Songs of Experience E. Annie Proulx is one of the finest wrtiers of her generation. She is a master storyteller who can bring the unlikeliest of characters to life and make the ordinary seem extraordinary. Accordion Crimes is unlike her other novels and stories which seem to happen within a particular corner of society since it roams across the entire United States following the fate of one green accordion. A strange premise for a novel perhaps but Proulx's barebone idea is fleshed out with a vivid portrait of American life over the past century.The tale begins in Sicily with the maker of the accordion trading in his lack of fortune for a chance at prosperity in America. But his experiences in Lousiana are far from what he dreamed they would be. When his story ends the accordion changes hands inermingling with the fate of a wide variety of characters. Accordion Crimes is not so much a novel perhaps but a series of short novellas detailing the everyday lives of immigrants to this country. It falls into the hands of a band of Germans settling in North Dakota a Mexican waiter who dies an unusual death a dysfunctional family of French Canadians third generation Polish polka players Montana horse ranchers and smalltown Minnesota farmers. Each tale is marked by dreams that are seldom achieved and an almost unbearable sadness yet these characters and their lives will haunt you long after you have finished reading.Accordion Crimes could be a difficult read there is little connection between each section beyond the passage of the accordion and I can understand why other reviewers might dislike this. But one cannot discount the sheer lyrical beauty of Proulx's storytelling and her ability to recreate the pain and suffering and joy of people who have come to America in search of a better life and the weight that the second and third generations carry in belonging to different worlds. Proulx's writing is raw concealing nothing from the reader laying bare the souls of her multitude of characters whose stories have only partially been told. It is an epic novel of the American immigrant experience.
Spitting into the wind This is depressingI see that the one star reviews for Accordian Crimes currently outnumber the five star reviews by a single point. I will take my time simply because a book thisgood should not be at the mercy of bad readers. I know I know De Gustibus Non Est Disputantum but sometimes one has to say to unskilled readers No you are mistaken andin this case I will say it. Accordian Crimes is a dark and difficult book. I read it when it came outmaybe ten years ago?and have never forgotten it. Annie Proulx isone of the best living American writers and this novel is at least the equal of her more popular ones. I have never been so invested in a sum of money in a novel as I was with thehundred dollar bills glued inside the accordian but am I wrong to question a recent threestar reviewer who said that the accordian contained $14000? I mean stop and think howmany hundred dollar bills would the accordian maker have had to glue in to the instrument? So if the threestar reviewer got the amount of money so wrong how can we trustanything else he/she says?Well enough.
Good but somwehat formulaic and a dissapointing ending The stories of the accordion owners get somewhat monotonous after a while. What keeps the reader engaged is the series of Hitchcockian scenes when he thinks this owner will discover the $14000 secreted in the accordion. Sometimes she seems to paint herself into a corner where the only way to keep the story going is to kill the character as happens to one wouldbe accordion repairman. As the accordion makes its way it gradually decreases in value ultimately becoming trash. This was disappointing to me and somewhat unrealistic to think that no one would recognize the unusual work that had gone into its making as poorly functioning and as tattered as it had become. As the book ends the accordion gets smashed by a truck and we still don't know what will happen to the pieces nor who will find $13000 of the $14000.
marvelous it's amazing to me that a literate novel as this one certainly is could receive negative reviews. it's totally absorbing and epic in the journey. and naturally from annie very well written. i can only assume that some amazon readers are crepuscular.
A Dark but Enlightening Novel Beautifully written and showing an amazing knowledge of music and languages Accordion Crimes can be summed up by saying it is a treatise on the human condition. The quotation More inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature's causes. I gave it four stars because I found the human suffering in the book difficult to read.
Are you 13 star voters crazy? I cannot understand not loving this book. It is a series of shortstories centering on a green accordian. Each story is excellent standing alone but you find that it is weaved into a whole as we follow the green accordian from Italy France to America. The research that went into the music the names of musicians and bands she uses are not fictional i.e. in the Tejano music genre for example is extraordinary. The meticulous and spot on characterization and description of mundane things that really make up our lives these are hallmarks of Proulx. Yes these are lives which are often sad but hey guys life is sad. Annie Proulx always writes exactly the way life is the way she sees it but nevertheless it still has beauty still has worth as does her writing. If you are looking for a fairytale you should never read Annie Proulx because you won't find it here. Instead you will find the best novelist currently in America. Always carefully researched factual downtoearth her characters are never glorified but just like you see everywhere. Oh excuse me you think you are not like this. Probably right but then you are incapable of judging great fiction if you do not give this a 5 star review.
Accordian Crimes Disappoints
Making music and dancing all across the United States This book is quite longover 400 pages. It's not that good but neither is it that bad. This writer is more than a bit morbid and seeme to like writing about rough coarse characters the outcasts of society. She seems to like to offend the sensibilities. However there is some beauty some joy some nobility in this existance. This writer doesn't seem to think so.The book is in parts very comical fun other sections are boring and repetitious. The book is divided into eight chapters set in different states among differemt ethnic groups. The time period is from the late 1800s until shortly before the present a period of about 100 years. The green accordion ties the book and its characters together. In a way this book reminds me somewhat of Montana Gothic.The story begins when a man from Sicily builds the green accordion with the best materials he can find. He plans to move from this poor island to America where he feels he will do well teaching and making accordions working as a musician or work in that field. His wife gets very sick can't go so he leaves with his eleven year old son. Instead of going to New York as he had planned he allows a friend to talk him into moving to New Orleans. Bad mistake. He is arrested and killed with a group of other Italians. His young son drifts away and is killed in South America. An Indian shoots him in the throat. Most of the characters die in different ways. This author seems to be obsessed with death. Macabre. As the books on the characters deteriorate more and more.A black man who ends up with the accordian is murdered by another black man for some gold he had on his person. The murderer also takes the accordion.The second story is about three Germans who land in Iowa to become farmers and do o.k. Two die at age 64. The last living one decides to regain his youth and manhood by having an operation done by a quack doctor he dies from blood poisoning. Along comes the depression and sons and daughters lose money and land.
Genuine Americana Annie Proulx is not for everyone. Readers who expect quick easy reads will be challenged by Proulx's style. It's a rich complex style best read with care almost wordbyword. Those who give her rhythmic structure the attention it demands will be rewarded many times over with a view of American life reminiscent of Steinbeck at his best.
Incredible prose that delights the senses This book held me mesmerized throughout with its incredible prose descriptions that captured and held me in its grip. It exposes the reader to a multitude of cultures down to the most minute details. I kept reading it aloud savoring it. A must read.
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