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The Republic of Love

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 1,121 ratings · 94 reviews

With a viewpoint that shifts as crisply as cards in the hands of a blackjack dealer, Carol Shields introduces us to two shell-shocked veterans of the wars of the heart. There's Fay, a folklorist whose passion for mermaids has kept her from focusing on any one man. And right across the street there's Tom, a popular radio talk-show host who has focused a little too intently,...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published September 20th 1994 by Vintage Canada (first published 1992)

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May 24, 2013 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was well-written and diverting. I was drawn to keep reading it, even when I didn’t feel as engaged with the story or the characters as I would have liked. In the end, it was a simple love story, with predictable plot points and no real surprises. The main characters are quirky, not overly so, but just quirky enough in an ordinary-folks kind of way. It felt to me like there were too many minor characters in the novel, which I suppose was in keeping with one of its themes, the idea of Wi...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Philip rated it 4 of 5 stars

Republics do not have kings or queens, nor princes or princesses, so, we must assume, fairytales are out. Winnipeg is not exactly a republic, and, at least in terms of their love lives, two residents of the city, Fay and Tom, seem to inhabit a world where fairytales are inconceivable. But that place might not be Winnipeg: it might be closer in to themselves.

Despite – or perhaps because of - having had a multitude of mothers, Tom has been married three times, each attempt turning success into app...more Republics do not have kings or queens, nor princes or princesses, so, we must assume, fairytales are out. Winnipeg is not exactly a republic, and, at least in terms of their love lives, two residents of the city, Fay and Tom, seem to inhabit a world where fairytales are inconceivable. But that place might not be Winnipeg: it might be closer in to themselves.

Despite – or perhaps because of - having had a multitude of mothers, Tom has been married three times, each attempt turning success into apparent and mildly painful failure, with or sometimes without associated acrimony. For her part, Fay, at thirty-five, has had several relationships of varied length, but none has led to wedding bells, a fact that seems to trouble her, sometimes.

Tom is a radio presenter. He hosts one of those late night phone-ins aimed at insomniacs, but usually attracting the opinionated. His mood, his history, his takes on where life has taken him clearly influence his style. Rises or dips in his personal life are immediately apparent, communicated without trying. But do not assume that anything offers even influence to what the contributors say. Rest assured, they will offer precisely what they want, perhaps precisely what they have been fed, if only because they are all as self-absorbed as everyone else.

Fay works more regular hours. She is an ethnologist and works in a folklore centre. She is heavily into mermaids, and perhaps they are also into her. She researches the mermaid myth, catalogues sightings, interviews people who have seem them, travels the world giving papers on our social and psychological need to invent these creatures. Mermaids, though overtly sexual and obviously female, are eventually sexless, unless they have exaggerated tails. They are both alluring and inviting, but, being half fish, they are cold-blooded and cold. They tempt, but cannot satisfy.

Obviously Tom and Fay are going to meet. They, along with their accumulated baggage, join forces and, as a consequence, begin to see life differently. But each is still influenced by relatives, acquaintances, ex-partners, ex-in-laws, new partners, parents and anyone else who might have an opinion. They all count. They all influence, especially when stiffness of apparent resolve can be easily bent by contradiction, shock or surprise. And so Fay and Tom’s relationship develops to what Carol Shields deems it should become. Throughout The Republic Of Love is beautifully written. Carol Shields’s prose is often witty, elegant, telling, funny, incisive or provocative all in one. A single sentence can turn on itself to frighten or mock its own beginning.

This is a book worth reading for its style alone. But it offers more than elegance of expression. These characters have all the confused confident complexity, the undirected and variable resolve we would expect from non-ideological adults in the last decade of the twentieth century. It would be interesting to revisit them twenty years on to see where they are now, to know if anything might have lasted. In The Republic Of Love they certainly come to life.
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Oct 20, 2011 Elsje rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2003

Het verhaal
Tom, presentator van een nachtradioprogramma, is net voor de derde keer gescheiden en probeert zijn leven weer op orde te krijgen. Hilarische beschrijvingen van de 'Newly Singles Club' waar hij naartoe gaat. Natuurlijk komt, volgens zijn omgeving, het probleem van zijn mislukte huwelijken, uit zijn verleden: hij is als proefkonijn op een huishoudschool (baby-verzorging) gebruikt en heeft dus 27 moeders.

