Review of Conversations with Carol Shields, Random Illuminations, edited by Eleanor Wachtel (Goose Lane: Fredericton, N.B, 2007) paper 200 pp. $19.95

 

The present collection contains interviews with, and also correspondence by, Carol Shields, associated with the writing and publication of her books.

 

This is a new addition to the editor’s other books of interviews, Writers & Company, More Writers & Company, and Original Minds.

 

It begins with “Scrapbook of Carol”, a personal essay by Wachtel, who was grieving the death of her mother, but became Carol’s “official bibliotherapist.”

 

Shields contemplates her childhood (akin to Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood) in “Always a Book-Oriented Kid, The Early Interviews: 1988-1993.”   She studied “Dick and Jane” readers, wrote sonnets, then short stories.  She took an M.A. in Canadian Literature on Susanna Moodie at University of Ottawa, where she heard Betty Friedan speak on The Feminine Mystique.  She was capable of writing from a male point of view, as well as becoming an “in-between” feminist. Mentioned in passing are: Small Ceremonies, The Box Garden, Happenstance, A Fairly Conventional Woman, Swann: A Mystery, Various Miracles, The Republic of Love, and The Stone Diaries.

 

The next section is a selection of “Letters, 1990-1994” by Shields to Wachtel, beginning with an exchange of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.   Shields commented on her reading materials, teaching Creative Writing, travel, and academic work.  Despite completing two articles, on Jane Austen and Margaret Laurence, “I’ve decided I don’t have the bones for academic writing, too much glue and equivocation and timid forays into other people’s theories.  Enough.” (p. 59)

 

By the time of  “The Arc of a Life”, Larry’s Party, Toronto, October 1997, Shields had earned “overnight success” with The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Governor General’s Award.  Yet, she claims her writing life remained the same.  Her new novel arose from a short story called “Larry’s Jacket” and discussions about male friendship, which resulted in “this re-evaluation of what it is, what it means, to be a man.” (p. 88)

 

In “Letter, 1998”, Shields has applied for the Guggenheim Fellowship, with Wachtel as a reference.  In “Art Is Making”, Onstage For The Humber School For Writers, Toronto, October, 1998, Wachtel pursues themes or patterns in both Carol’s life and books.  Some topics are “why people read novels” and the function of book clubs.  Shields reviewed Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Journals, in the Globe and Mail.  She attended her forty-fifth high school reunion.  In “Throttled by Astonishment”, Dressing Up For The Carnival Onstage At The International Festival Of Authors Toronto, October 1999”, she previews a new book of short stories and its origins.   Shields had been diagnosed with breast cancer.   As a result, she wanted to write and read about people with common experience, to avoid the feeling of being alone.  At first, she refused to keep a “cancer journal”.   Her favourite book was Swann, “I just loved the energy that was flowing through me when I wrote that book, so I remember it as a period of great happiness.” (p. 119)

 

Shield identifies with Jane Austen, who died in 1817, at forty-one, because both authors did not produce “autobiographical” books. Shields is of two minds about knowing more about a writer.  “It may give us understanding of how the novel was put together and why and what it means.”  She adds, “And maybe we don’t need to know this.  Maybe we don’t need to know anything about the writer.” (p. 143)

 

Yet, in “Letters, 1999-2001”,    Shields confesses, “I think I am happier writing fiction [than the monograph on Austen].” (p. 123).In “A Gentle Satirist, Jane Austen, Carol’s Home, Victoria, March 2001, Shields and Wachtel explore the key events in Austen’s life and the influence of Austen on Shields, who once wrote “My debt to Jane Austen herself is incalculable.” (p. 125) At the same time, Shields believes, “I don’t think my novels are anything like Jane Austen’s novels.”   It is interesting to read their speculation on what might have become of Austen, if she had married, since Shields decided to marry and raise a family.  What Austen read was a factor in how she wrote, like Shields.  How Austen died is important.  Poignantly, Shields suggests, “People didn’t talk about cancer in those days and certainly weren’t able to diagnose it always, but I think this is the most probable cause of her death.” (p. 141)

 

In “Letters, 2001-2002”, we discover Shields “off to chemo right this minute” and “I was in love, standing over the ironing board.” (pp. 145-6) In “Ideas of Goodness”, Unless, Carol’s Home, Victoria, January 2002, Shields reveals the source of the title, in fiction and reality.  She relents, in “you’re not forever writing your own autobiography, which is the last thing that most of us want to do.” (p. 151) She has been “interested in the idea of goodness for a number of years.” (p. 153) The “casual disregard of women can be worse than more visible forms of aggression against women.” (p. 155) Of course, September 11th, 2001, has unleashed another cycle of fanaticism, tyranny, and rage.   Shields feels she has become increasingly radical.  Self-forgiveness is necessary to dispel regrets.

 

Shields (and Marjory Anderson) edited Dropped Threads (Wachtel was a contributor).

Wachtel is a recipient of six honourary degrees and, in 2005, she became a Member of the Order of Canada.

                                                 

Anne Burke