Carol Shields (1935–2003)
Author of The Stone Diaries
About the Author
Carol Shields is a writer and critic who was born on June 2, 1935 in Chicago and grew up in Illinois. Shields resided in Canada, where she was the Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg, and a professor at the University of Manitoba. Shields's first novel, Small Ceremonies, was published the week show more of her 40th birthday. Her other works of fiction include The Orange Fish, Larry's Party, Various Miracles, and The Stone Diaries, which received the Governor's General Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Shields has also been awarded the Canadian Bookseller's Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the CBC Prize for Drama. She died on July 16, 2003. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Carol Shields
Associated Works
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (1976) — Contributor — 1,214 copies, 3 reviews
All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists (2004) — Contributor — 603 copies, 13 reviews
Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times (2001) — Contributor — 479 copies, 5 reviews
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 479 copies, 4 reviews
Rose del Canada : Shields, Munro, Svendsen, Gallant, Birdsell, Laurence, Atwood (1994) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Shields, Carol
- Birthdate
- 1935-06-02
- Date of death
- 2003-07-16
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Hanover College (BA/English)
University of Exeter
University of Ottawa - Occupations
- Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg
novelist - Awards and honors
- Order of Canada (Officer, 1998)
Order of Canada (Companion, 2002) - Relationships
- Giardini, Anne (daughter)
- Nationality
- Canada (naturalized)
- Birthplace
- Oak Park, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada - Place of death
- Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
- Associated Place (for map)
- British Columbia, Canada
Members
Discussions
Carol Shields Month in Orange January/July (June 2012)
Larry's Party by Carol Shields in Orange January/July (January 2012)
Group Read - The Stone Diaries (March) - Spoiler Thread in The 11 in 11 Category Challenge (March 2011)
Reviews
I know that I read Carol Shields’ Pulitzer-winning novel, THE STONE DIARIES, more than twenty years ago, and I know that I loved it, but the truth is I can’t remember much about it anymore. Nevertheless I thought I’d try this earlier novel from 1987, SWANN. I’m pleased that I did, because I enjoyed it very much. SWANN is many things, it’s a kind of mystery, it’s a collection of interesting characters from both Canada and the United States. (Shields was born and raised in Oak show more Park, IL – Hemingway’s boyhood home – but after her marriage to a Canadian, she moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen.) But more than anything, SWANN is a spoof of academia and its departmental politics and constant scrabbling for the upper hand in literary criticism, research and expertise. As one character puts it, “Critics are to art as ornithologists are to birds.” Yeah, I suppose. But I appreciated the portrayal of English departments and their special scholars and biographers of poets and other writers. The same character who made the critics/ornithologists remark, the crusty old newspaperman, Frederic Cruzzi, also made another morbidly hilarious comment about an “Advice to Golden Agers” columnist, saying, “We’re all going down the chute anyway, and that idiot’s little rays of sunshine are insulting.” Well, it made ME laugh, and I’m one of those ‘golden agers.’
And then there’s Morton Jimroy, the closeted and creepy little biographer of Ezra Pound, who wants to do the definitive life of Mary Swann, going on about the rarified life of certain poets –
“… who stand head and shoulders above the simpering ‘little mag’ people, the offset people, - true poets carry a greater share of the racial memory than do we lesser beings … It’s their genetic disposition, a mutation, of course, which urges them forward and allows them to be filters of a larger knowledge.”
I mean, HUH? And this is about the poor unfortunate title character, the ‘poet’ Mary Swann, a desperately poor, battered and abused Ontario farm wife, whose grisly end is documented in gruesome detail. She left behind a single slim volume of short poems, SWANN’S SONGS, published posthumously by Cruzzi. The book caught the attention years later of a Chicago-based feminist writer, Sarah Maloney, whose strident feminism has begun to fade as she nears thirty. And there is also the old maid small town librarian, Rose Hindmarch, who knew Mary Swann, if only casually. This rounds out the cast, and it is indeed a ‘cast,’ as the final section of SWANN is presented as a movie script of the Swann Symposium meeting at a hotel in Toronto, where it is learned that all of the extant copies of SWANN’S SONGS are mysteriously disappearing, as are all of the other Swann artefacts – and there aren’t many. It’s a humdinger of a little mystery-suspense, and an interesting commentary on the whole field of literary critics and criticism. Brought back memories of the one time I attended an MLA conference in Milwaukee as a young college English instructor, and how boring and pretentious most of the presentations and panels were. So much so that a few colleagues and I skipped out and took our wives to the movies instead. Saw the then-new and controversial films, THE BABY MAKER and JOE, both of them much more interesting than anything the MLA had to offer.
