Rating: Summary: Goodness! Gracious! Great Balls of Fire! Review: There can be few works of literature whose title consists solely of a single conjunction. (Kipling's "If" is probably the most famous). The word "unless" here refers to Ms Shields's theory that human life, like the English language is held together by a few linking words (conjunctions, adjectives and prepositions such as "unless", "although", "nevertheless") which are meaningless in themselves but which gain importance by what they join together). The narrator and central character of this novel is Reta Winters, a middle-aged writer living in a small town near Toronto with her husband and two of her three daughters. Although Reta would appear to have a comfortable middle-class life, the family faces a crisis when their eldest daughter, Norah, drops out of university and goes to live on the streets of Toronto as a beggar, holding a sign with the single word "GOODNESS". The reason why only becomes clear at the very end of the book; for most of the time, both the reader and her family are left in the dark. Not only are Reta and her family unable to understand Norah's behaviour, they are also unable to change it. Norah is legally an adult, and not of unsound mind, so she cannot be compelled to return to her family, and their attempts to persuade her to do so or to reason with her are met with silence. Unable to alter the situation, the family have to get on with their lives as best they can, and much of the book is taken up with descriptions of the defence mechanisms they use to cope with Norah's loss. Her two younger sisters Natalie and Christine get on with their everyday school lives, Tom returns to his work and to his all-consuming hobby, the study of fossil trilobites (which means more to him than his day-job as a doctor), and Reta continues with her round of housework, meetings with friends and work on her latest novel. As one would expect, however, Reta continues to be preoccupied with Norah and tries desperately to understand her. The family come up with various theories- problems with her boyfriend, academic difficulties at university, some unknown trauma- but the explanation which comes to obsess Reta is intimately tied to her own feminist views. Reta believes that Norah has dropped out of a male-dominated society which denies women the chance to achieve "greatness". Deprived of this opportunity, Norah is forced to pursue the only alternative, "goodness", which she is seeking through renunciation of the world. Reta elaborates this theory in a series of letters written to various authors and journalists whom she considers to have undervalued the role of women. (In the end, however, she never posts any of these letters). Unlike some reviewers, I did not see "Unless" as "feminist rant", or even as a feminist work at all. Indeed, it seems quite possible that Ms Shields wrote it as a subtle critique of feminism, or to be more accurate of the ideological tunnel vision to which certain types of feminism (and certain other viewpoints) can lead. By "ideological tunnel vision", I mean the tendency to see all misfortunes as being caused by the one single phenomenon against which one's ideology is directed. As a feminist, Reta blames Norah's condition on male dominance of society, but if she had been a Marxist, she would no doubt have blamed capitalist oppression of the working class. A Freudian would have blamed neuroses arising from psychosexual traumas in childhood, a Christian fundamentalist would have blamed the godlessness of modern society and a militant atheist would have blamed the baleful influence of religion. A flat-earther would probably have blamed the persistence of the illogical belief in a round world. Without wanting to give away the ending of the novel, I can say that when the truth about Norah becomes known, it has nothing to do with Reta's feminist theories. Ms Shields can write well, and some parts of the book are very effective, particularly Reta's memories of her own childhood, and the satirical portrait of her pushy, gushing literary editor Arthur Springer. Nevertheless, the book as a whole is rather static, with little development either of plot or of character. Too much of the book is taken up with the minutiae of Reta's everyday life, and her meetings with her various friends, none of whom emerge as interesting characters in their own right. Indeed, apart from Springer and Reta herself, none of the characters are particularly memorable, even Norah, around whom the plot turns. (At the risk of sounding like Springer, who wants to rewrite Reta's latest novel for her, I felt that the book might have been made more interesting if it had been told from Norah's point of view or using a multiple-narrator technique). Even if the book is seen as a novel of ideas, Ms Shields does not develop her themes as fully as she might. Although Reta spends much of her time musing on "goodness", there is no serious exploration of the theme of what it means to live a good, in the sense of virtuous, life. The point is not, for example, made that in some cultures (especially Hindu and Buddhist ones), to renounce worldly goods and concentrate on spiritual matters while living off the charity of others would be regarded as a deeply virtuous act, whereas in the West, although it has its own hermitic traditions, "goodness" is more often equated with service to one's fellow-men. Given that the novel revolves around Norah's apparent decision to seek "goodness" through renunciation, I felt that more could have been made of these two contrasting concepts of virtue.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful piece of work! Review: Carol Shields is a magnificent writer who fully deserves every prize she has garnered, and many that have not been invented yet. Unless is as gripping and finely crafted as everything she has touched. Not an useless novel, but one that enhances your reading experience. I adore this author, and cannot comprehend the one stars here. I am hooked on Ms. Shields and I look forward to reading The Stone Diaries - for I've been told that the aforementioned novel is her best work thus far.
Rating: Summary: A Powerful Family Drama Review: Carol Shields strikes a strong and powerful chord with her novel Unless. This family drama finds Reta Winters, a writer and mother of three, in despair when she finds out that her oldest daughter has dropped out of college and is sitting on a Toronto street corner with a cardboard sign around her neck that reads "Goodness." Reta struggles to try and understand what happened to put her daughter in such a state of despair, what has caused her to just give up. She uses her writing as therapy to try and help her and her daughter work through this and to try and get her daughter back. This is a heartfelt story about family struggles. As depressing as many parts of this story are, Shields manages to keep the reader involved. The emotions are strongly felt through Reta and her power struggle to fight for her daughter. Unless is strongly written and intermixes some lighter, humorous parts to lighten the load of the subject at hand. This story not only shows the emotional strain on Reta as a mother but also the hardship and pain it brings to a father and siblings to see a loved one in such a mental state leaving them to feel helpless.
