Scan barcode
pema66's review against another edition
1.0
I disliked this book intently. I started reading it as it was recommended by Mariella Frostrup who knows a thing or two about literature. It had flashes of brilliant writing, the odd sentence and turn of phrase was dazzling, which is why i broke my resolve to never finish a book which i cannot get into again. Ultimately the story did not flow,it was disjointed and contrived, and there is nothing more boring than a writer writing about writing. I cannot see what purpose was served by Shields the writer having Reta the writer also creating a character in a novel, it was just a distraction, and dull to boot.The Danielle Westerman translation added a little something in that it was an obvious device to contrast different philosophies on life from the older generation and Europe, but again, never sat comfortably within the body of this novel. I was desperate to understand Reta and Norah but the author did not do me the courtesy of any meaningful insight.I have never been so pleased to finish a book. Not for me.
cpoole's review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
iriswindmeijer's review against another edition
4.0
Shields' "Unless" impressed me. She describes the complexities of ordinary life with a very sharp eye, observant and detailed. I was impressed with her writing style. Shields' wisdom and reflection felt genuine, this is not l'art pour l'art, this is about the extraordinary events of ordinary life. But it is not just life what is passing by, it is also fiction involved in life. Fiction about her sequel, Shields wrote about the process of writing. But more importantly, Shields wrote about the invisible women that write.
Virginia Woolf once said "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman". But Shields challenged this idea, her women are not anonymous, but they are invisible. She talks about the world being split in two, the uncoded otherness. She is right, women are still invisible in the literary canon, with some exceptions. And this idea is still applicable, even though this novel is over ten years old. Unless we do something about it.
The final chapter felt like she really was rounding off the novel. It had a message; the importance to ask. Ask what happened, ask about someone's life. Maybe that is something we have forgotten over time, we do not ask, we conclude.
I really recommend reading this book.
Virginia Woolf once said "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman". But Shields challenged this idea, her women are not anonymous, but they are invisible. She talks about the world being split in two, the uncoded otherness. She is right, women are still invisible in the literary canon, with some exceptions. And this idea is still applicable, even though this novel is over ten years old. Unless we do something about it.
The final chapter felt like she really was rounding off the novel. It had a message; the importance to ask. Ask what happened, ask about someone's life. Maybe that is something we have forgotten over time, we do not ask, we conclude.
I really recommend reading this book.
ladulcinella's review against another edition
4.0
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 doesn’t send) to several instances.
I allways enjoy these kind of novels... not about the big things, not with a beautiful or suspenseful story arch, but rather they tell in a small, fragmented and subtle way about life and what it is about. Also I found her insights on the questions a mother of grown up daughters ask herself, very much to the point. And as a surplus, it is beautifully written...
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 doesn’t send) to several instances.
I allways enjoy these kind of novels... not about the big things, not with a beautiful or suspenseful story arch, but rather they tell in a small, fragmented and subtle way about life and what it is about. Also I found her insights on the questions a mother of grown up daughters ask herself, very much to the point. And as a surplus, it is beautifully written...
whitneyborup's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
sannastar's review against another edition
Tarina on jokseenkin epäsoljuvaa kerrontaa.
mhall's review against another edition
3.0
3.5. I really liked the plain, simple, direct writing style - it felt very frank and matter-of-fact, but also elegant. This would be an interesting pairing with [b: Franny and Zooey|5113|Franny and Zooey|J.D. Salinger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1355037988s/5113.jpg|3118417], since it's about a mother whose college-age daughter has some sort of breakdown, drops out of school, and sits on a street corner in Toronto with a sign, refusing to speak, living in a hostel for homeless people, and refusing to communicate with her family.
fschulenberg's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This book was unusually delightful. I cannot truly voice why I loved this book so much and can appreciate that others may not feel the same. It did not follow very much plot at all, which worked well in the sense that there was thorough insight into the narrator's mind. This book excelled in that there was so little happening but so much going on.
simplymeg's review against another edition
4.0
This is not a cheerful story, but it is deeply personal and moving. The narrator struggles with the innate conflicts between motherhood and feminism, and a crisis in her family concentrates her focus on the status of women in the world. Her central theme is that certain areas of life are closed off to women. A quote from her fictional feminist author friend that women can achieve "goodness but not greatness" is repeated throughout the book.
There were a couple of ponderous and pointless sections about the narrator's confused and insecure childhood, but I was willing to work through those in order to enjoy the rest of this beautifully written book.
There were a couple of ponderous and pointless sections about the narrator's confused and insecure childhood, but I was willing to work through those in order to enjoy the rest of this beautifully written book.
bjr2022's review against another edition
4.0
It is said that most writers have only one story to tell and, if they write more than one book, they essentially find lots of different ways of telling or exploring that story. After reading, in fairly quick succession, three of Carol Shields's books (The Stone Diaries, The Box Garden, and this book), I wonder if her story is about a search for genuine internal kindness and compassion—as opposed to the stuff we feign or aspire to, knowing that we secretly have the opposite feelings.
But to reduce Shields's work to that one theme seems unfair. She writes with such muscle, weaving a concern for philosophical and sociological issues into her stories.
In Unless, a writer named Reta Winters grapples with a woman's place in literature and in life as she agonizes over her eldest daughter's retreat from family and participation in life by becoming a mute beggar wearing a cardboard sign on her chest, "a single word printed in black marker—GOODNESS," as she sits on a street corner in Toronto.
How does Shields manage coherence? Somehow she intertwines palpable warmth in her descriptions of family, marriage, and home; along with long passages about women's invisibility or miniaturization in literature; along with her protagonist Reta Winters's notes about the light fiction she is writing (talk about images within images: writer Carol Shields writes a writer who is writing a writer who is writing!); along with a mother's understanding of her daughter's pain and her own desperation for the well-being of all three of her children. Shields pulls off what could, in less muscular hands, become a tedious weave. Not only was I intrigued as a reader, but as a writer I was inspired.
But to reduce Shields's work to that one theme seems unfair. She writes with such muscle, weaving a concern for philosophical and sociological issues into her stories.
In Unless, a writer named Reta Winters grapples with a woman's place in literature and in life as she agonizes over her eldest daughter's retreat from family and participation in life by becoming a mute beggar wearing a cardboard sign on her chest, "a single word printed in black marker—GOODNESS," as she sits on a street corner in Toronto.
How does Shields manage coherence? Somehow she intertwines palpable warmth in her descriptions of family, marriage, and home; along with long passages about women's invisibility or miniaturization in literature; along with her protagonist Reta Winters's notes about the light fiction she is writing (talk about images within images: writer Carol Shields writes a writer who is writing a writer who is writing!); along with a mother's understanding of her daughter's pain and her own desperation for the well-being of all three of her children. Shields pulls off what could, in less muscular hands, become a tedious weave. Not only was I intrigued as a reader, but as a writer I was inspired.