Customer Reviews

Accordion Crimes

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Follows the travels of an accordion over a century, and concentrates on the surrounding events of people's dreams, struggles and difficulties. About torn families and lost homes; roads many people encounter in a lifetime. At one point, it becomes involved in a most scrupulous drug scandal.

This book begins at a time when people of different countries were looking for their freedom, on a journey to a land they desperately believed would give them hope. Author E. Annie Proulx captures the unsympathetic shouts of racism in a country where a people must survive, and during a time in the late eighteenth century when illnesses were detriment and inescapable. Her ability to sketch words of a people who are rough on the edges but inside have the souls of an unworn book, displays such power of orthodoxy in her scriptures, that you are forced to realize: though we are all of a different people, we are still all God's people.

I am truly amazed by the boldness of E. Annie Proulx's writing style, and her precise use of different languages, which was not only her journey, but became the essence of her character's lives also. I greatly admired her courage to explore the realms of such an epoch in time. She has this uncanny ability to create believable, individual characters of different races and cultures and, as well, draws out such poignant scenes of turmoil and separation.

Through different chapters, E. Annie Proulx reintroduces you to the accordion, and at one point it becomes involved in a most scrupulous drug scandal. And from that scandal, the rewards of many a thousand become hidden, and soon lost, as the accordion once again must fold its secrets and pass through; yet, another moment of discord.

Accordion Crimes is about ignorance, destruction and ploy. However, it is also about strength, survival and acceptance.

Racism was very much a part of what immigrants had to adjust to, and they had to give up a part of themselves to pass by, but a little accordion that encountered much corruption in its own path was in the end, able to save lives and bring much fortune. So, like the accordion in E. Annie Proulx's book, we not only follow its path, but we follow the path of many people; genuinely fighting for a distinct place in a society, in a community where they must learn to save their own lives, and make their own fortune.

Clearly the author put a lot of thought into the back stories of all the different families who come into possession of the Green Accordion. Her frequent asides hint at the fullness of the story but each scene is so quick, so flitting that I found it difficult to engage any of the characters, save for the builder of the accordion. Each of these 50 page chapters could easily have been expanded into a separate novel making for a series of novels about the Accordion but I'm sure that her publisher wouldn't have wanted to take that much of a risk on a series of books about a musical instrument.

Sadly, I have to agree with the naysayers on this one.

The stories of the accordion owners are all monotonously similar: they live hard lives and die horrible deaths, and they all seem perpetually conscious of the "issues" of ethnicity and assimilation (as we might term them today). This strikes me as overly simplistic to the point of being insulting, though I am sure Proulx did not intend this. As the daughter of an immigrant, I can tell you for certain that my mother did not spend all her days obsessing about whether her loyalties were to her country of birth or to America; nor did she hate every other race; nor was her life endlessly miserable and gruelingly arduous; nor could her story possibly be representative of her ethnic group as a whole.

Of course, it's very wrong to assume that a writer intends a portrait of a single character to represent ALL members of a particular "group." Obviously Proulx does not think that all immigrants are exactly like the ones in this book. But again, because all of the stories conform to the theme I've described, Proulx gives the impression that this is her book's "thesis." Whether she intended this or not, it's not a thesis with any depth or realism or empathy. It makes for a book that, as other reviewers have pointed out, appears to be full of stereotypes and flat, unbelievable characters.

Eggs fried in motor oil and cases of increasingly stupid vegetable matter with a taste for battery acid masquerading as humanity...
all of who own and variously misuse the green accordion over a hundred years. A nihilistic attitude combine with a misanthropic view of the human condition to give a realistic Greek tragedy as a set of serial short stories. When you are done reading it , you feel like you have been run over by a truck. I'd call it great original shock writing.

This has to be one of the most depressing, dismal "novels" I have ever read, and I have a graduate degree in English. I thought it would be interesting since I play the accordion, but it wasn't. I, like other reviewers, struggled to finish this book. I have never read a book so filled with characters who are the scum of the earth. I get enough of that watching the local news here in Atlanta. If you're thinking about buying "Accordion Crimes," don't waste your money or your time.

P.S. The correct spelling is accordion, not accordian!

