Swann, Carol Shields

Swann is a very abstract novel dealing with many characters that later on in the novel become entwined with one another. The characters Shields had developed are interesting. My favourite character in this novel so far would have to be Rose because Shields seemed to have captured a small town woman with her variety of roles, as well as showing how lonely she has been. Even though there are four characters in this novel, there is also a fifth character that we never see, just hear of, for this character is Mary Swann, a Canadian poet who was finally discovered only a few hours before her murder, though the murder of Mary Swann happens years before the novel even takes place. There is a true sense of anguish about her, even though we only meet Swann in the reflections of Sarah, Rose, Frderic, and Morton.

This novel has more than one mystery within itself. The first known mystery is the death of Mary Swann and later followed by the mystery of the disappearance of Swann's notebook, and her photograph. Though there are mysteries to be solved, the characters never seem to solve them for they are all caught up in their concepts of Mary Swann is. The mysteries also go unsolved for this novel is not a conventional mystery but a feminist literary mystery, meaning this novel evolves around the main, unresolved, questions about the creative process: How are poems created out of an ordinary woman's life? Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation?