Apologia

A significant novel goes beyond one time frame of best seller lists. In order to have staying power a novel must be relevant to many generations for that is what will ensure that it will remain circulating into the hands of new readers and continue to share the story put forth by the author. Theme is what drives a novel for if the theme is both solid and true it will be able to impact upon the life of the reader and they will leave the pages with more than they started with. A theme that accomplishes this will hopefully be able to be universally felt for this will ensure will be able to carry on through generations, all being able to take something away from the story that enriches them some how. Unless by Carol Shields accomplishes this with its dynamic theme on the inner struggles of women, a topic which can and will apply again and again, for there will likely always be the feelings of being voiceless in the world that she puts forth.

Shields, despite being hailed as ‘among the most distinguished and honoured of all writers in the Canadian literary tradition’ (LeBlanc), was not a born and raised Canadian. She was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1935 and moved to Canada at twenty-two after her marriage to Donald Hugh Shields (O’Malley). Shield studied overseas in England at Hanover College and the University of Exeter in England and her formal education was completed at the University of Ottawa (Jacobs). It is needless to say that though many ‘celebrate Carol, her works and her legacy’ as Canadian, her reach is far more global. Shields is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her critically acclaimed novel The Stone Dairies, an award given out to a novel that is ‘distinguished fiction by an American author’(The Pulitzer Prizes). She has also been listed along with Jane Austen in the ‘top 10 list of Britain's best-loved books written by women’ (Jacobs) for her novel Unless, edging out Margaret Attwood (O’Malley). Despite global praise and acknowledgement, Shields considered herself a Canadian author and was quoted as saying Canada was a perfect place to write (O’Malley). Many of her books, Unless as no exception, are based in Canada. The awards bestowed upon her by the Canadian literary circles are extensive, the least of which including the National Book Critics' Circle Award, Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, and the Governor General's Award (LeBlanc).

As aforementioned, time and the passing of generations is the real test of strength when examining the significance of both a novel and an author. Shields passed away in 2003 after a five year battle with breast cancer that eventually spread to her liver (O’Malley). The author passed but her influence for ‘redeeming the lives of lost or vanished women’ (Jacobs) through her words was not forgotten. Posthumously there has been a Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award created by the Manitoba Writer’s Guild (Keshavjee) and, in the spirit of Shields many novels, a Carol Shields Festival of Voices has been planned for May 2009 (Inaugural Carol Shields). The festival will host poets, playwrights, and authors, with intent to continue Shields’ work by ‘extending and crossing boundaries in creative writing’ (Inaugural Carol Shields) and a ‘focus on the intersection of feminism and women’s writing’ (Inaugural Carol Shields).

This topic, writing ‘books which examined women’s friendships and women’s inner lives’ (Jacobs), are the biases of so many of Shields’ novels. It is obvious through her many awards and celebrations that she touched the lives of many through her books and it is with projects like the Festival of Voices that we can see just how important her influence was. Shields gave a voice to many emotions felt by women, often ones hardest to express. In Unless there are two such characters who feel unable to speak out. Reta, an author, mother, and the antagonist of the novel, feels that women’s voices are pushed aside and ignored in favour of men’s. She writes (but never sends) letters to authors who publish works that only site men as academic influences, asking for equality and consideration. She feels this suppression is at the core of why her daughter, eighteen year old scholarship winning Nora, now sits mute on a corner in Toronto holding a sign saying GOODNESS, panhandling for money and giving it away.

Unless is the story of Reta’s ‘anguished insight into the injustices of the gendered world’ (Shields 149) and this is why the story carries relevance. Shields’ capability to write believable and true characters who express emotions that women will likely always carry with them is what makes her significant, not just as a Canadian author, but as a writer in whole. What is good for the whole of the writing community is inevitably good for Canada. Having such a globally revered novelist not only call Canada home but a ‘very good country for writers’ (Jacobs) is inevitability excellent for Canadian literature. Both Shields with her continuously strong messages on womanhood, and her novel Unless are without a doubt strong contributors to Canada’s diverse literary canon.

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