Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.09.2003, Side 2

page 2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday, 26 September 2003
Editorial • Ritstjórnargrein
Lillian Vilborg
Managing Editor
WlNNIPEG, MB
Ijust finished reading Carol
Shields’ novel Unless. I was
once again struck with the rich
simplicity of her prose, her
deep insights into human
nature. And I thought about the
great loss we have all experi-
enced with her passing. She
was only sixty-eight years old.
I can’t remember which of
her books I read first, perhaps
Stone Diaries. It made such a
splash winning both the Gover-
nor General’s award in Canada
and the Pulitzer Prize in the
United States. It led me to a
search for her other books.
Each novel deals with ordi-
nary people making their way
through ordinary lives. Or
that’s how it seems. But there
are twists. Daisy, in Stone
Diaries, begins her life in a
rather unusual way. She is bom
on a kitchen floor in Tyndall,
MB by a mother who has no
idea she is pregnant and has no
idea what is happening to her.
Every one of Carol
Shields’ books I read intro-
duced me to not only the lives
of the characters, but also an
in-depth look at something
else. In Happenstance it was
quilting, in The Republic of
Love it was mermaids, in Lar-
ry’s Party it was mazes, in
Stone Diaries the art of work-
ing with stone, in Unless trilo-
bites.
Her novels are also imbued
with a solid sense of place. The
elm-lined streets of Winnipeg
are said, by some, to be a char-
acter in The Republic of Love.
(Don’t look for them, though,
in the fdm version, which is
shot in the underground malls
of downtown Toronto.) I read
The Republic of Love at a time
when I hadn’t been in Win-
nipeg for years. I recall the vis-
ceral reminder of sights,
sounds and smells from my
childhood rushing back to me
from the black and white pages
of her book.
In Stone Diaries Daisy vis-
its the Orkney Islands, a place I
have also visited. The great
slabs of stone sandwiched
between the deep blue of the
North Atlantic and the green
pastures came vividly back.
I met Carol Shields once,
in Iceland. She was the keynote
speaker at a conference of the
Nordic Association of Canadi-
an Studies. She made a brilliant
presentation, aided only by a
pair of scissors and a piece of
paper in the shape of a circle.
The sentiments she expressed
in that presentation are the top-
ic of conversations between
Reta, the protagonist in Unless
and her friends at their weekly
gathering in the local coffee
shop in Orangetown, ON. They
are talking about women’s
voices, and their absence from
the mainstream, from great-
ness. Throughout the book,
Reta writes letters to people,
usually men, who have
described the world in terms
which exclude women, or the
voices of women.
When I spoke to her, she
told me that she and her hus-
band Don had spent some of
their time in Iceland visiting
with his relations and seeing
the places from which his fore-
bears emigrated. It was their
first trip to Iceland.
When I met her, I was
going to be moving to Win-
nipeg in a year’s time. She and
her husband Don were going to
be leaving in a year’s time. She
lived her last years in Victoria,
continuing to write and write
and write.
I admired her from a dis-
tance from the first time I read
Carol Shields
her work. She was a mother, a
wife, a committed community
activist, a teacher, a writer, and
a friend. She did it all. And
when she became ill, she kept
working, kept writing.
We are all indebted to her
for the legacy she has left us.
Not only her novels, plays and
short stories, but also her biog-
raphical works and the two col-
lections of personal essays and
memoire, Dropped Threads
and Dropped Threads 2, which
she edited with Marjorie
Anderson.
In the obituaries written
following her death this sum-
mer, the family asked that gifts
in her memory be sent to the
Winnipeg Public Library or the
University of Winnipeg.
Icelandic Films a Hit
Two films from Iceland
screened at Toronto’s Inter-
national Film Festival and
Canadian Icelander Guy
Maddin’s latest film was one of
the best at the festival.
The Saddest Music in the
World directed by Winnipeg’s
Guy Maddin played as a Spe-
cial Presentation at the Festival.
One of the most distinctive and
visionary filmmakers at work
today, Guy Maddin creates a
dreamy tale that entices the
viewer into a strange and won-
Guy Maddin and Isabella
Rosellini at Saddest Music
press release
drous world of love, lust and
beer.
It is 1933 in Winnipeg in
the midst of the Great Depres-
sion. Beer Baroness Lady Port-
Huntly (Isabella Rossellini)
announces a global competition
to fínd the most moumful music
on Earth. The Kent brothers and
musicians from across the globe
pour into town to vie for the
whopping $25,000 prize. The
film will be released in Canada
on October 24th.
Director Sólveig Anspach
was in Toronto for Storniy
Weather. In the film, a young
psychiatrist tires to break
through to a violent and uncom-
municative patient with an
unknown background and iden-
tity.
When the woman’s family
is found and she is sent back to
her home in Iceland, the doctor
follows, hoping to help her. But
she quickly realizes that the sit-
uation is more complex than
she imagined.
Sólveig was bom in Vest-
mannaeyjar, Iceland. She stud-
ied in Paris, directing many
Director Sólveig Anspach
celebrates at the Unifrance
directors’ luncheon with
Noémi Lvovsky
documentaries. Stormy Weatlier
is her second feature fílm.
Dagur Kári studied direct-
ing at the Danish Film School
and makes his solo directorial
debut with Nói albinói, the sto-
ry of bright, eccentric, young
Nói (Tómas Lemarquis). Nói,
an albino who lives with his
grandmother, cannot be both-
ered to go to school. He does
not understand his family or
what is left of it.
Set in a village on a majes-
tic Icelandic fjord, inaccessible
during the winter months and
surrounded by mountains caked
with snow, compounds Nói’s
sense of seclusion and compels
him to long for the world
beyond the cliffs. He decides to
run away but does not succeed.
He then goes through some
awkward experience where it is
a matter of life and death.
Tómas Lemarquis as Nói, a
seventeen-year-old rebel in
Dagur Kári's solo directorial
debut Nói albinói
Dagur and Tómas were
both at the festival to introduce
the movie, shown to a full and
satisfied house.
Sources: TIFF website e.bell.ca,
The Festival Daily, Telelfilm.gc.ca,
icelatulicfilmcentre. is clmcc
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