The Box Garden
by Carol Shields
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The story of a woman dancing on the edge of a difficult life Ever since her husband left her--seemingly vanishing into thin air--Charleen Forrest has supported herself and her fifteen-year-old son on what she earns as an obscure poet and part-time gofer for an even more obscure scientific journal. But when her estranged mother remarries, prompting an unplanned reunion, Charleen finds herself moving out of her familiar existence. A dazzling counterpoint to Shields's debut novel, Small show more Ceremonies, imbued with her scathing wit and dead-on observations, The Box Garden is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who finds transformation--and happiness--where she least expects it. show lessTags
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raidergirl3 the narrators of both books are sisters, so the books are companions
Member Reviews
A quiet novel, like much of Shields's work, but it still has the capacity to surprise. Maybe not in all ways, but when Greta takes Seth away to bring him to his father , I was taken unawares. It ends well, but it packs an emotional punch. A lot of it comes from the slowness of travel and communication (no cell phones don't you know) and works very well to inject a bit of drama. And of course, Shields could write the walls down.
Charleen musing on the low economic rung she has been living on - "it takes courage to live with wicker; it takes purity, a false purity in my case, to resist posters, beaded curtains and one more piece of handthrown pottery."
And musing on her boss and his wife - "Where do butterflies go when it rains? Where to show more hippies go when they get old?"
After getting lectured in a kindly way by her boss "Why is it I inspire such storms of preaching?"
Quoting Brother Adam in one of his letters - "The only way to be happy is to have no expectations. How fortunate they are to have found their perfect, definable, tailored-to-fit solutions."
Charleen's sister Judith talking about her daughter, Meredith - "But eighteen is such a ... well ... such a suffering age."
Charleen musing about her son, Seth - "his nature has always been exceedingly open, and, if anything it is this openness that worries me, openness with a suggestion of vacuum, a curious, perhaps dangerous acquiescence."
Sensitive insights from a woman nearly eaten up by her belief that she has low intelligence and that her creative oeuvre (poetry) is a sham. Definitely worth your time. show less
Charleen musing on the low economic rung she has been living on - "it takes courage to live with wicker; it takes purity, a false purity in my case, to resist posters, beaded curtains and one more piece of handthrown pottery."
And musing on her boss and his wife - "Where do butterflies go when it rains? Where to show more hippies go when they get old?"
After getting lectured in a kindly way by her boss "Why is it I inspire such storms of preaching?"
Quoting Brother Adam in one of his letters - "The only way to be happy is to have no expectations. How fortunate they are to have found their perfect, definable, tailored-to-fit solutions."
Charleen's sister Judith talking about her daughter, Meredith - "But eighteen is such a ... well ... such a suffering age."
Charleen musing about her son, Seth - "his nature has always been exceedingly open, and, if anything it is this openness that worries me, openness with a suggestion of vacuum, a curious, perhaps dangerous acquiescence."
Sensitive insights from a woman nearly eaten up by her belief that she has low intelligence and that her creative oeuvre (poetry) is a sham. Definitely worth your time. show less
THE BOX GARDEN (1977) is a gem of a book that my late mother left behind eleven years ago and I just got around to reading it. Mom and I both thoroughly enjoyed Carol Shields' THE STONE DIARIES that won her the Pulitzer nearly thirty years ago. And I've read a couple of her other books since then. This one features Charlene Forest, a divorced single mom, living on the economic edge in the seventies (well before PCs, cell phones and all the other crap of today). Char has a confidence problem, but she manages quite well. Her ex was an unbalanced, selfish hippy, but she still gets a small monthly child support check in the mail twelve years after he deserted them. Char is traveling by train from Vancouver back to her home near Toronto for show more a week, where her long-widowed mother is getting married. And her mom is really a piece of work - perhaps one of the most unlikeable, unpleasant characters you're likely to meet in modern fiction. And the man she is marrying cones with some real surprises. Char brings her 'boyfriend,' a really nice guy - an orthodontist - and leaves her 15 year-old son behind with some friends. And she hopes to connect with 'Brother Adam,' a mysterious (mystic?) botanist she's been corresponding with - who sent her a 'box garden' of grass. Oh, and her older sister and husband are there for the wedding too. Then there is this totally unexpected family crisis, and the police enter in. I mean for such an ordinary-seeming collection of people, things get pretty intense all at once, and there is a lot going on, with some sudden twists. This is just a very good story, with very finely wrought characters, and very seventies too. I loved it. And the late Carol Shields was a wonderful writer. Very highly recommended.
- Tim Bazzett, author of CV memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
- Tim Bazzett, author of CV memoir, BOOKLOVER show less
In a nutshell, Box Garden paints an uneasy picture of a grown woman returning home to attend the wedding of her elderly mother. Charleen lives a very unsettled life. Divorced. Single mom. Dating. Strained relationships with everyone around her. She lives a sparse life by choice and seems incredibly fragile. However, when confronted with a series of intensely emotional situations, Charleen emerges as a surprisingly strong and capable woman.