"Accordion Crimes" is an imaginative and well written book. Readers who first encountered Proulx through "The Shipping News" will be pleased to discover that the author's knack for writing provocative and moving prose is alive and well in this 1996 novel. The central theme--the struggle of immigrants to assimilate themselves into American society while maintaining ties with their native culture--will strike a chord with many readers. The device used to explore this theme is a hand-made green accordion, brought to the US by an Italian immigrant in the 19th century. The accordion changes hands numerous times, with each new owner spotlighted in a separate chapter of the book.

Fans of good writing will surely enjoy "Accordion Crimes." Most of the stories are dark and troubling. And only a handful of the characters are meant to be likeable. But the vivid storytelling will keep you turning the pages, as will the suspense of discovering the ultimate fate of the little green accordion ... and the treasure hidden inside of it. Those who are squeamish may be put off by Proulx's gruesome means of killing off her characters: suicide by chainsaw, electrocution by worm probe, being crushed under a collapsing cinder-block wall. It's enough to make Stephen King blush. In addition, the book is labeled as "a novel," but it's perhaps more apt to consider it a collection of short stories. As a result, character development and story lines are not as deep as they are in other Proulx novels. Nonetheless, those who read this book will likely enjoy enough of the chapters to make the experience worthwhile.

When my book club picked this as a selection I was looking forward to reading another book by the author of "The Shipping News"(which I enjoyed). Unfortunately, this novel was so different in style that it was a complete disappointment.

The story follows the history of an accordian as it changes ownership over the years. The concept is a tried and true one(as illustrated in "Hitty, Her First Hundred Years" by Fields), but this book does it no justice. Each of the owners meet their demise or a disaster in horrible ways. I, personally, was not ready for such violence and would not have finished this novel if it wasn't for the book group. If there was a rating of zero stars, this is one book that would warrant it.

Annie Proulx is hard to beat as a writer who spins yarns and creates moods, places, and characters that live vividly in your mind long after the last capter of her always engrossing books is closed. ACCORDIAN CRIMES, by any other author, would have been cited an unqualified success, but Proulx has spoiled her legion of fans with her other books that intensively dissect characters whose lives she unravels in an inimitable way. In ACCORDIAN CRIMES all her gifts as a writer are intact but we lack a set of characters about whom we care. This book is more of a Canterbury Tales or a Thousand and One Nights with the unifying presence being that of an accordian passing from hand to hand among a fascinating but essentially unrelated group of emigrants. Proulx's immensely satisfying ability to inform us in detail about the most obscure subjects (such as the making and functioning of an accordian) alone satisfies the reader to stay with her journey from century to century. If there is a unifying element here it is the very heartbeat of the Americanization of foreign emigrants. And after all, we all are just that, at varying lengths of living here! A good read, if not up to Proulx's own high standards.

Accordian Crimes is a wildly complex concoction by Annie Proulx that starts off amazingly strong, but starts to lag severely in the second half. When I first finished with the book, I was more than a little impressed, but as I've reflected on it for a week or so, my admiration has diminished somewhat. Reading much like a collection of short stories, the book is comprised of vigettes that are loosely tied together by an accordian that appears in each. The first 3 stories are like firecrackers going off in your ear. The struggles and tough breaks of the immigrants featured in these tales are startling and very compelling. The book's main focus is on examing how the ethnicities of immigrants play a part in the their new lives in America. However, the further we get into the book, the smaller the role of ethnicity and the more bland the storytelling. Of course the author is hinting at the idea that ethnicity dissipates over time, but that does not change the fact that the last few stories are quite difficult to get through. I think most readers will find their enthusiasm for the novel dissipating along with the the character's ethnicities.

This is the most bloody Annie Proulx novel yet, with very little redeeming social value. After the fourth "crime" which only took me through about one-third of the book, I just gave up, not being attracted by any continuity which were present in Annie Proulx's other novels, "Shipping News," and "Postcards." In the case of "Accordion Crimes" the attempt at continuity is provided by the accordion of the title, which witnesses the various crimes of murder, lynching, adultery, drug trafficing, etc. In "Postcards," despite the gimmick of the hand printed or typewritten postcards which precede many chapters, it is the vitality of Loyal Blood, the main character, which compels us onward and maintains our interest. Similarly, Quoyle, in "Shipping News" compels us with his dogged and tender nature. The accordion of the present novel just does not have such a compelling personality. However, if you like a challenge, I dare you to finish this book.