Rating: Summary: Unless is Useless Review: I bought this book for my mother, who thoroughly enjoyed reading it on her THIRD attempt to read the entire book. My mother passed it back on to me, after she finished, and raved about how wonderful the book was. She continues to encourage me to read on, but I just can't. The beginning of the book is just plain boring. I've only picked it up twice, in an attempt to read two chapters and I just can drudge through it! Nothing happens. After reading various other reviews, I'm sure Shield's novel is a wonderful story with a beginning, middle & end, but I just can't help but fall asleep trying to finish the beginning.
Rating: Summary: Not a "real" review Review: I'm not really about to write a review - I've never done this before, and I don't really know how to do it, especially in a foreign language (english is not my native language). But I felt an urge to share my own experience after reading some of other reviews: All I would like to say is that I found this book amazing - I finished it in three days, literally couldn't put it down. I kept thinking about it while I was working, studying, shopping... I couldn't get it out of my mind, and I can't say why, but it had a certain "calming" effect on me. "Unless" is certainly a very peculiar book, probably not something to read on the beach. It surely won't "speak" to everyone - but I believe it is a small masterpiece in its own field.
Rating: Summary: Soon to be a major motion picture? Review: Oddly, a few hours before I sat down to read the 2nd half of UNLESS, I was thinking of the weight of something said "in passing" in the first half: at the "coffee meeting" when the women are mentioning some horrible things that had happened in the news, one of them asks, essentially, "what have any of us done about these injustices?" The answer is, not much. So I found a real and valuable poignancy in the fact that the story actually pivots on an instance of action on the part of "goodness," a possibility never considered by anyone involved - nor by any reader, I'd imagine. To take completely seriously the feminist angle of the narrator's journey is to miss the point that the narrator has missed the point! She seems to figure that out at last. And she also knows, as does Carol Shields, that the neat, momentary "resolution" of loose strands at the last page of any story is at best a snapshot. Or, as Orson Welles said, "Happy endings depending on stopping the story before it's over.
Rating: Summary: Unless. Tedious. Review: I admit, I thought this book would be something else when I bought it, after skimming the back cover - a novel ("with a beginning, middle, and end") about the effects of a 19 year old girl's emotional breakdown on the people who love her. Unfortunately for me, Norah's desertion of her family to become a homeless panhandler was given very little attention - instead, it served as a springboard for Reta's musings on goodness, and, primarily, feminism. I certainly consider myself a feminist; however, I was put off by the implication that all of society's ills are a result of women feeling incapacitated. Reta believes her daughter has come to this because she feels insignificant? All right, then instead of writing those tedious "letters to the editor" about the lack of mention of women's achievements in a newspaper article or book or lecture, DO SOMETHING about your daughter! If you think she needs to see that women can accomplish something, show her that her own mother has some backbone - haul her off the street corner and get her the psychiatric help she needs! This is not my only problem with the novel, however. My other complaint is simply this: it's dull. While the author has some interesting thoughts on the notion of goodness and some valid points about women's struggle to achieve greatness, these come few and far between. The remaining 300 pages consist of far too many laborious descriptions of Reta's house and daily rituals, a numbered list of writings she has published in her career, and of course, those repetitive letters to authors and journalists. Other family members (her husband and two younger daughters) are introduced and then virtually vanish - we never learn how THEY feel about Norah. Only Reta's mother in law gets an interesting backstory, and that comes in the final pages - far too late to redeem the rest of the book. Other readers have defended the plodding pace and lack of character development by explaining 'that's just what Carol Shields DOES'. Gotcha. Great for you if you enjoy Ms. Shields' style; I just didn't.
Rating: Summary: Goodness Review: How often do you start reading a book and find you can't put it down, have to keep reading and wish it didn't end? Carol Shields has written such a book for me- the jacket describes this book as an author with family issues one of which is a daughter who quits college to become homeless. Sounds depressing, but this book is anything but..Reta Winters is an author trying to write her second book while helping an older author translate her stories. In the midst of her professional work, family life intervenes, and the story of Reta's daughter becomes the focus for family and personal change. Reta is a feminist and her friends and colleagues are involved with the feminist movement to improve the life of women. Reta, her husband, and two youngest daughters are keeping the errant daughter in their lives through daily pryaers, thoughts and bags of cheese sandwiches left at the site where the daughter sits day after day with a sign, "Goodness" and collects monies given to her by stangers. The mother-in-law and Reta's editor provide some unusual insights. This is a story that surprises, delights and ends on an up note that gives us all hope for goodness in our own lives....."unless"...
Rating: Summary: Nicely written but not much in it Review: Carol Shields writes beautifully using words to convey her feelings about her grieving. However, nothing really happens in the story, you feel like you're just reading her journal entries which amount to nothing. We don't see her change or evolve. I forced myself to finish reading since Carol Shields is an acclaimed writer (I didn't read her previous book Stone Diaries) and because I hoped something would happen, emotionally or plot-wise, but nothing - I was disappointed.
Rating: Summary: Excellent and beautiful Review: This is the best book I have ever read - or at least in a long while. To spend time with Carol Shields is not to read but to massage and survey the soul. So many times you think she's telling your story, and at others you gaze in awe of this testament, with its unadorned, unassuming, unresting way of creating art in literature. Narrative? yes but not explicit. Fiction? yes, but this is the kind of book you continue to hear after you put it down and you're cleaning your kitchen, smiling at your partner, or passing someone; you can still feel its words when you're writing your own. You love her daughter. You take a stroll in Georgetown. Carol Shields knows how to write life. I haven't read anyone who can do it better.
|