I really felt like The Country of the Pointed Firs was just that, a vacation home. Sarah Orne Jewett's descriptive ability drew fantastic images in my mind and made me want to take a trip to Maine for the summer. I could envision the fishermen pulling their lobster traps from their little dories, and sailing through the harbor collecting haddock and the like. I wanted to attend the family reunion and wanted to share time with Mr. Tilley. I really did enjoy this book.
My only complaint is that nothing much happened, which is I guess how a lazy Maine summer vacation should be. There was no plot except that of a woman's experience in a small fishing village throughout one summer. There was no exciting adventure, except those remembrances of old fishermen, and even then we're led to believe that many of those remembrances are simply figments of imagination. What there was in this novel was a fairly surface study of personality both human personality and the personality of a landscape.
I found The Country of the Pointed Firs to be a delightfully calm read, one that did not cause me to ponder too much, but one that brought the fresh sea air to my mind's eye and really took me back to a slow and uneventful Maine summer. I would certainly welcome those fresh crisp evenings, and dewy mornings compared to what we've had here in North Carolina this year. Bring on the warm days and cool nights of a New England summer any day, there's nothing I like better than wearing shorts and a sweater!
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