Fridays With Carol Shields: Swann
Attention, attention…it’s #FridaysWithCarolShields. Before I go into the book I read in April (Swann), I want to share two things:
1) “Someone” (I can’t find this tweet again because it wasn’t anyone I follow, but the tweet was liked by “someone I follow” – again, can’t remember, but the mystery is enticing, isn’t it?) replied to a tweet that was putting out a call for influential women writers. Basically, “Throw them all my way: Who is important to read?” You know who made someone’s list? C-A-R-O-L! S-H-I-E-L-D-S! (I’m taking on the persona of a cheerleader because that’s what I’m aiming to be here.)
2) About a month ago, I searched “Carol Shields” in the Minuteman Library Network. Most – if not all – of her books popped up. (Phew.) You know what else popped up? A handful of compilations that included her essays about the “writer’s life” as well as the book All I Did Was Ask by Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air, wherein Gross shares excerpts from her interviews. Gross interviewed Shields when she was in poor health – she had Stage IV breast cancer and died 14 months after the interview. Although her books are very much about “domesticity, the shaggy beast that eats up 50% of our lives,” Shields’ work touches upon feminism and sex and sometimes religion – and she discussed all of this on air. Gross almost didn’t pursue the interview because she didn’t want to exploit Shields’ impending death. She writes, “In retrospect, I realize I would have been a fool to pass up an opportunity to talk with such a reflective and articulate woman.”
I put down Swann thinking that Shields probably had a pretty snarky sense of humor. It’s kind of a mystery whodunit & kind of a send-up of self-important academia. There are 5 sections. The first four tell the story from different characters’ points of view; the fifth, well, goes a completely different direction and becomes a screenplay. Is this a real story? Does the mystery get solved? Do these characters actually “exist,” or is Shields pulling some double meta trickery over on us? I can’t really tell you. In the words of every second grader who’s ever done a book report: “You’ll just have to read the book to find out.” (Do it.)
originally published on instagram