Reviews for Dressing Up for the Carnival

The average rating for Dressing Up for the Carnival based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-06-26 00:00:00 Robin Hindman I recently read and positively loved another short story collection by the author. This one was probably objectively just as good, but subjectively I might not have been as much in the mood for it and it is definitely the sort of read you have to be in the mood for. There’s actually a perfect analogy for the author’s writing in one of the stories here, it’s about an author on the book tour and she discusses writing fiction with her friend. They talk of one person who prefers the simplicity of beginning, middle and end structure, but the friend is more about putty of life. Random, ephemeral things to spin a thinly delicate gauzy narrative around. Tangential threads, situations observed, imagined and reimagined. Some of the stories have a more traditional structure, but so many of them are this life putty, small things, minute details, fleeting moods. It reminds me very much of dozing off while reading and having the mind spin out a tiny yet meticulously detailed dream based on the last sentence read. Yes, instead of a proper nap. So yes, you gotta be in the mood for it, but it is so lovely, so very lovely. The author is a terrific wordsmith, she crafts sentences with such skill and care, they come out these perfect things of beauty to be read and enjoyed. And these story collections are short, so you don’t have to spent too much time in the dreamlike state of suspended fictional animation. I’d be most interested to see how these talents work when applied to long form fiction.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-07-31 00:00:00 Noor hisham Sulaiman I picked this book up at a small book sale while on vacation in the mountains, largely on the basis of it being one of the few works of fiction on sale that wasn't by Clive Cussler, Tom Clancey, or Danielle Steele. I had never heard of Carol Shields and had essentially no expectations. What I ended up with was a pretty good, if uneven, collection of stories. Shields' stories take a deep dive into the emotional complexity of people's relationships, especially marriages, and examine the compromises and concessions that people make in life and love. But she also veers into some stranger, more experimental territory, with some stories that verge on magical realism, a story set in a sort of dystopian future where people are taxed on the basis of how many windows they have, and a story written without the letter "I" in it. Some of the experiments don't pay off, and some of the stories feel like drafts that meander around the idea of an idea before stumbling to an unfulfilling close. But most of the stories are good to quite good, with some pretty affecting moments throughout, and the book finishes strong with a handful of its better stories stacked up at the end. At 210 pages, Dressing Up for the Carnival doesn't take very long to get through, and while I wouldn't rush this book to the top of your "to-read" list, if you can find it for a buck or so, like I did, it's certainly worth checking out.