the history of the place where the novel is set. Her books always reveal what appears to be true history of the industries of any given region and the motivations behind who settled in those places. I never before thought about how barbed wire could change the landscape, or abo...more
Proulx's description of her characters and setting kept me going. After That Old Ace, although I don't feel compelled to visit the Texas Panhandle, I do have a feeling for the textures, colors, sounds, and (sadly) the smells of the place. Characters with eyes that looked like they'd come from a 'taxidermist's drawer' and 'lips the color of genitalia' resonate. At times disturbingly. The tales from the history of the panhandle wove into those of the folks living in the modern panhandle, and it al...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I'll never eat pork again!!! | 3 | 12 | 22. Mai, 11:32 Uhr |
Also published as E. Annie Proulx
Edna Annie Proulx is an American journalist and author. Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1994. Her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning major motion picture released in 2005. Brokeback Mountain received massive c...more
More about E. Annie Proulx...
Edna Annie Proulx is an American journalist and author. Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1994. Her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning major motion picture released in 2005. Brokeback Mountain received massive c...more
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30. Dezember, 15:45 Uhr