Accordion Crimes

This book is outrageously entertaining, each paragraph is an incredible short story in itself Each sentence is packed with interesting anecdotes and outlandish descriptions Annie Proulx created characters that continue to swim around in my imagination This book follows the existence of a green acccordion hand made with great care in the late 1800 s in Italy as it crosses the ocean and passes through different hands, different eras and into the modern age Because Annie Proulx is a historian we ge [...]

Very disappointing This book s main character is the accordian whose whereabouts the novel follows through magical and strange circumstances The character development was lacking and the story was hard to follow One of those books one has to force oneself to finish.

Accordion Crimes traces the history of a small green accordion, as it s passed down through the hands of generations of various immigrants to America I have read and liked The Shipping News, and the concept of this novel appealed to me immensely I m fascinated by immigrants emigrants and their experience of leaving the home country and adopting to the new one, full of hopes for a better life often escaping dire poverty and persecution During the great transatlantic migrations at the turn of the [...]

It s hard for me to say enough about Proulx In this book, she follows an accordion as it changes hands and moves around the world She tells the stories of the people who play it The accordion as a silent narrator.Again, the story is quintessentially American as it traces the immigrant journey Statesidejust the description of the accordion itself, in the beginning pages is enough for me to recommend the book.I know that Proulx is shy, retiring, even reclusive my favorite writers, her, Salinger, R [...]

Annie Proulx has taken home the big awards and answered the door when Hollywood came knocking I d read The Shipping News and a short story collection I expect good writing when I pull something from the shelf that bares her moniker Nothing prepared me for the virtuosity she could bring to the page until I read Accordian Crimes I can t say that everyone will enjoy the morbidity of her tale nor the picaresque trail of a green accordian that leaves behind a hundred stories calling out for your atte [...]

Alternate title Eight Million Ways to Die Unlike what seems like half the country, I have not read The Shipping News or anything else by E Annie Proulx But when I saw Accordion Crimes for sale for 1 on a library surplus books table, I picked it up and read the first page and was hooked She offered a muscular prose style, but one that was in service to propelling the plot and giving life to the characters The first line in particular, telling about the Sicilian who makes the accordion of the titl [...]

Many cultures preserve their heritage through traditional music and dance among other things So it was a stroke of genius, in my opinion, for Proulx to use a musical instrument, the accordion of the title, as a narrative device to hold together the eight stories which together make up this wonderful novel Accordion Crimes is essentially a social history of the immigrant experience in America, beginning with the accordion maker in 19th century Sicily who crosses the ocean for a better life, right [...]

Two stars for Proulx s coherent and interesting writing style No extra stars for wasting my time on a pointless book.Halfway through this book I knew it was going to be a chore to finish When I finally did, I felt a great burden lift off my shoulders I am free to read better books This is basically a collection of short stories focused on generally nasty people who live in America throughout the years and happen to play the various kinds of accordion Apparently there are a lot of accordions and [...]

Annie Proulx has written an odd and compelling book, ostensibly about the fate of those who in one way or another have come into possession of a green accordion, made in Sicily towards the end of the 19th century It passes from one person to another over a hundred years, seeming to bring bad luck on all who own it In this narrative, however, Proulx has woven together two histories that of various ethnic minorities in the US over the last hundred years and an account of accordion music in those g [...]

A book that traces the history of a little diatonic button accordion through the people that used it I enjoyed The Shipping News, and thought that this might be a clever story I was than a little disappointed This depressing little history had a lot of squalor, a lot of grime and through it all, the urge to make musicNOPE More like if there is a little kid in the vignette, he she is going to be either neglected, physically abused or sexually molested.

This book deserves praise for how well it is researched, crafted, and written The whole time I am reading the book, I am wondering how much of this Proulx has lived, how much of it she has made up, and how much of it is researched We follow the accordion as it passes thru numerous hands, generations, regions of the country Each passing of the accordion calls forth a short story of its own, with characters that for the most part have lived hard lives and will come to hard ends I found the transit [...]

I can t remember the last time it took me so long to get through a book I kept thinking that it would get easier as I read on, but it wasn t until around pg 350 out of about 475 that I actually became mildly interested I d never read any Annie Proulx and the description of the book intrigued me, but it was nothing like I expected I was hoping for of a story ABOUT the accordeon, I guess, but it was really how the accordeon ended up in the hands of random people that you never had any interest in [...]

Un acorde n construido en Italia llega a los Estados Unidos Durante m s de cien a os pasa por muchas manos Esta es la historia de todos sus poseedores y sus familias As que los personajes viven un cap tulo apenas Pero la autora mantiene algunos temas a trav s de los a os hay muchos m sicos y m sicas tambi n los personajes son todos emigrantes o hijos de ellos.Con estas premisas Proulx hizo una novela apasionante Desde el luthier italiano hasta el ltimo negro que posey el verde acorde n todos los [...]

If this book was about 250 pages, I would have given it the highest rating, but by the end of it, I felt exhausted from a literary sense Proulx is a truly talented writer, crafting so much detail and description into her prose that you can really see and sense her characters and scenes like no other authors I ve read The concept of the story was unique in that the main character is an accordion that gets accidentally passed through many hands over a 150 year period during pivotal American immigr [...]

