Carol ShieldsRezensionen

A sympathetic biography by one author on another. The facts of Jane Austen's life can be picked up in any number of other biographies, but the strength of this short book is in Carol Shields' appraisal of Austen's influences and writing processes. Her research is tempered with empathy for her subject, making for an absorbing read.

I was disappointed in this book. To narrow it down I think the plot was too diffuse, it roamed around too much and never really settled on anything substantial.

I've read a lot of great biographies on Jane Austen, but this one was truly excellent. First off, I would not recommend this for someone who knows very little about Jane Austen or her books, as a lot of basics are assumed in order to get on to things that better interest the knowledgeable "Janeite". I think that's why I enjoyed it so much---it was a refreshing take on the details behind that "Jane Austen Fact Sheet" that a lot of biographies seem to be drawing from.

I love Shields' metaphor of "glances" on page 3-4. She discusses how Austen never really goes into detail about some of the things that were so newsworthy in her day: the Napoleonic wars, changes in societal structure and the Church, advances in science and medicine. She describes Austen's dealings with them as "glances"---an implied commentary.

Another thing the biographer brought to my attention, in respect to the writer in me---and in Austen---was that Jane Austen never had that quiet place that I seem not to be able to write without. "The encouragement of her imagination did not arise from conditions offered her by others." I am always looking for that place of solitude---the "Perfect Place to Write." Yet, Jane Austen just wrote wherever she was and however she could---no matter what was going on around her. I can't expect others to pave the way for me. If I really want to finish that story that I'm working on, I need to make it happen.

After reading this short bio, I'm more encouraged to track down some of her published correspondence. Maybe I'll have the chance to find some on my trip to England next month.

Over my life of wanna be writer, I’ve bought and tossed many a book on writing. So few of them offer any real insights or wisdom; so many are more about pumping out books or variable merit.

I should have started here. I know Carol Shields’ writing and love it- this book, compiled by her children, is full of her down to earth magic. Carol started writing late, but succeeded in her goal of portraying truth through fiction.

I don’t want to write a book. I want to have written a quality book. Startle and Illuminate gives me the courage to go on, to aim for truth in my work.

I don't remember reading this but it is on my list!

Mentioned in”A Month of Sundays”
At 44 years …’s daughter Sat on a gritty street with a sign around her neck saying “goodness”.

I found The Stone Diaries to be both highly interesting and thoroughly readable. This is a biography of a fictional woman, from her moment of birth in 1905 through to her death in the 1990s. Daisy Goodwill Hoad Flett lived a seemingly simple life yet this novel captures not only her and her family but also paints a vivid picture of life in 20th century North America. The author also includes a detailed family tree and a selection of black and white photographs that brings the whole book to the edge of reality.

The book is divided into chapters, each one entitled after an event or episode of Daisy’s life, hence we have “Birth, 1905”, “Marriage, 1927”, “Motherhood, 1947”, and as her life plays out over the pages, we absorb both her story and that of her family. Included are obituaries, recipes and shopping lists all of which open her life for the reader to explore.

The Stone Diaries is an inventive and original look at a person’s life and although Daisy was always surrounded by family and friends, it is obvious that her journey, as indeed all of our journeys, is internally a solitary one. And while the author acknowledges loneliness, she also allows for grace, candour, and dignity.½

The Publisher Says: The Stone Diaries is one ordinary woman's story of her journey through life. Born in 1905, Daisy Stone Goodwill drifts through the roles of child, wife, widow, and mother, and finally into her old age. Bewildered by her inability to understand her place in her own life, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography. Her life is vivid with incident, and yet she feels a sense of powerlessness. She listens, she observes, and through sheer force of imagination she becomes a witness of her own life: her birth, her death, and the troubling missed connections she discovers between. Daisy's struggle to find a place for herself in her own life is a paradigm of the unsettled decades of our era.

A witty and compassionate anatomist of the human heart, Carol Shields has made distinctively her own that place where the domestic collides with the elemental. With irony and humor she weaves the strands of The Stone Diaries together in this, her richest and most poignant novel to date.