I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again, but I still plan on reading all of Carol Shields’ work. This is my fourth Shields’ novel, and while it wasn’t as good as the other three, The Stone Diaries, Unless, and Larry’s Party, it still ranks as a 4 star book. The three I had previously read were the last three she wrote, while The Box Garden was written in 1977 and was only her second novel.
Charleen Forrest is a divorced poet with a son. Charleen has all the ordinary issues with her ex-husband and with her mother (who doesn’t?), but the way Shields writes about them are anything but ordinary.
“My breakdown too; that’s the part I didn’t confess, the part I conceal even from myself except when I am absolutely show more alone in the middle of the night as I am now. The day Watson left, everything more or less fell apart for me, too. The world, which I was just beginning to perceive, was spoiled. Everything ruined, everthing scattered. Scattered like me, the way I’m scattered through this house.”
When I read her books, it is as if she is peering into my mind and soul and speaking directly to me. She always goes to the heart of the matter. I regret her early death from cancer. I feel like the literary world missed out on some wonderful stories that she unfortunately had to leave unwritten. You know the question that’s always asked about which author you’d like to meet and have dinner with, alive or dead? Without a doubt, mine would be Carol Shields.
“I suppose this is why I love novels, because novels are not just about what people do, but they’re about what people think.” — Carol Shields show less
Charleen Forrest is a divorced poet with a son. Charleen has all the ordinary issues with her ex-husband and with her mother (who doesn’t?), but the way Shields writes about them are anything but ordinary.
“My breakdown too; that’s the part I didn’t confess, the part I conceal even from myself except when I am absolutely show more alone in the middle of the night as I am now. The day Watson left, everything more or less fell apart for me, too. The world, which I was just beginning to perceive, was spoiled. Everything ruined, everthing scattered. Scattered like me, the way I’m scattered through this house.”
When I read her books, it is as if she is peering into my mind and soul and speaking directly to me. She always goes to the heart of the matter. I regret her early death from cancer. I feel like the literary world missed out on some wonderful stories that she unfortunately had to leave unwritten. You know the question that’s always asked about which author you’d like to meet and have dinner with, alive or dead? Without a doubt, mine would be Carol Shields.
“I suppose this is why I love novels, because novels are not just about what people do, but they’re about what people think.” — Carol Shields show less
A divorced woman goes back home to celebrate her mother's second wedding. Wry observations of family and relationships, and powerful characterisations - especially of the life-squelching elderly mother.
In "The Box Garden" Carol Shields tells us the life-affirming story of Charleen, a mother who finds courage where she thought she had none, and realizes that her erstwhile friends find it possible to act shockingly against her interests. One of the major treats in this book, besides Ms. Shields's main characters, is a very offbeat set of supporting characters, one of whom actually kidnaps Charleen's son as part of some deranged mission on Charleen's behalf.
The book is very sparse on description, but we follow Charleen's internal journey, which is set against the backdrop of a rail journey through Canada, to a rewarding job and a rewarding relationship. It's all told in wonderful, understated prose. I recommend it very highly.
show more target="_top">http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2010/06/box-garden-by-carol-shields.html show less
The book is very sparse on description, but we follow Charleen's internal journey, which is set against the backdrop of a rail journey through Canada, to a rewarding job and a rewarding relationship. It's all told in wonderful, understated prose. I recommend it very highly.
show more target="_top">http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2010/06/box-garden-by-carol-shields.html show less
Couldn't get into it. Protagonist is thirty eight-year-old destitute single mother.
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Author Information
35+ Works 17,621 Members
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 of her 40th birthday. Her other works of fiction show more 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
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Otavan kirjasto (233)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Box Garden
- Original title
- The Box Garden
- Original publication date
- 1977
- People/Characters
- Charleen Forrest; Watson Forrest
- Important places
- Scarborough, Ontario, Canada; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Dedication
- For my son John
- First words
- What was it that Brother Adam wrote me last week?
- Quotations
- The National Botanical Journal comes out quarterly, and except for selecting the articles which are to appear, I do everything. ... First I edit the manuscripts which is a long, picky and sensitive tightrope of a job; it is e... (show all)ssential not to under-edit since clarity and a moderate level of elegance are desirable, but I must not over-edit and thereby obliterate personal style and perhaps injure the feelings of the submitting authors. (Will he object if I pencil out his "however"? Will he fly into a tantrum when I chop his sentences in two or sometimes three or even four? Will he mind if I switch the spellings to Canadian standard or rearrange the tangle of his footnotes?)
In spite of the statistics, in spite of the social tolerance, there is nothing in the world so heavy, so leaden, so painfully pressing as a love that has failed. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Good evening, good evening.
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