Proulx proves beyond a shadow of a doubt whatever that means that a best selling novel can be bereft of plot, transformative characters, evocative prose, stimulating dialogue, and other common literary elements that would normally serve to keep the reader engaged and stop them from either killing themselves or using the book as kindling In fact, Accordian Crimes is physical evidence that a book can be composed entirely of comma separated lists and people will still read it if enough self appoint [...]

I started this with so much hope, following a positive review from my sister My sister who shall henceforth be renamed She Who Cannot Be Trusted In Matters Of Literature It s a book with a litany of godawful characters, the first likeable person appears at page 512 PAGE 512 IN A BOOK THAT IS 543 PAGES LONG The lesson I have learnt from this book is that I dislike spending time with ugly personalities both in person and in literature.

I m sorry to say I did not enjoy this It was a slog to get through Though the writing is sound technically I was looking for a through line Somewhere Anywhere Alright, I m ok with this being a collection of short stories or novella length pieces with some arc running through the length of the book That link was nominal at best So how about a through line within the individual chapters Not to be found either In a novel with so many characters there are very few I ended up giving a damn about And [...]

The premise sounded interesting following the accordian through a series of owners from all walks of life But the characters were extremely uninteresting I didn t mind the book s darkness because I really didn t care at all what happened to any of the characters, tragic or otherwise But it s not enough that it s boring Proulx s writing style is so frustrating One paragraph might be a single sentence, going on and on, through myriad descriptive phrases, punctuated with endless commas, so that, by [...]

I m still reeling from this novel I could hardly bear to put it down in the evening, and read it in giant, sustaining gulps I loved it.I cannot recommend it highly enough I would put this in my personal top 10 novels, certainly my top 5 contemporary American novels and Annie Proulx is remarkable I ve moved right into reading Heartsongs short stories by Proulx I can t get enough of her radiant prose Read this book, my friends It is brilliant.

I picked up this book because I LOVED The Shipping News and The Red Violin, which has the same story format as this book I also love history, specifically the story of immigrants, so this book seemed to have it all for me I really don t like to give books bad reviews because I know a book is someone s deeply personal creation, but in this case, I must First of all, this is really a book of short stories masquerading as a novel That might be okay for some, but I really don t like short storiesima [...]

Sigh I had such a hard time with The Shipping News god knows why I turned straiht to another Proulx novel I think I was hoping I d like this one But I just didn t It was fine at first, although the characters and situations continually struck me as overdrawn But what I disliked the most is that, so far as I can tell, it s a collection of short stories rather than a coherent novel Yes, there s the accordian in each section, but that s about it And I really didn t care enough about this accordia [...]

I liked this book It was a bit of work, but worth it It presented so many different experiences of immigrants to the USA over a long time It felt like a good time to be reading this.

3 3 4 stars

This book disappoints me In me It is literally crammed with perfect descriptions, just so sentences, brutally sharp ironies and understated, spot on observations of human nature In other words, it s classic Annie Proulx.But I only barely stayed with it Two reasons first, the book is unrelentingly harsh for than 500 pages I plain got tired of this world of sad, misguided, damaged and downright evil humans Second, the only character who runs completely through the book is an accordian The humans [...]

This book may startle those who were charmed by the far gentle and restrained The Shipping News It is a far original, far darker, and far edgier work.This is, in one sense, the life story of an accordion, a work of love of by a destitute Italian immigrant whose dreams were doomed to fail, the living thing which is a music, a tradition This accordion, much like the ring in The Lord of the Rings, seems to want to be found, and seems to pick people, often leaving their lives upside down or inside [...]

One of my quirky if not embarrassing infatuations is accordions I love them Their music, their culture, their physical beauty I love it all So naturally I was pleasantly surprised to run across Accordion Crimes in the PCV lounge The story follows the life of a little green button accordion From its construction in a small rural village in Italy, it makes its way to the United States in the luggage of its immigrant owner From there it s passed through family, friends and pawn shops Its witness to [...]

It was a difficult choice between 3 or 4 stars I really enjoyed reading this book, and I think the author is a wonderful storyteller, but I would have preferred continuity in the novel the story follows an accordion, so the novel reads like a loosely connected sequence of short stories Each new story would take a few pages to get into, and once I found myself lost in the story, it would end and the next story would begin If my personal taste leaned toward short stories, I would have enjoyed t [...]

An epic novel It is described on the back of my copy as an epic social history and I could not agree Proulx s control of language and imagery is absolutely superb She brings to life countless stories, cultures and characters Her research of accordions alone must have been painstaking I did, however, find the massive character list hard to keep up with The accordion is the protagonist and the breadth of the story is then huge It is a dark novel that can feel very intense to read Each section ser [...]

I went into reading this book hoping for an accordion experience, and I wasn t disappointed Annie Proulx follows a green button accordion from the 1800s through to the present day, though not always focused on that specific instrument There are indeed crimes in the book, but the interesting aspect is seeing various ethic groups and how they use accordions in their music through the years.It can be a little adult at times, and seeing how different ethnic people were anti other ethnic people can [...]

I ve had this book on my shelf for at least ten years, since I first read The Shipping News I have to admit the reason I was attracted to it is because I play accordion I resisted reading the novel because the reviews I read when it was released indicated it would be dark and I have never been quite in the mood I needed a long and involving book because I had to sit in hospital waiting rooms earlier this week so I was finally ready Once I got started, the mystery of what would happen to the gree [...]