Abstract
In his Afterword “‘Little Shocks of Recognition’: Carol Shields’s Book Reviews,” Alex Ramon addresses a thus-far neglected aspect of Shields’s non-fiction writing: the book reviews that she produced between the late 1970s and early 2000s. Published initially in academic journals and then in national and international periodicals, as her own literary fame grew, Shields’s reviews constitute a significant part of her non-fiction output, offering a valuable insight into her engagement with the work of her contemporaries and often illuminating the concerns of her own fiction. Opening with an overview of Shields’s reviewing, including her evolving methodology, Ramon’s essay then focuses on Shields’s critiques of three non-fiction texts by American women writers: Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood (1987), Erica Jong’s Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir (1994), and Ruby Side Thompson’s diaries, edited and published as Ruby: An Ordinary Woman (1995). Ramon illustrates how Shields’s contrasting responses to these texts illuminate the concerns with the genre of life-writing and the trope of “ordinariness” that permeate her own fiction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Shields’s concern about not being tough enough as a reviewer was confided to Howard, in relation to Catherine Schine’s The Love Letter, a novel that Shields confessed to finding “ditzy and dumb” and full of “thudding clichés.” “I ended up writing ‘around’ the book rather than ‘at’ it,” Shields admits. “I seem to lack the courage for demolishment, knowing how it feels I suppose” (Shields in Howard 2007, 319).
- 2.
Carol Shields, “Writing Book Reviews,” Carol Shields Fonds, 1st Accession, Box 62 [n.d., n.p]. Further references to fonds materials are cited in the text as “CSF1.”
- 3.
“I loved your Erica Jong review [and] couldn’t help but think of those critics who accuse you of too much niceness,” writes Blanche Howard to Shields, praising the piece for making its critical points “without ever indulging in the kind of hostility that goes under the name of reviewing. Acerbic but restrained, and subtle” (Howard 2007, 304).
- 4.
In fact, the next instalment of Jong’s memoir, Seducing the Demon: Writing for my Life was published 12 years later, when Jong was age sixty-six. The text was reviewed in The New York Times by Ron Powers in terms that unmistakably echo some of Shields’s remarks about Fear of Fifty. Powers describes the book as a “headlong, disheveled memoir… an honest account of a life lies half-smothered between its pages” (Powers, “How to Save Your Own Life,” New York Times Book Review, April 23, 2006). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/books/review/how-to-save-your-own-life.html
Works Cited
Anderson, Marjorie. “Interview with Carol Shields.” Prairie Fire 16.1 (Spring 1995): 139–50.
Beckman-Long, Brenda. Carol Shields and the Writer-Critic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.
Besner, Neil. Carol Shields. The Arts of a Writing Life (Winnipeg: Prairie Fire, 2003).
Cavell, Stanley. “The Ordinary as the Uneventful: A Note on the ‘Annales Historians.’” In Themes Out of School. San Francisco: North PointPress, 1984: 184–94.
Eden, Edward and Dee Goertz (eds). Narrative Hunger, and the Possibilities of Fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003: 19–36.
Giardini, Anne. “Double Happiness.” In Carol Shields. The Arts of a Writing Life. Besner, Neil (ed.) (Winnipeg: Prairie Fire, 2003): 15–22.
———, and Nicholas Giardini (eds). Sparkle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2016.
Howard, Blanche, and Allison Howard (eds), A Memoir of Friendship: The Letters Between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard (Toronto: Penguin Canada), 2007.
Powers, Ron. “How to Save Your Own Life.” New York Times Book Review (23 April 2006) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/books/review/how-to-save-your-own-life.html Accessed: 8 September 2017.
Shields, Carol. “Arriving Late, Starting Over.” In How Stories Mean. John Metcalf and J.R. (Tim) Struthers (eds). (Ontario: Porcupine’s Quill, 1993a): 244–251.
——— “The Bleakest Vision: Review of The End of Tragedy by Rachel Ingalls” The Globe and Mail (28 March 1989): n.p.
———. Collected Stories. London: Harper Perennial, 2004.
——— “Erica Jong: ‘Terrified’ at 50: Review of Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.” The Globe and Mail (30 July 1994a):
———. “Faux Biography is Extravagant, Daring Fiction: Review of The Puttermesser Papers.” The Globe and Mail (14 June 1997a): D16.
———. “Her letters to the world, that never wrote to her: Review of Ruby: An Ordinary Woman.” Boston Globe (30 April 1995a): B15, B18.
———. “Innocence in a State of Grace: Review of Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner.” The Globe and Mail (7 April 1990): n.p.
———. “In Ontario: Review of Friend of My Youth.” London Review of Books (7 February 1991a): 22–23.
———. “The Life You Lead May Be Your Own: Review of Rare & Endangered Species by Richard Bausch.” The New York Times Book Review (14 August 1994b): 6.
———. “Lives of Unlikely Saints: Review of Saint Maybe.” The Globe and Mail (31 August 1991b): D12.
———. “Lush Words and Loving Syntax: Review of Angela Carter’s Artificial Fire.” The Globe and Mail (23 March 1988): D17.
———. “Narrative Hunger and the Overflowing Cupboard.” In Carol Shields, Hunger, and the Possibilities of Fiction. Eden, Edward and Dee Goertz (eds). Narrative Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003: 19–36.
———. “Odd Jobs: Review of A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler.” The New York Times Book Review (19 April 1998a): 12–14.
———. “A Patchwork Effect: Review of How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto. The Globe and Mail (6 April 1991c).
———. “Review of Paradise by Toni Morrison.” The Washington Post (11 January 1998b): n.p.
———. “Review of The Prinzhorn Collection by Don Coles.” Contemporary Verse II: A Magazine of Contemporary Poetry Criticism 7:3 (1983), 42–43.
———. “Review of Winter Flowers by Janis Rapoport.” 1979: 79–80.
——— “Scenes from a Mismarriage: Review of Snake by Kate Jennings.” The New York Times Book Review (5 November 1997b), 11.
———. The Stone Diaries. London: Fourth Estate, 1993b.
———. Swann. 1987. London: Fourth Estate, 2000.
———. “To Write is to Raid.” in Giardini, Sparkle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2016a.I: 31–36.
——— “Voorstand, Go Home!: Review of The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith by Peter Carey.” The New York Times Book Review (12 February 1995b): n.p.
——— “Wafts of the South: Review of Eudora Welty’s A Writer’s Eye, The Optimist’s Daughter, Losing Battles, and Paul Binding’s The Still Moment: Eudora Welty: Portrait of a Writer.” Times Literary Supplement, 12 August 1994c): 20–21.
———. “Writers are Readers First.” in Giardini, Sparkle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2016b.I: 1–15.
———. “What it’s like to be awake: Review of An American Childhood by Annie Dillard” The Globe and Mail, f.6
———. “Writing Book Reviews.” Carol Shields Fonds, National Library and Archives Canada, 1st Accession, Box 62 [n.d., n.p]
———. “Writing the Writer’s Life: Review of A Widow for One Year by John Irving.” The Globe and Mail (2 May 1998c): D16, D18.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ramon, A. (2023). Afterword: “Little Shocks of Recognition”: Carol Shields’s Book Reviews. In: Stovel, N.F. (eds) Relating Carol Shields’s Essays and Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11480-9_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11480-9_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-11479-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-11480-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)