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Billy Pretty
Nutbeem is a British expat who finds himself stuck in Newfoundland when his hand-made boat, the Borogrove, founders in a storm. Prior to living in Newfoundland, Nutbeem drifted around the world, mostly in tropical locations, where he fell into the newspaper business. In Killick-Claw, he covers sexual assault and foreign news stories for the Gammy Bird. The former proves difficult for him, as he himself was abused when he was a schoolboy. Nutbeem is a lonely, talkative man who immediately befriends Quoyle. He also encourages Quoyle to get over his fear of the water with the story of his own boat-board adventures. A few months after Quoyle’s arrival, Nutbeem completes repairs on the Borogrove and plans to sail away, but at his rowdy good-bye party, locals sink the boat and in the end, he flies off to Brazil on an airplane instead.
B. Beaufield Nutbeem Quotes in The Shipping News
The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by B. Beaufield Nutbeem or refer to B. Beaufield Nutbeem. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7: The Gammy Bird
Quotes
“Yes. Incredible protection from plagiarism. Every sentence so richly freighted with typographical errors that the original authors would not recognize their own stories. Let me give you some examples.”
[…]
Tert Card scratched his head and looked at his fingernails. “After all, it’s only a stolen fiction in the first place,” he said.
“You think it amusing now, Quoyle, you smile,” said Nutbeem, “although you try to smile behind your hand, but wait until he works his damage on you. I read these samples to you so you know what lies ahead. ‘Plywood’ will become ‘playwool,’ ‘fisherman’ will become ‘figbun,’ ‘Hibernia’ become ‘hernia.’ This is the man to whom Jack Buggit entrusts our prose. No doubt you are asking yourself ‘Why?’ as I have many dark and sleepless nights. Jack says Card’s typos give humor to the paper. He says they’re better than a crossword puzzle.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27: Newsroom
Quotes
“I get to cover the wretched sexual assaults. And with each one I relive my own childhood. I was assaulted at school for three years […] To this day I cannot sleep without wrapping up like a mummy in five or six blankets. And what I don’t know is if Jack understands what he’s doing, if the pain is supposed to ease and dull through repetitive confrontation, or if it just persists, as fresh as on the day of the first personal event. I’d say it persists.”
“Doesn’t he do the same thing to himself? Going out on the sea that claimed his father and grandfather, two brothers, the oldest son and nearly got the younger? It dulls it, the pain I mean. It dulls it because you see your condition is not unique, that other people suffer as you suffer. There must be some kind of truth in the old saying, misery loves company.”
Chapter 36: Straitjacket
Quotes
“This guy sent an anonymous letter saying riots were necessary to purge the system and redistribute wealth and they didn’t print it. So he came down with a machine gun […] Quoyle, they shot at Mercalia on the freeway last week. Show you how crazy the scene is, I made a joke about living in California, about LA style. Fucking bullet holes through her windshield. Missed her by inches. She’s scared to death and I’m making jokes. It hit me after Edna called what a fucking miserable crazy place we’re in. There’s no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat.”
Get the entire The Shipping News LitChart as a printable PDF.
B. Beaufield Nutbeem Quotes in The Shipping News
The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by B. Beaufield Nutbeem or refer to B. Beaufield Nutbeem. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7: The Gammy Bird
Quotes
“Yes. Incredible protection from plagiarism. Every sentence so richly freighted with typographical errors that the original authors would not recognize their own stories. Let me give you some examples.”
[…]
Tert Card scratched his head and looked at his fingernails. “After all, it’s only a stolen fiction in the first place,” he said.
“You think it amusing now, Quoyle, you smile,” said Nutbeem, “although you try to smile behind your hand, but wait until he works his damage on you. I read these samples to you so you know what lies ahead. ‘Plywood’ will become ‘playwool,’ ‘fisherman’ will become ‘figbun,’ ‘Hibernia’ become ‘hernia.’ This is the man to whom Jack Buggit entrusts our prose. No doubt you are asking yourself ‘Why?’ as I have many dark and sleepless nights. Jack says Card’s typos give humor to the paper. He says they’re better than a crossword puzzle.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27: Newsroom
Quotes
“I get to cover the wretched sexual assaults. And with each one I relive my own childhood. I was assaulted at school for three years […] To this day I cannot sleep without wrapping up like a mummy in five or six blankets. And what I don’t know is if Jack understands what he’s doing, if the pain is supposed to ease and dull through repetitive confrontation, or if it just persists, as fresh as on the day of the first personal event. I’d say it persists.”
“Doesn’t he do the same thing to himself? Going out on the sea that claimed his father and grandfather, two brothers, the oldest son and nearly got the younger? It dulls it, the pain I mean. It dulls it because you see your condition is not unique, that other people suffer as you suffer. There must be some kind of truth in the old saying, misery loves company.”
Chapter 36: Straitjacket
Quotes
“This guy sent an anonymous letter saying riots were necessary to purge the system and redistribute wealth and they didn’t print it. So he came down with a machine gun […] Quoyle, they shot at Mercalia on the freeway last week. Show you how crazy the scene is, I made a joke about living in California, about LA style. Fucking bullet holes through her windshield. Missed her by inches. She’s scared to death and I’m making jokes. It hit me after Edna called what a fucking miserable crazy place we’re in. There’s no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat.”
