Summary and Reviews of Swann by Carol Shields

1

As recently as two years ago, when I was twenty-six, I dressed in ratty jeans and a sweatshirt with lettering across the chest. That's where I was. Now I own six pairs of beautiful shoes, which I keep, when I'm not wearing them, swathed in tissue paper in their original boxes. Not one of these pairs of shoes costs less than a hundred dollars.

Hanging in my closet are three dresses (dry clean only), two expensive suits and eight silk blouses in such colours as hyacinth and brandy. Not a large wardrobe, perhaps, but richly satisfying. I've read my Thoreau, I know real wealth lies in the realm of the spirit, but still I'm a person who can, in the midst of depression, be roused by the rub of a cashmere scarf in my fingers.

My name is Sarah Maloney and I live alone. Professionally -- this is something people like to know these days -- I'm a feminist writer and teacher who's having second thoughts about the direction of feminist writing in America. For twenty-five years we've been crying: My ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Carol Shields spoke of becoming a writer because there weren't enough books that examined women's friendships and women's inner lives — or, as she put it, "the kind of book I wanted to read but couldn't find." In what ways does Shields's fiction bring the lives of women to the surface, or into our understanding? What sorts of female experiences does she illuminate?
2. In her novels and stories, Shields often experiments with using different voices. The Stone Diaries shifts between first-, second-, and third-person narrative; one section of Larry's Party is recorded almost entirely in dialogue; Happenstance is a novel in two parts, one narrated by the husband, one by the wife; the stories in Various Miracles come from a wide variety ...