My Review: Read thirty (!) years ago, still fresh in my heart if not my mind. This quote from my commonplace book sums up the appeal, and the limitations, of the work for me:

It has never been easy for me to understand the obliteration of time, to accept, as others seem to do, the swelling and corresponding shrinkage of seasons or the conscious acceptance that one year has ended and another begun. There is something here that speaks of our essential helplessness and how the greater substance of our lives is bound up with waste and opacity... How can so much time hold so little, how can it be taken from us? Months, weeks, days, hours misplaced—and the most precious time of life, too, when our bodies are at their greatest strength, and open, as they never will be again, to the onslaught of sensation.

"Limitation" as used in reference to this book is simply recognition that it's very much a read for older folk and/or those whose lives have been marked by grief and loss on scales beyond the ordinary. Inside those limits, Daisy is a good companion and a deft storyteller with permaybehaps a bit less than universal appeal. Her acceptance of things can feel passive, as though she's willingly playing the victim in her own narrative. Ultimately, after three more decades of my own lfe have elapsed, I now see this as her strength, her water-like incompressibility, expressing itself.

A very good read indeed. Recommended most particularly to men who are married to women.

How do you carry on with your life when one of your children is mentally ill and choosing to live on the streets for no apparent reason? I read a review where someone called Unless whiney and self-indulgent. I'm sorry but if I had a loved one "lost" like that, I too would be fixated on their wellbeing. Are they getting enough food to eat? Where are they going to go when the temperatures are minus ten degrees (not including wind chill factor) or one hundred and two (in the shade)? Reta Winters is trying to be a mother to her two other teenage daughters while thinking these things about a third, her eldest. She is a wife going through the motions with her trilobite-obsessed husband. She is a translator while trying to write her own second novel. She is an aging woman, trying to stay relevant in the youth-obsessed world around her.
There is a little trickery going on with Unless. Like mirrors angled so images are reflected to infinity, Unless is a story about a woman writing about a woman writer who is writing about a woman writer. The nesting dolls of feminism. Then there is the carefully disguised biography of her mentor, Danielle. Danielle is at once a strong holocaust survivor and a fragile French woman who relies on Reta for writing support. Finally, there is the mystery of why eldest daughter, Nora, insists on sitting out on a street corner with a sign that simply reads "Goodness."½

Meet Daisy Goodwill, the daughter of a woman who (arguably) died without knowing she was a mother. Daisy may as well have been carved from stone. She is, after all, the daughter of a stonecutter, and eventually she is the wife of two men (not at the same time) and mother of three children. After her singular birth, Daisy leads an outwardly unremarkable life.

I read the book years ago, but the only passage of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel I recognize upon re-reading is the statement that Canada is very hot in summer. I was taken aback when I found a series of photos halfway through the book, all with captions identifying them as Daisy’s family members. I don’t remember seeing them the first time around. Wait, I thought – is this a true story?

It’s not, and the photo pretense is one of the boldest literary devices I’ve seen in fiction. Consider that the narrator is Daisy herself and that she speaks in both first and third person, and consider that third-person Daisy narrates her own death (no spoilers there; you’ll know that as soon as you look at the chapter titles), and you will recognize that this is not your ordinary life story.

Most of the book takes place in Canada, starting around 1905. The “stone” motif is strong through about the first third of the book, is submerged in the story of Daisy’s work and home life, and then shows up again toward the end – a subtle, but pleasant surprise. Daisy has origins in stone, and in the end she returns to stone.

I’m glad I picked this book up to re-read. I’m still struggling to make sense of how first-person Daisy can impose herself into a third-person narrative – even using the two different voices in the same sentence at one point toward the end of the story. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.

This short novel is character-driven, which leads to some introspective passages that are a little tedious, so I rated my experience of The Stone Diaries at 4.5 stars. If you enjoyed reading or watching Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, or Helen Hooven Santmyer’s novel And Ladies of the Club, you will appreciate this book.