Fay, onderzoekster van meerminnen in een folkoristisch centrum, is ook net weer all...more Het verhaal
Tom, presentator van een nachtradioprogramma, is net voor de derde keer gescheiden en probeert zijn leven weer op orde te krijgen. Hilarische beschrijvingen van de 'Newly Singles Club' waar hij naartoe gaat. Natuurlijk komt, volgens zijn omgeving, het probleem van zijn mislukte huwelijken, uit zijn verleden: hij is als proefkonijn op een huishoudschool (baby-verzorging) gebruikt en heeft dus 27 moeders.

Fay, onderzoekster van meerminnen in een folkoristisch centrum, is ook net weer alleen, haar derde relatie is op de klippen gelopen. Bij haar wordt de schuld op het o-zo-gelukkige huwelijk van haar ouders geschoven. Waarom lukt het haar maar niet om zo'n perfecte relatie op te bouwen?

Halverwege het boek ontmoeten Tom en Fay elkaar: inslaande bliksem. Zullen ze het samen redden? Kanhet wel, een 'simpele' presentator en een geleerde? Klinkt als een doorsnee-keukenromannetje. Maar niets is minder waar. Het is allemaal fantastisch uitgewerkt. Zo lopen de verhalen los maar parallel tot precies de helft van het boek, tot de eerste ontmoeting van Fay en Tom. Daarna worden hun levens verweven, maar blijft de structuur van de roman overeind door telkens vanuit Fay en daarna vanuit Tom te vertellen wat er gebeurt.

Het is een echte Shields, over gewone mensen: Met hun gewone problemen (rotweer, bus die te laat komt, werk, de lege vrijdagavonden als je net uit elkaar bent, de lieve vrienden die je dan ineens en masse uitnodigen om toch maar vooral langs te komen, en dat je dat dan ook doet omdat je anders alleen in dat huis lege bent). Met hun bijzondere hobby's (zoals Shields ook vaker gebruikt): de meerminnen van Fay, waaraan ze de meest waanzinnige theoriën ophangt (die ze bijna zelf gaat geloven) en het idiote gehang aan die Newly Singles Club van Tom.De ex-en en hun gewoonten waar je eerst zo dol op was, maar die je later gaat haten.Fay en Tom hebben wel een niet-doorsnee achtergrond: de doodknuffel-ouders van Fay met o zo veel ruimte voor hun kinderen (maar ondertussen!) en de klepzieke moeder van Tom (die bij elke vrouwennaam alweer een nieuwe echtgenote door de kerk ziet lopen).

Ik zal eerlijk toegeven, ik deed iets wat ik nooit doe! Vlak voor het einde moest ik gewoon even spieken hoe het afliep. Ik kon het niet langer houden: krijgen ze elkaar nou of niet? Voor degenen die dit lazen een weet, voor anderen een vraag! My lips are sealed :-)

Ja, dit was weer een heerlijk boek van Carol Shields!(less)

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Sep 20, 2010 Jo Deurbrouck rated it 4 of 5 stars

Carol Shields sees with such deilghtful clarity. It almost doesn't matter, the story you're there to experience. Those crystalline moments in which she lets you see through her eyes are enough.

Listen: "He loves this light-filled city in the same unarticulated way he loves the throwaway intimacies of Safeway cashiers..."

And again: "Fay knows what adolescence is. It is a time of intense concentrated boredom, it is never-ending in its sameness. People like to speak of the violent mood swings teenag...more

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Dec 15, 2009 christa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Whenever I open a book by Carol Shields, I prepare myself to walk into a folksy Midwest version of "The Ya-Ya Sisterhood," starring sassy old biddies who turn scrapbooking a full-contact sport.

I'm not sure where I got the idea that she writes Hot Flash Fiction, but I'm always wrong, and I've never been more pleasantly surprised by a book than I was by her 1994 novel "The Republic of Love.

Bits of the lives of the two main characters, Fay and Tom, are revealed in alternating chapters. Fay is a fo...more Whenever I open a book by Carol Shields, I prepare myself to walk into a folksy Midwest version of "The Ya-Ya Sisterhood," starring sassy old biddies who turn scrapbooking a full-contact sport.

