Barkskins
BARKSKINS is Annie Proulx's opus about lumber barons and the destruction they've caused, not only in the U.S. but worldwide.
The novel starts with two indentured servants, Rene' Sells and Charles Duquet, landing in New France (Canada) in the early 17th century. They've traded three years of lumber cutting for their passage and a chance to own land. Sells marries a Mi'kmaw woman and starts the Native American line of descendants. Duquet runs away almost immediately and begins to establish connections with lumber companies. He has a knack for business. Both come to horrific ends.
Proulx's novel will remind you of James Michener's massive tomes. It took me a month to read. It is extremely hard to keep track of the characters. Luckily Proulx provides a family tree at the end for each of the original characters. Interestingly they reconnect later in the story, when Kuntaw, Rene's grandson, marries Beatrix Duquet.
Charles Duquet had a son and a daughter, but his adopted sons later become the leaders of Duke lumber company. Nicholas and Mercy produce Sedley, the more conservative of the third generation who eventually runs the company. His son James is sent off to sea as a young teenager. He barely knows his father. When his father dies, James is a ship's captain. He returns home for his father's funeral and almost drowns, saved by the daunting Posey Breeley. He wants her bad, and she knows he's got lots of money. He's inherited half the company. This is where one of the Duke family murders occurs (there are a lot of them); you see, Posey is already married. She may have been molested by her own father, and she treats her husband like he's the girl.
James and Posey have a daughter, Lavinia, who's a chip off the old feminine block, only she has the business acumen of a man, and it's not long before she's running the company.
Early on the characters (or I should say Proulx) makes a point of saying that the forests of New Brunswick, Maine, and Michigan are so massive that they'll never run out of trees. Of course they do. Luckily Lavinia marries a forester from Germany, Dieter Breitsprecher. He tries to save the forests; she humors him. At one point the Duke company hears about the fabulous trees of New Zealand. During a dry spell for the Duke company, she has most of the huge Kauri trees cut down, leaving, unintentionally, a small preserve.
Lavinia makes a mistake prior to her marriage. She has no family. She's worried about an heir, so she hires two detectives to find a distant relative. He unearths the Sell family; when she finds out they're Indians, she destroys the evidence. But they pop up again later, which leads to another murder.
The last part of the book is about the descendants of the Sell family and even some of the Duke family trying to preserve what's left of the forests. They know about the Amazon bason's billions of trees. Surely no one could possibly cut them all down before they grew back. I recently heard that 40% of the world's oxygen comes from the rain forests, and we all know what's happening in Brazil. Read the handwriting. This book isn't much for characterization or plot; it's all about theme, hence the unusual title.
The novel starts with two indentured servants, Rene' Sells and Charles Duquet, landing in New France (Canada) in the early 17th century. They've traded three years of lumber cutting for their passage and a chance to own land. Sells marries a Mi'kmaw woman and starts the Native American line of descendants. Duquet runs away almost immediately and begins to establish connections with lumber companies. He has a knack for business. Both come to horrific ends.
Proulx's novel will remind you of James Michener's massive tomes. It took me a month to read. It is extremely hard to keep track of the characters. Luckily Proulx provides a family tree at the end for each of the original characters. Interestingly they reconnect later in the story, when Kuntaw, Rene's grandson, marries Beatrix Duquet.
Charles Duquet had a son and a daughter, but his adopted sons later become the leaders of Duke lumber company. Nicholas and Mercy produce Sedley, the more conservative of the third generation who eventually runs the company. His son James is sent off to sea as a young teenager. He barely knows his father. When his father dies, James is a ship's captain. He returns home for his father's funeral and almost drowns, saved by the daunting Posey Breeley. He wants her bad, and she knows he's got lots of money. He's inherited half the company. This is where one of the Duke family murders occurs (there are a lot of them); you see, Posey is already married. She may have been molested by her own father, and she treats her husband like he's the girl.
James and Posey have a daughter, Lavinia, who's a chip off the old feminine block, only she has the business acumen of a man, and it's not long before she's running the company.
Early on the characters (or I should say Proulx) makes a point of saying that the forests of New Brunswick, Maine, and Michigan are so massive that they'll never run out of trees. Of course they do. Luckily Lavinia marries a forester from Germany, Dieter Breitsprecher. He tries to save the forests; she humors him. At one point the Duke company hears about the fabulous trees of New Zealand. During a dry spell for the Duke company, she has most of the huge Kauri trees cut down, leaving, unintentionally, a small preserve.
Lavinia makes a mistake prior to her marriage. She has no family. She's worried about an heir, so she hires two detectives to find a distant relative. He unearths the Sell family; when she finds out they're Indians, she destroys the evidence. But they pop up again later, which leads to another murder.
The last part of the book is about the descendants of the Sell family and even some of the Duke family trying to preserve what's left of the forests. They know about the Amazon bason's billions of trees. Surely no one could possibly cut them all down before they grew back. I recently heard that 40% of the world's oxygen comes from the rain forests, and we all know what's happening in Brazil. Read the handwriting. This book isn't much for characterization or plot; it's all about theme, hence the unusual title.
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