Unless

When I picked up this book by CAROL SHIELDS, I thought at first it was a piece of chicklit. Which as it happens is funny because it's a story about a woman intending to write a piece of chicklit about a woman who writes. As it turns out it isn't chicklit, but literary fiction, and that's what this book is too.

It's Canadian, and firmly set in the year 2000 - the Bush election mentioned, and a Muslim woman burning herself to death (if you recall, there was a fair bit of media attention about women in Afghanistan back then) - and it's about how women feel marginalised, sometimes. There's the main character, Reta, who keep writing letters to male writers about how sexist they are; there's her mentor, Danielle, who is a great writer being forgotten; there's Reta's daughter, who has moved onto the streets and sits there with a piece of cardboard with the word "Goodness" written on it. They all feel pretty frustrated at society's attitude twards women. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm too young, but I can't emotionally appreciate that; as in, I am so utterly aware of society's attitude towards women that it doesn't shock me enough of even slightly surprise me. I can't see it suddenly becoming anything different. Now, I can understand that if you were around in the sixties or seventies as Reta and Danielle were, you might have been led to expect a great feminist revolution, but if you were born after that time, then I can't see where that expectation would come from. So Reta's daughter's reaction doesn't ring true for me, and the device of the word "Goodness" is a bit too much. On the other hand, it is the kind of thing that I can imagine a person with a mental illness doing, though not out of some deep disappointment with teh way the feminist revolution has gone.

What I do like about this story, apart from the fact that it's a good flowing read with interesting characters, are the few good lines where you spontaneously respond with - yes, that's true! ("So is like the oboe, signalling the A pitch to the strings.") And then there are long discourses on things like the nature of goodness that you can imagine Carol Shields walking along thinking about, and then perhaps talking to someone about, and them replying - yes, that's so true! Structurally it is pretty interesting the way she manages to keep it all rolling along and yet have both these discourses and the feminist letters not disturbing the flow whatsoever.

It has a happy ending. Reta finishes writing her book and discoveres the mystery of her daughter and in that feels quite satisfied - both in that her daughter has come home and that her daughter feels as strongly about feminism as she does. Oh, I'm simplying it but I think that's true. It's comprehensible to her, that's the main thing. What else do I like? All the characters are attractive, including the wonderful husband, the monther-in-law, the kindly editor and the later curiously amusing one, the daughter's boyfriend. Even the sexist pigs she's written letters to to turn out to be pretty nice after all. I think Carol Shields must also be a nice person to be able to think so kindly about everyone. Even though she's so sad about feminism.