I'm not sure where I got the idea that she writes Hot Flash Fiction, but I'm always wrong, and I've never been more pleasantly surprised by a book than I was by her 1994 novel "The Republic of Love.

Bits of the lives of the two main characters, Fay and Tom, are revealed in alternating chapters. Fay is a folklorist with an emphasis in mermaid-ology, who has recently broken up with another in a long line of longterm boyfriends. She wakes up one day and realizes she doesn't love Peter anymore, and ends things amicably. She relishes the idea of making just a single serving of toast.

Tom, a popular third-shift DJ, half-assed runner, frequent cafe diner, is thrice divorced, which he blames on a string of bad luck. He's been attending newly single classes for two years.

The two travel in barely connected social circles. In fact, Fay's exboyfriend Peter was once married to Fritzi, the woman Tom's former wife's husband left her for. Exactly: Winnipeg as an incest-seasoned dating pool.

They don't meet and fall in love. They meet, eventually, and then just are in love. Tom makes a grand gesture and Fay counters with her own. Unfortunately, this happens with too many pages left in the book for a reader to get too comfortable with the hearts and flowers.

Nonetheless, this thing the quintessential dopey-grin love story.

Shields created such wholly likable characters in this story in a way that is so tricky and Charles Baxter-ian to do. Fay and Tom aren't annoyingly anything or self-righteous, or condescending. They are just two super nice moderately attractive people with cool hobbies that I got pretty rah! rah! about -- so much so that I felt personally invested in the outcome of their story.

There is something about the phrase "love story," and especially admitting to loving a love story, that feels like it should be quantified or ironic. This is something Shields seems aware of:

"But Fay's noticed something she's never noticed before. That love is not, anywhere, taken seriously. It's not respected. It's the one thing in the world everyone wants -- she's convinced of that -- but for some reason people are obliged to pretend that love is trifling and foolish. ... We pretend it's not there, the thunderous passions that enter a life and alter its course. Love belongs in an amateur operetta, on the inside of a jokey greeting card, or in the annals of an old-fashioned poetry society. ... It's womanish, it's embarrassing, something to jeer at, something for jerks. Just a love story, people say about a book they happen to be reading, or caught reading." (less)

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Sep 24, 2009 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of very few books I have read that I feel realistically addresses the quirky, elusive, shocking, and sometimes painful subject of love. Perhaps it was the way Shields manipulated viewpoint by allowing the story to be told alternately by both Tom and Fay. Perhaps I loved the fact that the entire first half of the book led up to the meeting of these two protagonists, and that the background knowledge gained about the characters this way allowed their "love at first site" encounter to s...more

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May 08, 2008 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book made me fall in love with romance stories and made me want to go out and read as many as I could find until I remembered that the reason I don't read stories centred around romance in the first place is because 99.9% of them are, in my opinion, crap and uninteresting. This book is obviously in the other .1%. This is how all romances should read, as a real story that takes more into consideration than simply getting two characters together.

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Feb 11, 2013 Chaitra rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: set-in-canada, carol-shields, romance, 1001-books, meeetcute, banging-heads-on-keyboards, big-names-coasting, literary-fiction, contemporary-fiction

I should start with a disclaimer. I hate fictional love stories. They make me puke. I never read a straight romance. Every time I pick up a romance by a respected not-known-for-romance author, I'm hoping for something better, something deeper, something less treacly. Almost every time I'm let down.

This is yet another romance where the meet-cute happens, of all clichéd things, among children. The heroine is charmingly holding balloons, and kids are clamoring around her. The hero is equally charm...more I should start with a disclaimer. I hate fictional love stories. They make me puke. I never read a straight romance. Every time I pick up a romance by a respected not-known-for-romance author, I'm hoping for something better, something deeper, something less treacly. Almost every time I'm let down.

This is yet another romance where the meet-cute happens, of all clichéd things, among children. The heroine is charmingly holding balloons, and kids are clamoring around her. The hero is equally charmingly bumbling about looking for his godson. Bam! They're in love. They have one conversation maybe lasting an hour, one hug, and suddenly they're in love. They continue being ecstatically in love until one of them is suddenly not certain. But that happens to only last two chapters, and they're back together again. The only difference in this coma-inducing love story is that this meeting doesn't happen until the middle of the novel.