But enough. SWANN is a damn fine book, with great characters and a compelling plot line. Very highly recommended, especially to English teachers, librarians and academics.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
And then there’s Morton Jimroy, the closeted and creepy little biographer of Ezra Pound, who wants to do the definitive life of Mary Swann, going on about the rarified life of certain poets –
“… who stand head and shoulders above the simpering ‘little mag’ people, the offset people, - true poets carry a greater share of the racial memory than do we lesser beings … It’s their genetic disposition, a mutation, of course, which urges them forward and allows them to be filters of a larger knowledge.”
I mean, HUH? And this is about the poor unfortunate title character, the ‘poet’ Mary Swann, a desperately poor, battered and abused Ontario farm wife, whose grisly end is documented in gruesome detail. She left behind a single slim volume of short poems, SWANN’S SONGS, published posthumously by Cruzzi. The book caught the attention years later of a Chicago-based feminist writer, Sarah Maloney, whose strident feminism has begun to fade as she nears thirty. And there is also the old maid small town librarian, Rose Hindmarch, who knew Mary Swann, if only casually. This rounds out the cast, and it is indeed a ‘cast,’ as the final section of SWANN is presented as a movie script of the Swann Symposium meeting at a hotel in Toronto, where it is learned that all of the extant copies of SWANN’S SONGS are mysteriously disappearing, as are all of the other Swann artefacts – and there aren’t many. It’s a humdinger of a little mystery-suspense, and an interesting commentary on the whole field of literary critics and criticism. Brought back memories of the one time I attended an MLA conference in Milwaukee as a young college English instructor, and how boring and pretentious most of the presentations and panels were. So much so that a few colleagues and I skipped out and took our wives to the movies instead. Saw the then-new and controversial films, THE BABY MAKER and JOE, both of them much more interesting than anything the MLA had to offer.
But enough. SWANN is a damn fine book, with great characters and a compelling plot line. Very highly recommended, especially to English teachers, librarians and academics.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
"The Stone Diaries" caught me by surprise. Yes, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, so I should have been prepared, but it received mediocre reviews and some of the criticism was pretty harsh using words like slow, awkward, dull, and experimental. In my humble judgement, it is none of those things. It was enthralling, emotional, thought provoking, and laden with beautifully written lyrical prose.
"The Stone Diaries" is the life story of Daisy Goodwill Flett - an ordinary woman who lived an show more ordinary life as so many millions of people do. And what is the sum of one ordinary life? Birth, death, a few monumental celebrations, a few life defining moments, an occasional life altering decision, work, play, scattered memories... joy, love, pain, fear, loneliness and moments of clarity. That was Daisy’s life.
Told in segments, almost like short stories progressing in time, and sometimes skipping a decade between segments, we watch Daisy age along with her loved ones.
Maybe to get the most out of this book, one would have to be a mature adult who has seriously contemplated the enigma of mortality, had a few of those clarifying moments and life altering decisions, and knows all too well of vulnerability and the difficulty of defining one’s own true purpose on Earth. Or perhaps if the reader has served as caretaker for an elderly loved one, knowing their time on earth is limited, watching them come to terms with the sum of what their life has been, their disappointments and regrets… wondering “what was the meaning of it all?”
And how much does anyone really know of another’s deepest inner being... their thoughts, their passions, their driving force. On her death bed, moments before she dies, Daisy agonizes because she is alone, “we require in our moments of courage or shame, at least one witness, but Mrs. Flett has not had this privilege. This is what breaks her heart. What she can’t bear. Even now, eighty years old.” Though her family was gathered around her, still the lack of intimacy was heartbreaking. So many barriers... so much complacency... unknown words... so little time.
I particularly enjoyed the way Carol Shields injected the opinions and feelings of several different characters, various bits of advice everyone gave Daisy, and their thoughts involving Daisy’s actions, moods, and appearance. Ironically, everyone saw things differently - biased from their own personal experiences and their own frame of reference. And isn’t that the truth of human nature? Is perception the real reality? When we are gone, are we merely the sum of the memories of others? So much to think about.
The message of the story exudes throughout the pages of the book. Most people in retrospect - when all is said and done - have pretty ordinary lives. They may have a hidden well of profound thoughts and deep emotions that were never shared or never acknowledged. Unspent passion, unfulfilled dreams, and a fleeting legacy. What is left when that person is gone... some photos, a complimentary obituary, a few mementos?
"The Stone Diaries" offers up some powerful advice. Do not be complacent. Cherish relationships. Share your feelings. Make that bucket list and get started on it now. Carpe Diem. show less
"The Stone Diaries" is the life story of Daisy Goodwill Flett - an ordinary woman who lived an show more ordinary life as so many millions of people do. And what is the sum of one ordinary life? Birth, death, a few monumental celebrations, a few life defining moments, an occasional life altering decision, work, play, scattered memories... joy, love, pain, fear, loneliness and moments of clarity. That was Daisy’s life.
