The Worlds of Carol Shields

by David Staines (Editor)

Overview

"Carol was a very fine writer and a remarkable human being, a wonderful person whose work I closely followed for more than 20 years. I interviewed her frequently over those years, with virtually every work she produced —novel, radio drama, play, book of stories. So I had a good sense of the span of her work and also her evolution as a stylist. But the key reason I wanted to make a book focusing on her life and work is that we were friends."
—Eleanor Wachtel

This book strikes the right balance between intimate accounts and literary analysis. It opens with reminiscences by close friend Eleanor Wachtel, which are followed by a study of Shields’ poetry by her daughter and grandson, then by various aspects of her fiction, including a detailed examination of her plays. It closes with reminiscences by four close friends: Jane Urquhart, Joan Clark, Wayson Choy and Martin Levin.

The 23 contributors offer new insights, new theories, and new perspectives about Shields’ illuminating career. Only one piece—her obituary written by Margaret Atwood—has been previously published.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780776622064
Publisher:	University of Ottawa Press
Publication date:	12/02/2014
Series:	Reappraisals: Canadian Writers
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, David Staines specializes in medieval literature and culture and Canadian literature and culture. In the former, he has published Tennyson’s Camelot: The Idylls of the King and Its Medieval Sources, and translated The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes; in the latter, he published The Canadian Imagination: Dimensions of a Literary Culture, The Forty-Ninth and Other Parallels: Contemporary Canadian Perspectives, and The Letters of Stephen Leacock. He has also edited volumes on Morley Callaghan, Stephen Leacock and Margaret Laurence, and co-edited volumes of the writings of Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan. A long-time friend of Carol Shields, he wrote Carol Shields: Cultural Context, a part of Library and Archives Canada’s Web exhibition Canadian Writers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction David Staines 1

To the Light House Margaret Atwood 5

Art Is Making: Carol Shields in Conversation and Correspondence Eleanor Wachtel 9

The Square Root of a Clock Tick: Time and Timing in Carol Shields's Poetry and Prose Anne Giardini Joseph Giardini 21

All That "Below-the-Surface Stuff": Carol Shields's Conversational Modes Coral Ann Howells 35

Guilt, Guile, and Ginger in Small Ceremonies Elizabeth Waterston 53

Revisiting the Sequel: Carol Shields's Companion Novels Wendy Roy 63

Bio-Critical Afterlives: Sarah Binks, Pat Lowther, and the Satirical Gothic Turn in Carol Shields's Swann Cynthia Sugars 81

Assembling Identity: Late-Life Agency in The Stone Angel and The Stone Diaries Patricia Life 93

Male-Pattern Bewilderment in Larry's Party John Van Rys 113

Departures, Arrivals: Canada/United States Migrations and the Trope of Travel in the Fiction of Carol Shields Alex Ramon 129

"To Be Faithful to the Idea of Being Good": The Expansion to Goodness in Carol Shields's Unless Margaret Steffler 143

Narrative Pragmatism: Goodness in Carol Shields's Unless Tim Heath 161

Shields's Guerrilla Gardeners: Sowing Seeds of Defiance and Care Shelley Boyd 177

Cool Empathy in the Short Fiction of Carol Shields Marilyn Rose 197

The "Perfect Gift" and the "True Gift": Empathetic Dialogue in Carol Shields's "A Scarf" and Joyce Carol Oatess "The Scarf" Elizabeth Reimer 223

Prepositional Domesticity Aritha Van Herk 249

"Grand Slam": Birthing Women and Budging Generations in Carol Shields's Play Thirteen Hands Nora Foster Stovel 263

Archives as Traces of Life Process and Engagement: The Late Years of the Carol Shields Fonds Catherine Hobbs 277

The Voices of Carol Shields Joan Clark 293

The Clarity of Her Anger Jane Urquhart 295

My Seen-Sang, Carol Shields: A Memoir of a Master Teacher Wayson Choy 299

Carol Shields Martin Levin 305

Contributors 313