The chapters are lessons in how to write so many words, and yet reveal nothing about anything. The characters are given backgrounds, she's a mermaid folklorist, he a radio deejay. She has commitment phobia, he commits too easily. Her family is a close knit one, his is not so, but it's still not horrid. Why does she not commit? Why does he commit so easily? Not addressed with anything resembling depth. Why does he push Fay so much into yet another wedding? Why does she not put a check to it if she was so unsure about the whole thing? Not addressed with anything resembling depth. Why does she leave? Why does she come back? What does Tom feel about getting jilted, practically at the altar? What does it do to his trust? Not addressed with anything resembling depth. And the main thing - why is this relationship different from any of their previous relationships? Not addressed at all.

I'm tired of reading this over and over again and taking it on faith that these characters care about each other. I can't figure out why so many of these authors, some of them even authors who have written beautiful love stories in novels that don't focus on romance, forget about how much work, how much compromise and how much bloody-mindedness it takes for a relationship to work. Instead they just focus on the physical aspect, and how they can't live without each other, and so on and so forth, until of course, there's a bit of drama that's resolved in a couple of sentences or two. I could take this nonsensical story if only the writing had been better, but as I referred to it earlier, coma-inducing is how it is. I have a stubborn streak when it comes to finishing bad books, and that is the sole reason I even bothered to reach the end, even though I knew exactly how it would turn out, including the bit of drama.

Such a disappointing read. My anticipation for Unless and The Stone Diaries has gone down considerably.
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Aug 10, 2012 Alexine Fleck rated it 4 of 5 stars

Carol Shields just rocks my world. The only reason why I didn't give this book five stars is that it stopped being awesome when the whole romance thing started near the end. You know it's going to happen, and it's nice for the characters, but I just loved the two of them so much as characters that I didn't want to see them get boring the way couples in books do once they've found each other -- like, their centers of gravity just alter and there they go: insular and boring. I might be talking abo...more

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Feb 03, 2011 Deb rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such a positive hopefull book! Full of flawed but likeable 3-dimensional characters, with a usual variety of professions (anthropologist, DJ, computer programmer, lawyer, dry cleaner) and traits (one character has a stutter, not crucial to the plot but just because in real life some people do.) -- Shields builds a believable community of real people whom I would like to know. Set most definitely in Winnepeg, which becomes as real as the characters, rather some generic "Anywhere, USA" background....more

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Jun 14, 2011 Sarah B. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: didn-t-finish

I plodded through this book as long as I did because I have secretly always wanted to live in Winnipeg. Despite the winters, I think that city and I could have a future together. It's like the one that got away of cities, except maybe, still, someday? So even though I didn't find the prose compelling or the characters even interesting, I kept reading The Republic of Love because, well, Winnipeg. But finally my lack of interest in the book overcame me, and I put it down just as the two main chara...more

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Aug 05, 2010 Sarah Pascarella rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Carol Shields is just lovely. This book takes awhile to get going -- the lovers don't meet until page 160something, I think -- but what a character study. This book is also a love letter to Winnipeg; Shields makes it sound (despite its harsh, endless winters) like the most charming city on earth. Shields is a master of the personal novel, with emphases on community, family, and love. While her characters can be exasperating at times (especially Fay, this novel's heroine), it all adds to their fa...more

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Nov 13, 2012 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Re-reading this book for the first time in many years, and Shields's writing seems as fresh and perceptive as ever. Like this perfect paragraph:

The plane bobbed and plunged, and ropes of lightning jerked past the windows, but to her surprise she was not in the least frightened. It seemed to her that as long as she kept her nose in People, she would be safe. The slick paper and the faint electrical charge that clasped one page to the next formed part of a hieratic defense, and by running her eye

...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Irwin rated it 3 of 5 stars

An exploration of love in the making from the alternating points of view of Fay, a thirty-something Winnipeg lass, and Tom, a 40-year-old night-time radio broadcaster who turns out to have been living for years right across the street from her. It's never easy, and the game here is to guess how and when they are going to meet and how their relationship will develop. Caropl Shioelds is a skiled and entertaining writer, but this holds less thrall than her "Stone Diaries." All in all, touching and...more

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Dec 22, 2011 'jean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Between 3 and 4, really. Put this on my list to read last year when I went through Book Lust looking for books for my book club to read. Then I found out that the Seattle Public Library doesn't have a copy of this book anymore -- found it in the Hawaii Public Library system.

