Discussing Barkskins was all that I hoped for and more

Over the summer, many members in my community book club poured through Annie Proulx’s latest epic novel, Barkskins in preparation for the September book club discussion. That meeting never happened due to Hurricane Irene blowing through town. I was disappointed truly disappointed. As I mentioned in my initial review, Barkskins is a book that needs to be talked about so not discussing was out of the question. As leader of the book club, I made an executive decision for the title to be shifted to February’s meeting. I figured it gave those who hadn't yet finished the book the opportunity to do so. And since the specific characters in the book weren't of super importance, I figured that those who read it would remember enough for us to have a good discussion. This book club meeting exceeded my expectations. Normally, not everyone who attends book club meetings finishes the book. But all 15 at this meeting finished the book. Not only that, everyone either liked or loved the book. Barkskins is about the history of the logging industry, concentrating in but not limited to northeast Maine and southeast Canada. It’s not a typical Proulx novel. This one took 15 years of research and planning and then five years to write. The forests and the trees are much more the main characters of this multi-generational saga than the family members themselves. Some readers knew more about forests than others, but all agreed they learned quite a bit from reading the book. Several members shared family connections to Native Americans, logging and French Canadians which enriched the conversation.  Because of the length of the book, it was interesting to note that those reading the print book had a significantly different reading experience than those reading the e-book. Those reading the print book had a better sense of how much of this very long book they had left to read. They were able to portion out how much to read in a given sitting. They also seemed to reference the family trees at the back of the book more frequently. (Did I not even realize there were family trees at the back of the book? Or were they not in the e-book edition that I read?) The group's identification of themes in the book that were discussed included the environment, degradation of natural resources, mix of races, growth of mega family businesses and greed. A whole lot of other social issues were thrown in, most likely to reflect the world as seen by Annie Proulx. Issues like alcoholism and homosexuality. Bloodlines versus adoption and how they impact family lines. Throughout the book, the language was reflective of the time period that Proulx was writing about. That meant that the language early on in the book was more difficult to understand than towards the end of the book. But many in the club agreed that they preferred the family stories with well-developed characters in the first half of the book to the second half of the book where the characters moved the story forward but we didn't get to really know them. Some important points brought up by different participants: The need to remember that we, in 2018, have a lot more information at our finger tips than people during the past 300 years had. People moved far away from where they started with “relative ease.” The assumption was that they were moving towards opportunity and success for their families where that possibility didn’t exist before The needs for wood were quite different in the late 17th century, 18th century, 19th century and early parts of the 20th century than they have been recently.  Most people who moved from a place try to create something familiar in their new homes. Europeans came to North American and developed towards the goal of making it like where they came from. The deforestation of many parts of Europe happened here so the fact that trees were falling in increasingly amounts was no surprise or concern. The book ends in kind of rushed manner. It left most in the group with a lot of questions. “What happens next?” seemed to be a common one. I suppose only time will tell. How did the book club members feel about recommending this to others? Everyone would recommend it to some but not to all of their reader friends. Unanimously, though, the book club agreed that this was a marvelous book club book and they’d recommend it to any book club to read. Click here if you'd like to read my original review of the Barkskins.