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July 13, 2003
Review: Comfortably numb until...
THE opening sentence of Unless by Carol Shields is not unlike Life of Pi by Yann Martel. “It happens that I am going through a period of great unhappiness and loss just now” is similar to the foreboding of doom and despair in the Booker prize winner. But whereas Martel literally sails us through a suspenseful yet philosophical drama, Shields never quite ignites the spark of eager engagement.
No one dies and certainly no one is near being marooned on a boat with a beast upon the open seas. Rather Unless is a story about simple people leading normal lives until a ripple occurs that mars them deeply while they are still compelled to continue with their day to day lives.
Life is cruising for Reta Winters, a translator and writer of some repute. All is well until her 19 year old eldest daughter is stricken with an illness or rather a dilemma called “goodness”. Norah sits on a street in town with a placard proclaiming the need for “goodness” (as opposed to greatness) around her neck. Norah is an ordinary and promising student at college before she is befallen with this malady that drives her to live in a shelter for the homeless and beg for alms on the street. It is only much later that we come upon the reason for Norah’s issue and consequently Reta’s self analysis and growth.
Reta Winters (previously Summers) is a cheery housewife, mother of three and a writer. She enjoys her household chores immensely (which would be to the chagrin of many a militant feminist). Simultaneously, Reta is happily married (though not legally as we learn later) and is a loving mother. She is also a dutiful daughter-in-law. Last, but not least, she is a translator for the novels of Danielle Westerman, a modern day Simone de Beauvoir. Recently, Reta has even written her own novel, a light hearted romance called My Thyme is Up.
Currently she is working on the sequel to this already fairly successful novel and we are carried through the tides of the development and transformation of her persona that shapes the progress of the novel and her relationships.
Previous to her daughter’s silent rebellion, Reta is disdainful about the concept of “sadness”. She has nothing in common with Anna Karenina’s obsessiveness about “her happiness and unhappiness”. In fact “she has an instinct for missing the call of grief”. As an author she is reputed for being good at happy moments while avoiding the lower rung of the ladder of happiness.
Actually she “much prefers the more calculated protocols of dodging sadness with her deliberate manoeuvres”. Her strategy for avoiding any confrontation with sadness is drowning herself in housework: polishing, dusting, cooking; mentally calculating the weekly consumption of her family.
Yet in no way does the author undermine housework, Reta being quite house proud herself. Nor is Reta introverted in any way. Being a writer of fiction she is obviously interested in the lives of other people. Yet one can’t help thinking that this might be another ruse.
There comes a time in Reta’s life when, sorrow having struck, she can no longer escape it. What led her daughter to beg on the street? What if she fails to find her in her regular spot one day? The search for the reason behind her daughter’s act uncovers answers to the questions lurking in her own mind. She writes a number of unsent letters to unknown persons whom she accuses of supporting and abetting the system that her daughter felt so helpless against. “Norah 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.”
The book resolve’s Norah’s dilemma without really resolving anything. Her plight, nor her mother’s, never seemed epic enough. But then most issues confronting ordinary people do not necessarily have to be of heroic proportions. And they usually aren’t. Yet, after Norah’s stand, Reta is compelled to address and indeed confront the issue of women’s continuous exclusion from greatness and their own part in perpetuating their condition. This should not be mistaken into classifying Unless as a feminist novel. Rather, it is a simple story about the conflicts afflicting ordinary people. However, it subtly addresses major issues which remain unanswered in our lives.
The title of the book, Unless, is particularly captivating and not less the chapter headings that are equally hard to define: “Notwithstanding, Instead, Hence, Following, Hence, Furthermore” and so on. The last heading, “Not Yet” is optimistic enough to mean “hopefully, some time.” As with most good books Unless leaves you without answers but piercing questions.
Unless
By Carol Shields
Fourth Estate
ISBN 0007137702
224pp. £16.99
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