This was my second time reading this novel, the first being many years ago when I was much younger. Daisy Goodwill's life is ordinary, although her birth, told in lots of detail is extraordinary. Daisy did not have a go at, 'oil painting, skiing, sailing, nude bathing, emerald jewelry, cigarettes, oral sex, pierced ears, Swedish clogs, water beds, science fiction, prnographic movies, religious ecstasy, truffles, Kirsch, jalepeno peppers, Peking duck, Vienna, Moscow, Madrid, group therapy, body massage, hunger ... never drove a car, never bought a lottery ticket ...' and so on. There are lots of reviews of this novel and it is wonderful. My only gripe was the description of the nights in Orkney in June as being long and dark! The nights in Orkney in June are short and light. But this just demonstrates how human Carol Shields is.½

Carol Shields is an excellent and prolific contemporary literary author. Having lost a loved one to mental illness I anticipated a very different ending to this story. I must say I am very pleased the my anticipated ending was very much in error. Unless is a very enjoyable read and will stick with you. That said, Larry's Party remains my favorite book by Ms. Shields.

“Norah had dropped out of university, she had parted from her boyfriend, she was pursuing a path to spiritual goodness, which the family couldn’t quite understand, she was detaching herself from the rest of us, sleeping in a hostel, and yes, begging money at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor in downtown Toronto – but everyone held out hopes that she would return to being the Norah we knew and loved.”

Protagonist Reta Winters is a translator and novelist with three teenage daughters. She is in a happy long-term relationship with the father of her children, though they never married. She has written one novel and started a sequel. Life has been going well for Reta when her eldest daughter, Norah, suddenly and significantly changes her behavior. She starts sitting near a busy intersection in Toronto, holding up a sign that reads “Goodness.” We follow Reta’s inner dialogue as she tries to figure out what has happened to derail her daughter’s life. As Reta puts it:

“I am going through some bleak days…. I, too, am hungry for the comfort of the ‘entire universe,’ but I don’t know how to assemble it and neither does [Norah]. I sense something incomplete about the whole arrangement, like a bronze casting that’s split open in the foundry, an artifact destined by some invisible flaw to break apart.”

This book is quiet but poignant. It is filled with beautifully crafted prose. Shields drives the narrative forward through Reta’s inner dialogue, as she tries to make sense of what has happened, while also carrying out the routines of daily living and writing her novel. The interactions of the characters provide an insightful look at the process of publishing, writing, translating, and editing. These scenes are often witty and humorous. By the end, I felt I knew Reta and would love to spend time with her.

Sometimes an author comes along that feels like she is speaking directly to me. Carol Shields is such an author. I plan to read all of her work. I simply love her writing and this book will be in my top ten books of the year.

“The impulses of others are seldom understandable; they seem to spring out of irrational material, out of the dark soil of the subconscious. But I have respect for impulses and for the mystery they suggest.”

Living in Ontario, Canada, protagonist Judith Gill is a biographer who aspires to write fiction. She is the wife of academic Martin Gill, a professor of Milton studies, and the mother of two teens. The primary storyline revolves around her interactions with an author (and former teacher) Rudyard “Furlong” Eberhardt, who has written a best-seller but has used material of questionable provenance. Judith is aware of where the material originated and had, at one time, attempted to use it herself.

“I’m going to have it out with Furlong. He’s going to have to do some explaining. Or else. Or else what? Endlessly, silently, I debate the point. What power do I have over Furlong? Who am I, the far from perfect Judith Gill, to judge him, and how do I hope to chastise him for his dishonesty? I only want him to know that I know what he did. Why? What’s the point? Why not let it pass? Because what he’s done may be too small a crime to punish, but at the same time it’s too large to let go unacknowledged.”

Shields is adept at the exploring a person’s inner life. Major theme in this novel is that we can never truly know another person. This theme plays out in Judith’s relationship with her husband as well as her former teacher. The novel conveys underlying tensions between characters, particularly the differences between the private person and the public persona. It highlights the miscommunications between individuals that take place regularly.

As a character-driven novel, it is not flashy or filled with action. Instead, it is a deep character study of people who seem very real. Shields is a keen observer of human nature. I found myself constantly nodding and saying, “wow, that’s so true.” This book was published in 1976 and is the author’s debut. Recommended to those who enjoy quiet novels with deeply drawn characters and enough of a plot to maintain interest.

