List Books Supposing Unless
| Original Title: | Unless |
| ISBN: | 0007154615 (ISBN13: 9780007154616) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.carol-shields.com/unless.html |
| Setting: | Canada |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee (2002), Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2003), James Tait Black Memorial Prize Nominee for Fiction (2002), Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2002), Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (2003) |
Carol Shields
Paperback | Pages: 320 pages Rating: 3.63 | 12520 Users | 1053 Reviews
Interpretation Conducive To Books Unless
Compulsively readable, this main character comes from a very long, proud lineage of other literary protagonists who get totally fucked over by their offspring. Although it doesn't come close to the pathos & articulation thereof of, say, Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin", nor the titan-in-decay tableau which is Philip Roth's "American Pastoral"--"Unless" is way more playful, more accessible. It is the same old story, though. &, unless anything happens to me, I will definitely get my hands on every single thing Carol Shields has written or will write!!
Point Appertaining To Books Unless
| Title | : | Unless |
| Author | : | Carol Shields |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Fourth Estate paperback edition (US) |
| Pages | : | Pages: 320 pages |
| Published | : | 2003 by Fourth Estate (first published 2002) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Canada |
Rating Appertaining To Books Unless
Ratings: 3.63 From 12520 Users | 1053 ReviewsEvaluate Appertaining To Books Unless
I read this as part of The Mookse And The Gripes read through of the 2002 Man Booker Prize shortlist. As it happens, it is one of two books from that short list that I have on my book shelf (the other being the winner, The Life of Pi). This means I must have read this book 15 years ago, making this officially a re-read. However, unfortunately, I have no recollection of that first reading. This is a shame because 15 years is a long time and it would be interesting to know how both my taste inCompulsively readable, this main character comes from a very long, proud lineage of other literary protagonists who get totally fucked over by their offspring. Although it doesn't come close to the pathos & articulation thereof of, say, Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin", nor the titan-in-decay tableau which is Philip Roth's "American Pastoral"--"Unless" is way more playful, more accessible. It is the same old story, though. &, unless anything happens to me, I will definitely
UPDATE May 2016: Just found out this is going to be a movie, starring Catherine Keener as Reta! It will probably play the Toronto Film Festival in the fall. Looking forward to it!***In Carol Shieldss Unless, Reta Winters, a happy, middle-aged novelist and translator, a wife and mother of three children, discovers that her 19-year-old daughter has dropped out of university and is panhandling on the streets of Toronto holding a sign that reads Goodness. That one-sentence synopsis, while accurate,
"Unless is the worry word of the English language. It flies like a moth around the ear, you hardly hear it, and yet everything depends on its breathy presence. (...) Unless provides you with a trapdoor, a tunnel into light, the reverse side of not enough. Unless keeps you from drowning in the presiding arrangements."Reta (not Rita - Shields obviously read Derrida) Winters is 44, works as a translator and writer, is married to a doctor, has three daughters and a golden retriever named Pet, and
Unless by Carol Shields has been my third novel in a row written from the perspective of a self-analytical, self-critical and perhaps self-obsessed female narrator, the other being by Margaret Drabble and Anne Enright. Maybe Carol Shields drew the short straw, because I felt that Reta, the writer-narrator of Unless, internalised everything, so much so, in fact, that the other characters in the book became no more than projections of themselves within her. Maybe that was part of the point.
This book is not about big things...it is about a woman in her fourties who is writing novels and leads a rather ordinary life. While we read about her world (her husband, her three daughters - one of them does something completely unexpected -, her books, her editor,...) we get to know her thinking processes, and learn how her doubts and certainities change.. She offers us an insight on her opinions on emanicpation of women in the letters she writes (but doesnt send) to several instances. I
The 1001 books list is great for introducing you to authors that you were not previously familiar with. It's like a little black book literary dating service and without shame or embarrassment it will lead you by the clammy hand to meet a new author without you feeling half-witted, socially inept and geeky for making the effort or for not having made the effort earlier. Here Shovelmonkey1, it says, meet some new authors. Put your eyes between their pages and let their words roam around in your
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