Goodreads | Unless: A Novel

Krenzel rated it:

(review of isbn 0007137702)

08/01/08

bookshelves: 1001

Read in July, 2008

According to Peter Boxall’s "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die," "Unless," by Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Carol Shields, is a seminal work worthy of being included in the "canon" – at least, according to the first edition of that guide (according to the second edition, published this year, we can now safely die without reading "Unless"). Interestingly, while Carol Shields is (to a limited extent) included in the "canon," one of the...more According to Peter Boxall’s "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die," "Unless," by Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Carol Shields, is a seminal work worthy of being included in the "canon" – at least, according to the first edition of that guide (according to the second edition, published this year, we can now safely die without reading "Unless"). Interestingly, while Carol Shields is (to a limited extent) included in the "canon," one of the major questions she asks in "Unless" is why women are so often excluded. In "Unless," the protagonist, 44-year-old writer, Reta Winters deals with the plight of her 19-year-old daughter, who has given up her life to sit on a street corner, by distracting herself with work on a "light novel." Her friend, Danielle Westerman, a famous author in her own right, believes that Reta is wasting her time writing frivolous novels, but for all of her serious work, Westerman is nevertheless excluded from the "canon," prompting Reta to wonder, "How does she bear it? All the words she’s written, all the years buried inside her. What does her shelf of books amount to, what force have these books on the world?" What, she wonders, is the purpose of writing, especially for women, when their work is so easily dismissed? Although Reta believes that women writers are excluded from the greatness accorded the "canon," ultimately she finds a purpose to her writing because of the personal joy it gives her and the voice it gives to women.

One of the major themes explored in "Unless" is the issue of how women are allowed "[g:]oodness but not greatness," in the words of Danielle Westerman, a feminist pioneer and Holocaust survivor whose memoirs Reta has translated. Westerman believes that Reta’s daughter has dropped out of life to sit on a street corner, wearing a "GOODNESS" sign around her neck, because she "has simply succumbed to the traditional refuge of women without power: she has accepted in its stead complete powerlessness, total passivity, a kind of impotent piety." In a series of unsent letters to various men who have excluded women from, among other things, a list of the Great Minds of the Western Intellectual world, a list of problem solvers, and a list of great writers, Reta expresses her outrage with "how casually and completely [women are:] shut out of the universe," agreeing with Westerman that Norah has escaped from life after realizing she has no possibility for greatness. Like Westerman and her daughter, Reta has been allowed goodness, but not greatness. Although her first novel, "My Thyme Is Up," sold well, it was not taken seriously as a work of art. According to a review in the "New Yorker," her book "is very much for the moment, though certainly not for the ages." Writing the sequel, Reta again plans a book of comic fiction, featuring the dim-witted Alicia, but her male editor believes her draft is "close to greatness" and "could be one of those signal books of our time . . . with a mere two or three shifts of perspective" – that is, by increasing the role of the male character Roman and exploring the theme of his search for identity. In other words, in order to attain "greatness," Reta must sacrifice Alicia, in her gendered role, and focus instead on an "Everyman" Roman and his "universal" search for identity. In deciding how to finish her book, Reta must also decide what the point of her writing is – is she writing to be taken seriously or is she writing for herself?

Ultimately, Reta decides she is writing for herself – for the joy writing gives her and because it gives her a voice. Reta begins work on the sequel to "My Thyme Is Up" as a "diversion" to forget about Norah; through her writing, she says, "I can squeeze my eyes shut, pop through a little door on the wall, and stand outside my child’s absence." Whether she is working on a serious book or "light fiction" doesn’t matter; it is the act of writing itself that gives her comfort, that redeems her. While out for dinner one night, Reta decides to "add to the literature of washroom walls," scrawling, "My heart is broken." This simple act serves to make Reta feel alive, to give her life: "At once I felt a release of pressure around my ribs. . . . I was allowed to be a receptor and transmitter both, not a dead thing but a live link." Unfortunately, her joy in writing the sequel is interrupted by her editor’s comments on the draft. Whereas, before she had heard from him, her book had been her "darling baby" and "greatest distraction," now she dreads working on the book and stops writing. In the end, she rejects her publisher’s ideas for Roman, not worrying about converting her book into a serious work of act but rather finishing it with a happy ending, "a convention of comic fiction," and asserts that her joy in writing is more important than how the book is considered by critics or whether it is included in the "canon." But it still begs the question that Reta posed about Danielle Westerman’s work – that is, if her book is ignored, what then does it amount to?

Ultimately, the value of Reta’s writing is that it gives her a voice. In a conversation with her friends, Reta realizes that men don’t really talk to women. One of her friends says, "Men aren’t interested in women’s lives" – they don’t care what women think and don’t let women "enter the conversation." But even if, in the real world, the inner and outer lives of women aren’t as important as men’s, in popular fiction, they usually are. Reta acknowledges, "It is Alicia’s skin I wear," and she refuses her editor’s request to make Roman the center of her book. In "My Thyme Is Up," Alicia’s – or Reta’s – voice is heard, and that matters, even if her work is dismissed as inconsequential. The importance of Reta’s voice is highlighted in a scene where she searches for "the perfect scarf, not the near-perfect and certainly not the impulse purchase we usually settled for" for her daughter Norah. Even though Norah provides minimal input for the scarf – she wants something blue and yellow – Reta conceives in her mind the scarf that will delight her daughter’s heart and goes to twenty different boutiques in order to find it. When she does end up finding the perfect scarf, she shows it to one of her female friends, whose eyes tear up: "It’s just that it’s so beautiful. . . . You invented it, created it out of your imagination." Even if the scarf, like a book of comic fiction, may not amount to much from a world perspective, it is still important. While Reta can’t control her daughter’s life or her happiness, she can "provide something temporary and necessary: this dream of transformation." In other words, what matters is not the end product – the scarf or the book – but it is the act of not settling, of having imagination, of creating something your own, of giving others happiness that matters. Reta finds her voice not only in Alicia, the woman, but in Alicia the woman writer, who herself is a creator. Although Reta knows, as a writer, it is poor form to also make Alicia a writer, she can’t help herself from exploring the area of writing, which "is the richest territory we can imagine. . . . This matters, the remaking of an untenable world through the nib of a pen; it matters so much I can’t stop doing it." Her writing does matter, she concludes, because it allows her to enter a conversation normally she is excluded from; it gives her a voice in shaping her own world. If she has to sacrifice that voice to achieve greatness, it is not worth it. Having her own voice recognized and heard is what matters.

Although Reta believes that women writers are excluded from the greatness accorded the "canon," ultimately she finds a purpose to her writing because of the personal joy it gives her and the voice it gives to women. As a reader, I admit, I read "Unless" only because it was included in the "canon," as I am trying to become more well-read and add books from Dr. Boxall’s guide of 1001 important works to my collection. But, the truth is, I will be lucky to make it through even one-tenth of his list because I know, if I tried reading the whole list, I would quickly tire of trudging through accounts of dirty old white men and their supposed "everyman quest for identity," which neither interests me, gives me joy, or gives me a voice. The power in "Unless" – the thing that gives it a "force on the world" – is that it provides ordinary characters – ordinary people you meet in real life – with a voice. Even if Reta Winters isn’t a universal character – i.e., she is not an Everyman but likely appeals only to women – and she is not struggling to find her identity, her struggle to make it through each of her ordinary days is still important. Her story may not be "one for the ages," but it is enough to provide readers with a transformative moment of happiness, and that is good enough for me.
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