Small Ceremonies [Mass Market Paperback]

Carol Shields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995

Wife, mother, and biographer, Judith Gill finds her own life overshadowed by her need to observe and understand, becoming a woman whose world is shaped by the actions of others, until she discovers her own role as a translator and celebrant of life's small ceremonies. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On the surface, there's nothing about Judith Gill that would recommend her as an ideal protagonist. She's ordinary: wife of a rather remote academic, mother of adolescents she no longer really knows, biographer of arcane subjects. But Shields's gift is in making the ordinary compelling. What's surprising in this, her first novel originally published in 1976 and released in the U.S. for the first time, are the almost playful touches, which stand in contrast to the relatively placid rhythm of her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Stone Diaries. Just when Small Ceremonies begins to look like a quiet little story about a middle-class woman in an anonymous Canadian city, Shields tosses in a twist that forces the reader to look at Judith in a new light. It's Shields's repeated juxtaposition of orderliness and spontaneity, the mundane with the unexpected, that makes Judith an appealing subject-though she wouldn't see herself that way. The consummate biographer, Judith focuses more on others than on herself. And while Shields doesn't moralize in this slight novel, if there is a message, it is this: we may think we know the people who fill our lives, but we really only know parts of them-and we're fooling ourselves to think otherwise.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 181 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140251456
• ISBN-13: 978-0140251456
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,150,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shields is terrific!, December 22, 1999

By 

Wilson Stone (California) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Small Ceremonies (Mass Market Paperback)

The first Carol Shields book I read was "The Stone Diaries" which of course deserved all its awards. Then "Larry's Party" which, though it was somewhat ignored by the literary press, was every bit as enjoyable as "Diaries." By then I had realized that Shields is one of our greatest living novelists. I picked up "Small Ceremonies" knowing it was nearly 25 years old -- her first published novel -- and expecting it to be less than those two later books. I was wrong. "Small Ceremonies" is simply a terrific book. Buy it. Read it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magic Read, October 8, 2000

By 

Mollymook (BALMAIN, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Ceremonies (Mass Market Paperback)

Small Ceremonies is a book to get lost in. Carol Shields has a way of making honouring everyday rituals, conversations and events and presenting them to the reader in a way that makes us savour her characters and stories. Like all Shields' novels, poems and plays, the irresitable Small Cermeonies, leads to contstant searching for more Carol Shields works. To publishers - devout readers want out of print works reprinted!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A look at how we live day to day not always knowing., January 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Small Ceremonies (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was an interesting look at how someone goes about discovering who they are later in life. A biographer who can only look at other people's lives through items or other people's writings. Her complaint of not having the chance to actually ever have met her latest subject makes for a nice ending when she lets another writer know what she does about his facade.

Carol Shields writing is always clear, concise and tells a touching story. If you haven't read Small Ceremonies or Stone Diaries, you are missing some of the best fiction writing I have experienced in a while.