Told in segments, almost like short stories progressing in time, and sometimes skipping a decade between segments, we watch Daisy age along with her loved ones.
Maybe to get the most out of this book, one would have to be a mature adult who has seriously contemplated the enigma of mortality, had a few of those clarifying moments and life altering decisions, and knows all too well of vulnerability and the difficulty of defining one’s own true purpose on Earth. Or perhaps if the reader has served as caretaker for an elderly loved one, knowing their time on earth is limited, watching them come to terms with the sum of what their life has been, their disappointments and regrets… wondering “what was the meaning of it all?”
And how much does anyone really know of another’s deepest inner being... their thoughts, their passions, their driving force. On her death bed, moments before she dies, Daisy agonizes because she is alone, “we require in our moments of courage or shame, at least one witness, but Mrs. Flett has not had this privilege. This is what breaks her heart. What she can’t bear. Even now, eighty years old.” Though her family was gathered around her, still the lack of intimacy was heartbreaking. So many barriers... so much complacency... unknown words... so little time.
I particularly enjoyed the way Carol Shields injected the opinions and feelings of several different characters, various bits of advice everyone gave Daisy, and their thoughts involving Daisy’s actions, moods, and appearance. Ironically, everyone saw things differently - biased from their own personal experiences and their own frame of reference. And isn’t that the truth of human nature? Is perception the real reality? When we are gone, are we merely the sum of the memories of others? So much to think about.
The message of the story exudes throughout the pages of the book. Most people in retrospect - when all is said and done - have pretty ordinary lives. They may have a hidden well of profound thoughts and deep emotions that were never shared or never acknowledged. Unspent passion, unfulfilled dreams, and a fleeting legacy. What is left when that person is gone... some photos, a complimentary obituary, a few mementos?
"The Stone Diaries" offers up some powerful advice. Do not be complacent. Cherish relationships. Share your feelings. Make that bucket list and get started on it now. Carpe Diem. show less
"How we love to systemize and classify what is rich and random in life. How our fingers itch to separate the tangled threads of theme and anti-theme, moral vision and moral blindness, God and godlessness, joy and despair, as though all creativity sat like a head of cabbage on a wooden chopping block, ready to be hacked apart, first the leaves, then the hot, white heart."
Divided into five parts, Swann offers readers a chorus of voices. Each of four characters has an opportunity to take centre show more stage (Sarah Maloney, Morton Jimroy, Rose Hindmarch and Federic Cruzzi), followed by a segment titled "The Swann Symposium" which is written as a play, complete with dramatic instructions, stage directions and director's notes. Despite a variety of ages and life experiences, working lives and professional ambitions, each of these characters is fully drawn. Readers know them intimately in only a few pages, develop attachments and suspicions, and inhabit a peculiar position of engagement twined with observation as the final segment unfolds. Although the first three-quarters of the novel are preoccupied with character development, the latter presents a mystery, which has been at a slow-boil throughout, although this only becomes clear as the narratives unite. Carol Shields is master of hooking readers from one direction while they are attending elsewhere, so that simple observations about a librarian's quiet life translate into readers' unexpected emotional investment as her small world swells uncomfortably large and change abounds. Throughout, musings on creativity and work, relationships and scholarship ensure the work will appeal particularly to those who have a large private collection of notebooks and a favourite pen. show less
Divided into five parts, Swann offers readers a chorus of voices. Each of four characters has an opportunity to take centre show more stage (Sarah Maloney, Morton Jimroy, Rose Hindmarch and Federic Cruzzi), followed by a segment titled "The Swann Symposium" which is written as a play, complete with dramatic instructions, stage directions and director's notes. Despite a variety of ages and life experiences, working lives and professional ambitions, each of these characters is fully drawn. Readers know them intimately in only a few pages, develop attachments and suspicions, and inhabit a peculiar position of engagement twined with observation as the final segment unfolds. Although the first three-quarters of the novel are preoccupied with character development, the latter presents a mystery, which has been at a slow-boil throughout, although this only becomes clear as the narratives unite. Carol Shields is master of hooking readers from one direction while they are attending elsewhere, so that simple observations about a librarian's quiet life translate into readers' unexpected emotional investment as her small world swells uncomfortably large and change abounds. Throughout, musings on creativity and work, relationships and scholarship ensure the work will appeal particularly to those who have a large private collection of notebooks and a favourite pen. show less
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 show more 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:
"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. show less
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. show less
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 35
- Also by
- 16
- Members
- 17,635
- Popularity
- #1,251
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 374
- ISBNs
- 442
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 76
