The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories (Signet Classics)

Now, you see them little peaked-topped spruces an' fir balsams comin' up over the hill all green an' hearty; they've got it all their own way . . .I tell you those little trees means business. (p. 203)Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs and Four Related Tales is a beautifully written story of individuals living in turn-of-the-century rural Maine, their coastal isolation, and how the land and sea shaped their lives.The author's masterful use of description and unfolding story lines belie the simplicity of her messages. Several reviewers castigated the book for its lack of theme. For me, the interwoven stories of the Dunnet Landing residents is the theme. Days were slow and hard. People were poor in possessions but rich in their relationships. Little "happened" in the book because little beyond the basic tenets of work, family, and survival "happened" in their lives.I dearly loved discovering Dunnet Landing through the eyes of the narrator and would recommend that The Country of Pointed Firs be read along with the four additional tales, most especially The Queen's Twin, the third of the four.

I had to have this book for a class I am taking. It's a good read. Slow because this is a very cozy, just hearing people's stories type of storyline but for an 1890's book it's really interesting and I had fun reading it. Also for anyone who wants to know, if you need to highlight any part of the book, don't worry it won't bleed through.

Our Harmony book group is reading the novella “The Country of the Pointed Firs” by Sarah Orne Jewett. This exquisite work was first published in 1896 and is an outstanding example of regional fiction although it is so much more than that. “The Country of the Pointed Firs” is made up of a series of short chapters that focuses on characters who live stark, simple lives on the islands off the coast of Maine. The story is told by a female narrator, a writer who has fallen in love with the small seacoast town of Dunnet Landing. She lives there one summer, working in seclusion. Dunnet Landing is populated by the elderly; many of the women are widows whose husbands have died at sea. The narrator is a lodger with Mrs. Almira Todd, a woman who gathers local herbs for medicine. Mrs. Todd is sociable and well-liked. Her 86 year old mother, Mrs. Blackett, lives a more isolated existence with her 60 year old son William on an island several miles off the Maine coast; she is esteemed for her generous hospitality. Even family reunions become much relished social occasions. I wish I could do better justice to the beauty of the writing. This novel details the passing of a way of life—life at a slower place. Fisherfolk and their families have become increasingly scarce. People spend the evenings doing small household tasks and enjoying conversation. Jewett is such a keen observer that her characters shine vividly as does the lovely yet harsh Maine landscape. This is a quiet novel and it is one to savor. Never has subsistence seemed so interesting.

My great grandmother emigrated from Scotland to Nova Scotia, and finally as a young woman to the coast of Maine, where she raised her 9 children. My grandmother, the 3rd of those 9 children, was born in Maine in 1898. She told me many stories about her growing up time. She was a little girl who rode in horse-drawn wagons to Bangor, before automobiles were available to most regular people; and her family of 11 lived in a 3-bedroom house where only the fireplaces and wood stoves supplied heat through the cold Maine winters. Sarah Orne Jewett's stories about (mostly) women are beautiful little time-capsule jewels that capture the habits, ethics, speech, traditions, and atmosphere of that time and place in our country's history. Here's a writer I hope my great-granddaughter will read someday (I'll save my book for her), that will tell her something about the women in our family who came before us.

The book arrived in excellent condition. I’m looking forward to reading it.

The language can be a bit hard to follow, but I enjoyed to subject mattter.

This book offers a unique portrait of life in a New England village during one summer in the late nineteenth century. Jewett's canvas is small and within its frame you will find no great events nor even the vestige of a plot, but the resulting story is satisfying and the characters endearing. The writing flows smoothly and evenly over the events of little lives in which Jewett finds dignity, courage, and persistence.

I thoroughly enjoyed this reading!

Calm and poetic, slow-paced, with nuanced characters, especially middle-aged and older women. Some chauvinism though with regard to French („Norman“) ancestry.

Ein Buch ohne Plot, wer allerdings umfangreiche Naturbeschreibungen sucht, ist hier genau richtig. Meiner Meinung nach eine Qual, dieses Buch zu lesen.