Her female character researches mermaids and I wonder about the timing of this book (published 1992) and Starbucks decision to switch its logo from a 2-tailed mermaid to a 1-tailed (sometime in the early 1990s). Her layering...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Sonia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Per chi aspetta fin dall'inizio del libro la storia d'amore tra Fay e Tom, allora dovrà rassegnarsi ad attendere.
Si metta comodo in poltrona, e dimentichi la trama: se si cerca quella storia d'amore, ci vorrà tempo. Se si cerca semplicemente l'amore, nelle sue infinite sfumature, allora sarà accontentato.
E' questo il romanzo giusto, se si è superata magari la fase dell'adolescenza e della post adolescenza e si è nel pieno delle facoltà mentali (in pratica se non si è infestati dalle scelte prese...more Per chi aspetta fin dall'inizio del libro la storia d'amore tra Fay e Tom, allora dovrà rassegnarsi ad attendere.
Si metta comodo in poltrona, e dimentichi la trama: se si cerca quella storia d'amore, ci vorrà tempo. Se si cerca semplicemente l'amore, nelle sue infinite sfumature, allora sarà accontentato.
E' questo il romanzo giusto, se si è superata magari la fase dell'adolescenza e della post adolescenza e si è nel pieno delle facoltà mentali (in pratica se non si è infestati dalle scelte prese di pancia e da ormoni impazziti).
Attenzione: con ciò non voglio dire che la Shields abbia scritto una storia per "vecchi". Assolutamente no.
Ma ci ha raccontato un amore forte e maturo, un amore appassionato ma adulto.
E questo amore, questa storia che dà il titolo al romanzo, non apparirà che a metà dello stesso. Su 400 pagine e più, i nostri protagonisti si incontreranno solo dopo la duecentesima.
Fino a quel momento sarà in scena comunque l'amore: quello vissuto o meno fino a quel momento da entrambi (lei, mai stata sposata; lui, già più di una volta); l'amore delle persone che li circondano... amore duraturo, eterno, amore abbandonato, amore sofferente...
Entrambi portano addosso il bagaglio non solo delle proprie esperienze ma anche di quelle che hanno vissuto accanto ad amici e parenti. Esperienze positive, negative: tutto e tutti hanno contribuito a farli incontrare e reagire a quell'incontro innamorandosi. Entrambi sono alle prese con un lavoro che occupa il loro tempo e la loro mente, coinvolgendoli, influenzandoli, dando loro risposte che a volte non cercavano, certezze che non credevano di avere. Tom, dj notturno a contatto con la musica e con gli ascoltatori della notte, Fay, ricercatrice appassionata di sirene, oggetto del libro che sta scrivendo.

Sembrano due vite che corrono su binari paralleli, eppure ad un certo punto quei binari si incrociano a discapito di qualsiasi legge matematica e iniziano a percorrere la stessa strada, insieme.
Una strada che non si presenta tutta rose e fiori, perché non è solo questo l'amore.
Una strada che bisogna voler percorrere con impegno, dedizione, passione. E a volte sarà difficile percorrerla, e si sentirà il bisogno di fermarsi, di deviare, di abbandonarla.

Non posso continuare: sarei ripetitiva, ridondante. La Shields ha preso un tema sfruttatissimo riuscendo a dargli forma, stile, originalità.
Ha saputo dare dignità a un sentimento fin troppo inflazionato anche nella letteratura. L'ha fatto con maestria e maturità.
Leggetelo.

qui:
http://cuoredinchiostro.blogspot.com/...(less)

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Oct 28, 2011 Lara rated it 3 of 5 stars