This book tells the story of the life of a woman of the 20th century. She is born in Canada in 1905 and lives into the 1990s. Daisy Goodwill, born in Canada to a mother who dies in childbirth, grows up with a neighbor and her grown son before returning to live with her father at age eleven. It reads at times like a fictional autobiography, and at other times as if people close to her are contributing. She lives a rather uneventful life, punctuated by a few major decisions and events.

It is a tribute to the author that she can make a rather “ordinary” life into something that keeps the reader’s interest. It includes snippets of information, such as recipes and photos, that make it seem like a family album of memories. This book will appeal to those that enjoy reflective, quiet, well-written stories.

The Stone Diaries is the story of one woman’s life. Daisy Goodwill Flett comes into this world in a strange and tragic circumstance. The book follows her through her life to the moment of her death. You might say she has an ordinary life in many ways, and perhaps that is part of the point Shields is making, that all lives are the same because, no matter how different they are from their fellows, all lives are lonely, isolated journeys. Only one person feels or knows who you are, and that person is you.

Many of Shields' characters are consumed with looking backward, dwelling in their pasts and trying to unravel the lives they have led but hardly understand. They struggle with what it is to relate to others, what it is to love or to be loved.

Is this what love is, he wonders, this substance that lies so pressingly between them, so neutral in color yet so palpable it need never be mentioned? Or is love something less, something slippery and odorless, a transparent gas riding through the world on the back of a breeze, or else - and this is what he more and more believes - just a word trying to remember another word.

There is a theme of loneliness and isolation that runs through the book

...a kind of rancor underlies her existence still: the recognition that she belongs to no one. Even her dreams release potent fumes of absence.

The odd thing about the pictures that fly into Daisy Goodwill’s head is that she is always alone. There are voices that reach her from a distance; there are shadows and suggestions--but still she is alone.

She is alone, but not unique, among the people she encounters...for they all seem to me to be alone and struggling as well. And much of the loneliness on view here is self-inflicted, as if the fear of connection is stronger than the need to touch the others, to be joined.

Carol Shields makes one choice in writing this novel that puzzles me; that is her decision to have the opening chapter in the first person, the following chapter in both first and third person (but obviously the same voice), and then to tell the rest of the story in the third person until one fleeting comment that is made first person in the final chapter. I know it is a very intentional choice, a device that is meant to achieve something major in the structure of this novel, but I have failed to comprehend its purpose, and that is going to bother me for a while. It might just be an attempt to make us realize that even within ourselves there is an “other” that is separate, observing and virtually unknown to us. Perhaps the first person is the soul. It is the best explanation I have been able to come up with. If anyone else who has read this has a thought, I would be very interested in hearing it!

The metaphor of the stone--having things carved in stone, the building of monuments, the hardening of the heart and the soul, and the impenetrable walls that divides us from one another-- runs from the beginning of this novel to its end. It winds its way like a river through every major character and recurs in names, thoughts and physical manifestations.

One thing is for sure, no need to put R.I.P. on Daisy’s tombstone.

This novel certainly is well written. It's a deep dive into an ordinary guy's life as he searches for fullfillment and happiness. Follows him through the 70s, 80s and 90s. Through two marriages and through Canada, the US, England . He designs mazes which is rather interesting and it is interesting how he got into this line of work. For a number of people, we kind of accidentally fall into the jobs we do for our lives.
Shields writing carries this novel. Otherwise it would have been completely dull. Instead it was just a bit dull.

It's one of those books that seemed to hit me on quite a deeper level. I adored it. It's a "nothing special book" but holy, does it grab you and not let go.

I actually found this book incredibly hard to get through. The difficulty upset me actually, because Small Ceremonies, Stone Diaries and Larry's Party were great! This one was just too much "oh woe is me."

Nice, amazingly quick read. Carol Shields left her mark with every sentence...it's a good book about adjusting to life as it happens, the thoughts - the people - the situations.

