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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hooked by Carol Shields,
By Cathleen Gray (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dressing Up for the Carnival (Hardcover)
Carol Shields hooked me in with Stone Diaries and I have subsequently enjoyed Happenstance, Larry's Party and a Celibate Season. I have just completed Dressing Up for the Carnival and am yet again amazed by Carol's ability to take the simplest things and see into them and beyond their common use. The story Mirrors is a typical example - we take them so much for granted and yet we do not look at them but "into them". Her language is rich, descriptive, insightful and makes me want to hear her voice. I love the glimpses she gives into married lives and the various swings and roundabouts of relationships, the distances between people and the tiny, meaningful, tender moments - Windows is a typical example. I am delighted to discover that I have many more of her books to enjoy and am now about to continue my research on Carol with the help of this site.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True Example of Writing as Art,
By Jacqueline Ostrowicki "thinker, planner, crea... (Lincoln, NE) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dressing Up for the Carnival (Hardcover)
Carol Shields can take an ordinary word and polish it into a shining gemstone. Finely-tuned phrases are scattered plentifully throughout each chapter of _Dressing Up for the Carnival_, straddling the gap between poetry and fiction. This collection of stories is so spare, it almost feels empty at first. But you find Shields has emptied her work of distractions and needless explanations so you can more clearly see . Her focus on minute details is selective and purposeful. She reveals deep insights on the human condition through small observations-ones only a keen observer could see, and only a master writer like Shields could translate into words. If you want to be entertained, this book may not be for you. If you want to think deeply and be stirred to a higher level of emotion, pick up this book. You'll find yourself setting it down after every story so you can absorb each word.
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hit and (mostly) miss.,
This review is from: Dressing Up for the Carnival (Hardcover)
After the disappointment of Carol Shields' last book, the novel Larry's Party, I thought I would give her a second try with this collection of short stories. At times Shields doesn't disappoint - Dressing Up For The Carnival has a few wonderful stories - I particularly like 'Mirrors'. However, in many stories Shields tries to put an imaginative and poetic slant on the everyday banal - but sadly with little success. Most of the stories here seem forced, the result of some self-imposed writing excerise that in the end read like teenage creative writing exams. For such an accomplished writer many of these stories seem young and naive - even unfinished perhaps. Her themes of aging women, often disappointed by life or the infidelities of men, are bittersweet but in the end left me with nothing.
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