A 'literary' novel, but I just found it so dull. The lists of food in a cupboard, clothes in a wardrobe, bored me to tears. There was an anniversary party where she listed most of the guests who attended, most of whom we hadn't met before, so what. The main characters weren't dislikeable, but this story was just so stretched out with pointless detail that I couldn't care whether they got together or not. It seemed less like a love affair, more like two lonely people deciding to make a tentative...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Republic of Love is the story of two people: Tom and Fay. Tom is forty years old and thrice divorced. Every week he attends meetings for the newly single, although he is no longer fresh out of a relationship. His life is filled primarily by these meetings, a few awkward dates and his career as a night-time disc jockey. Fay has never married, although she has come close a couple of times; She has, however, been in a number of years-long relationships. For some reason, neither Tom nor Fay seem...more The Republic of Love is the story of two people: Tom and Fay. Tom is forty years old and thrice divorced. Every week he attends meetings for the newly single, although he is no longer fresh out of a relationship. His life is filled primarily by these meetings, a few awkward dates and his career as a night-time disc jockey. Fay has never married, although she has come close a couple of times; She has, however, been in a number of years-long relationships. For some reason, neither Tom nor Fay seems able to make their romantic relationships stick.

I own several of Carol Shields' novels, but this is the first one I have gotten around to reading. Incidentally, Carol Shields is an alumna of my alma mater, Hanover College. Pretty much our only famous one (unless you count good ol' Woody Harrelson, who may or may not have actually graduated - I think he got an honorary degree subsequently).

The writing is quite highbrow, full of five dollar words and complicated sentences. This does make a rather nice change from all of the teen fiction I have been reading. For the most part, I really loved her writing style. Every so often, a particular sentence would strike me as a bit over the top, as though big words had been used solely for the sake of using big words.

The narrative of the story moves along at a good pace, especially through the first half of the book. The format of the story, which follows the two main characters in alternating chapters, propels the reader forward, curious to discover how and when they will actually meet. I really loved the thought-provoking ideas about love, serendipity, marriage and being single that are woven throughout this novel. The theme of the interconnectedness of people's lives and the degrees of separation was particularly fascinating. It reminded me a lot of a slightly darker and more literary version of When Harry Met Sally, only not the plot with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. It called to mind the little insert stories about how people met.

I highly recommend this to literary fiction fans. For those who like easy reads, not so much. This is an excellent novel (thank goodness, since I do own several more by Shields!).(less)

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Nov 17, 2008 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm quite a sucker for old-fashioned love stories (having written one myself, as yet unpublished) but it's hard to find good ones. Of course there are mushy and formulaic romance novels galore but they are not what I'm talking about.
As Carol Shields herself writes here, "Love is not, anywhere, taken seriously. It's not respected. It's the one thing that everyone in the world wants but for some reason people are obliged to pretend that love is trifling and foolish. Work is important. Living arran...more

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Jan 19, 2008 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canlit, romance, 20th-century-female-authors

I absolutely ADORED this book. I think I'm becoming quiet the Carol Shields fan! ;-) This is about Tom, a night-time DJ, and Fay, a mermaid specialist (Carol's characters always have the *most* interesting jobs and eccentric interests! *smile*). Both are currently single, Tom after three failed marriages, and Fay, who's never been brave enough to walk the aisle but also has several apparently serious relationships that haven't lasted. And they live right across the street from each other in Winn...more

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Nov 11, 2007 Marigold rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Loved it! I love love love Carol Shields, who wrote The Stone Diaries. This made me think of a Jane Austen novel, set in the modern world with modern characters & including the viewpoint of...shocking...the man! Fay is a folklorist with a fear of commitment. Tom is a late-night DJ with too much commitment & three ex-wives! What happens when they fall in love "at first sight"? Read & find out! Of all the writers I know of, I think Shields (who I believe passed away a year or two ago?)...more Loved it! I love love love Carol Shields, who wrote The Stone Diaries. This made me think of a Jane Austen novel, set in the modern world with modern characters & including the viewpoint of...shocking...the man! Fay is a folklorist with a fear of commitment. Tom is a late-night DJ with too much commitment & three ex-wives! What happens when they fall in love "at first sight"? Read & find out! Of all the writers I know of, I think Shields (who I believe passed away a year or two ago?) is one of the most insightful about love & romance in the modern world; she can write about it in all its absurdities without making it even more silly than it is! Years from now people will make films of her books the way we now make films of Jane Austen!
A quote I love: "It is impossible for us to live outside the culture we're born into. Our communities claim us from the start, extending a thousand tentacles of possession, & Fay, a reasonable, intelligent woman, has long recognized that reverence for individualism is one of the prime perversions of contemporary society. It is illogical and foolish. Oh, yes. We are bound to each other biologically and socially, intellectually and spiritually, and to abrogate our supporting network is to destroy ourselves." It's all about the world we live in, the world we move in, & how it affects us & creates & shapes us, whether we like it or not!
I love these characters, I actually related to both of them. I saw in Fay the intellectual woman who values her privacy & her time away from other people. She has a need for her own space & doesn't want others to get too close. But she also doesn't really like being alone! In Tom I saw the person who can sort of float through life being very accepting of the people & circumstances he finds around him. He likes people & likes women. "I like you, let's get married!" seems to be his outlook. When Fay's "let's think about this" meets up with Tom's "let's go with the flow", you can see that things won't go smoothly despite their overflowing love for one another. Yet Shields is able to give us an ending we can all cheer for! (less)