This book! It’s just the story of a life, of several lives, of loneliness and internal desolation, of a life half lived or unlived, of too late awakenings, of “orphanhood” and the horrible effects of feeling unloved….of loss …and unresolved grief that lasted a life time. And yet, it’s so much more.

We are taken on several characters’ journeys in a biographical/autobiographical structure that normally would have confused me (all the switches from omniscient narrator to third person back to first, etc.), but seemed to have worked for this book. It begins and ends with the same character, Daisy.

Shields’ writing is good, but there were some metaphors left me utterly confused (forgot to write them down).
Another bothersome bit was the picture used for the fictional character, Mercy (the author incorporates family pictures in the middle like you may find in biographies/autobiographies, which thrilled me). So much (so much!) emphasis was made as to how obese Mercy was, how elephantine and enormous she was (the author’s descriptions not my own assumptions), and the picture used was of an average portly woman and nothing like the Mercy that was described.

But these two small gripes are nothing compared to the aspects I absolutely loved about this book:
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The main thing I got out of this book is that time passes and time is precious. We should make the best of this thing called life for as long as we can, and according to our own interpretation of what it means to be alive and present: ““It has never been easy for me to understand the obliteration of time, to accept, as others seem to do, the swelling and corresponding shrinkage of seasons or the conscious acceptance that one year has ended and another begun. There is something here that speaks of our essential helplessness and how the greater substance of our lives is bound up with waste and opacity. Even the sentence “twelve years have passed” is to deny the fact of biographical logic. How can so much time hold so little, how can it be taken from us? Months, weeks, days, hours misplaced – and the most precious time of life, too, when our bodies are at their greatest strength, and open, as they never will be again, to the onslaught of sensation.” Time *is* precious…say what you need to before it’s too late.
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This is such a simple story and yet so profound. The notion that we can, and often are, different people at different times of our lives is not usually acknowledged or accepted. This is exemplified in various characters but most notably with Cuyler Goodwill: quiet acquiescing child, besotted young husband who had an erotic awakening, despondent widower who leaned into faith, negligent father who reassumed his role with guilt and determination, self-made man who became extremely eloquent, and a man who later lost his flavor for words and started a new life with a new wife. So many different people in one life time!
As to the ending – it will haunt me for a minute. Initially it felt so drawn out and long. I was thinking “Where the heck is this leading? It’s the end of a life. I get it” – But then realized that, not only did the author do an amazing job of “ending” a life phase, but she set it up as a contrast between what “we” (the general societal “we”) see as opposed to what “we” (the personal) may be thinking or experiencing at the end of our lives:

“Daisy Goodwill Flett….died peacefully…after a long illness patiently borne…” VS “I am not at peace.” (final unspoken words by Daisy) – AHHHHHH!!!! I’m still shuddering.

I picked this up after hearing Nancy Pearl mention that it was one of her comfort reads on NPR--a book she likes to read over and over. I can see why--I haven't read Carol Shields before, but this book about the life of Larry is very satisfying. Each chapter pops into a different time in Larry's life--starting from the time he is a young man until he reaches his late forties. What is fun about the book is that just as in real life you sometimes look back to find meaning so do the chapters in this book. For instance, in one of the early chapters you learn how Larry discovers his true obsession in life (garden mazes) while on his Honeymoon in England. But that one action comes up again and again and is revisited a number of times over the course of the book. Little things like this which are actually big moments in Larry's life get re-scrutinized through the later life of Larry. There is a reason why Larry likes mazes.

A series of very Carol Shields short stories. She does so well writing about relationships. I enjoyed the “miracles” thread that connected these stories.

Apparently I read this book in the 90's, as it was on my "read" bookcase and had survived several previous book culls and the house move. It nearly got sold in the recent, major, new furniture clear out, but something told me to take another look. I didn't remember a thing about it, but I am so glad I reread it. Deserved its Pulitzer Prize.

[pulitzer #17] historical fiction (1905-199?); stories from one woman's family tree (memories plus what might be pieced together with artifacts and documentation). I'd read this 10 years ago(Manitobans and their stone!) but had forgotten that I had.