Ducks, Newburyport

249 days! It took me 249 days to finish this tome. There were many stops and starts along the way. Sometimes, I'd put this book aside just to read something else. I may have had a rotational checkout of this book with three different public libraries within 60 miles. At seven months in, I was at page 452 and I didn't see the point of going on. I put the book in the “to-go” box and didn't look back.

Within a couple of days, I changed my mind. I didn't know if the reward would be worth it, but I wouldn't know if I didn't try. I committed to fifteen pages a day. I could finish Duck, Newburyport in thirty days. And that's what I did.

I really don't know what to say about this book. I will say it's an experience. Was the reward worth it? No, I didn't think so. It's like being promised a grand vacation as a child and arriving to find out that the descriptions of your destination were vastly exaggerated. It only took seven months of “Are we there yet?” One thousand pages of “Are we there yet?” 19,396 “the fact that”'s of “Are we there yet?”

And yet... there was something mesmerizing about this work. It's as if the long car ride were the point of the journey. And what was the car ride? Well, it was the scenery. It was the rhythm of the tires on the road. But it was long.

There was one thing that personally annoyed me at no end that I haven't heard others mention. Ellmann's narrator is constantly bringing up movies, talking about them as though the reader has any idea what she's talking about. I was familiar with very few of them. She doesn't explain the references, just jumps right into talking about them, which is expected from a stream-of-conscious narrative, but is terribly taxing on a reader who has no idea what she's talking about. And they go on for pages: It's Complicated, Jane Fonda, Air Force One, Paul Henreid... It was the part of the journey where your parents turn on the kind of music you most hate and sing along. Combining all the movie references with The Little House on the Prairie references, and you've probably got more than 10% of the book. That might not normally be an issue, but we're talking about a thousand page book here. You know, some of us still read books.

Ducks, Newburyport is unforgettable and certainly an accomplishment for readers who make it through. It's not a book I'd recommend to very many readers (or maybe any). Honestly, I don't think I will ever again hear that one phrase and not think of this book.