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Jun 16, 2012 Tekapope rated it 3 of 5 stars

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Mar 26, 2009 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I really, really wanted to love this book. I loved reading The Stone Diaries and Unless. They had characters that felt real and problems that I became passionately interested in.
The Republic of Love, not so much.
Tom and Fay were lovely people, but as soon as they got together, I lost interest. I skimmed the rest of the book, saw what troubles lay ahead for our hero and heroine and proceeded to check out. Maybe it was Winnipeg. It just seemed so dang dull, but Shields insisted on making it a char...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Rachelle Urist rated it 4 of 5 stars

Carol Sheilds takes what would be, in lesser hands, a saccharine story of love and loss, and turns it into a literary masterpiece. The mermaid conceit (the protagonist, a folklorist, studies and writes about mermaids through history and culture) is illuminating, scholarly and engaging. The love story, likewise, is as gripping as a mystery - which love is!

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Oct 05, 2012 Ashley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hmmmmmm. All of the wonderful reviews people have written about this book makes me feel like I really missed out on something big. I could not for the life of me get past the first 20 pages or so on my first attempt, and I got to around 50 on my second. I should make myself go for a third. Doesn't the saying go like this: third time's the charm?

Ok, this time it worked! I read the whole book, cover to cover. Someone told me that sometimes you don't like something (like a book) because of where yo...more

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Apr 01, 2012 JoTownhead rated it 2 of 5 stars

Exploration of the mesh of interlinked relationships in a Canadian community. The focus is on two individuals' search for love but detail is included (too much detail) of the lives and loves of friends and family. Not particularly engrossing and fairly lightweight - the author covers this territory so much more effectively in The Stone Diaries.

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Mar 16, 2009 Truthmonkey rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The plot was a little thin, in terms of its having been done a million times and me knowing what would happen before it did. But I enjoyed the characters, I thought it was refreshing to have someone be so pro-love, and the writing was beautiful and made up for any thinness. A lovely book. :)

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Mar 03, 2010 Linda Tuplin rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any Carol Shields fan

For a Shields book I had a bit of trouble getting into it and tended to get the characters confused. But about 1/3 of the way through, it clicked. I love her writing and this was no execption, the way she develops the characters and the thesis. Wonderful book; makes one think, as all hers do.

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Sep 18, 2011 Greeneyedgirl rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've read this one several times. It's a beautiful story set in the neighborhood I grew up in. Too bad the movie was so different from the book. Winnipeg was a character in the story, and they set it in Toronto. The movie was so cold compared to the book.

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Jan 17, 2011 Daniel Kukwa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-lit

Now here is a Carol Shields novel that HAS improved with age. I find it one of the most satisfying stories I've ever read cocnerning contemporary courtship, dating, and falling in love. Carol Shields makes this simple story everything but banal.

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About Carol Shields

Carol Ann Shields was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her successful 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award. Her novel Swann won the Best Novel Arthur Ellis Award in 1988.

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Quotes from The Republic of Love

“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.” — 2,600 people liked it

“So this is where the years of maturity deliver us - to this needy, selfish, unwieldy wish to be somebody else's first and primal other.” — 9 people liked it

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