Various miracles (Stoddart short fiction) [Paperback]

Carol Shields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1985 | Series: Stoddart short fiction

The stories collected here offer an entrancing look at some of the various miracles of everyday life, the quirks of chance and coincidence, life's setbacks and improvisations. Carol Shields deftly draws us into the lives of a broad range of sharply observed characters, from the brilliant young violinist smothered by an overprotective family, to the elderly widow mowing her lawn while a long, passionate life buzzes around in her memory.

Blending wit and compassion, Shields illuminates moments when ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances, declarations of love and revelations that transform their lives. Sharp, skeptical and sympathetic, this collection presents Shields at her inimitable best in twenty-one miracles of the storyteller's art.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 21 stories in this maddeningly uneven collection replay a single theme: people's "obliviousness to the million invisible filaments of connection, trivial or profound, which bind them one to the other and to the small green planet they call home." In a terrain perhaps imitative of the magical realism charted by Borges, Calvino et al., characters--a high percentage of whom are writers--are buffeted by extravagant coincidences and impossible phenomena. Shields ( Small Ceremonies ) is an ambitious writer; she demands of herself a rich poetics and, for these pieces, the virtues of the fable or moral tale. Her efforts are undermined: an authorial omniscience comes across as smug (especially when she twits her writer-characters for self-satisfaction), her doggedly imaginative plots as overdetermined and precious. Given their very similar characters, narrative strategies and subjects, most of these stories read like practice exercises for the two or three that are fully achieved ("Scenes" is one)--but, in light of the difficulty of her task, these successes distinguish Shields as worthy of serious attention.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Carol Shield's stories have given me happiness, not just pleasure. They're prismatic; they delight at first by the clear and simple elegance with which they are made, then there's something so bountiful and surprising, like beautiful broken light." —Alice Munro

"Carol Shields is a wonderful writer—wry, witty, wise and fiercely intelligent. Many of the stories in this collection are deliciously funny; all are memorable." —Janette Turner Hospital


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 183 pages
• Publisher: Stoddart (1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773750363
• ISBN-13: 978-0773750364
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,176,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short Stories That Feature Small Miracles in Real Time, December 21, 2004

By 

Herbert Hartnett (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Various Miracles: Stories (King Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

Carol Shields as short story writer lets her imagination ramble and authors a collection that helped her overcome writer's block while working on the novel Swann. She places her characters in a variety of circumstances where they experience those moments when the mirrors of reality align and understanding appears before them. These are not religious miracles, but understanding life, its richness and depth, in real time. Take an hour or two and read Sailors Lost at Sea; Scenes; Fragility; Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls; and Home. You'll discover Shields's optimism and faith in the ability of everday people to explore and discover.