[.ca] Larry's Party (ISBN 0864924674)

From Amazon.com:
Larry Weller is a regular guy, or so Carol Shields has him think. When we first meet him in 1977 Winnipeg at age 26, he's pondering the pluses of Harris tweed, still living at home, and realizing he's in love with his girlfriend, Dorrie, a flinty car saleswoman. Larry is proud of his job at Flowerfolks, even though he fell into floral design by accident, and if his relationship with his parents isn't perfect, it's not too bad, either. (Stu and Flo Weller may have less page-time in Larry's Party, but they are hugely memorable. He is a master upholsterer, happiest when working; she is a woman ruined by nervous guilt, having inadvertently killed off her mother-in-law with some improperly preserved green beans.) Carol Shields has said that she had "always been struck by the fact that in most novels people aren't working." Though her hero climbs the floral managerial trellis for 17 years and finds more rhapsody in work than marriage, Larry and Dorrie's honeymoon in England points him toward what will be his true vocation--mazes. These living constructs turn him into a thinker, a man of imagination, and the author's descriptions are quietly spectacular as well as effortlessly sweet. Larry wonders at their "teasing elegance and circularity ... a snail, a scribble, a doodle on the earth's skin with no other directed purpose but to wind its sinuous way around itself." Just as Larry changes with the times--each elliptical chapter ages him by one or two years--so does his art. In 1990, he designs a maze in which you can't really lose yourself. In 1997, the McCord Maze "is intended to mirror the descent into unconscious sleep, followed by a slow awakening." Larry, too, has a slow awakening, taking several false turns before reaching midlife. As the novel closes, with a bravura dinner party scene, he may finally be at ease in the world. But his creator knows that he is only halfway there, and still has to negotiate his way from the center of the maze to its exit.

A gem, emotionally and stylistically.:
Like so many of us, Larry Weller finds himself, on occasion, lost. Is that why he is drawn to the arcane profession of maze-making? Or is his fascination with mazes a reflection of his deepening intellect and development as a man? In the course of fifteen carefully observed chapters, Carol Shields examines the maze-like Life of Larry. Each chapter is like a short film in which Shields refocuses her lens on a specific aspect of Larry's life: "Larry's Words," "Larry's Love," "Larry's Kid," etc. The end result is an in-depth portrait of a multi-dimensional guy, a compendium of details that elevates the seemingly ordinary Larry into someone utterly unique. She follows him through college (actually a trade school for florists), through the courtship of his first wife, through disillusionments and deaths, and finally to the party of the title, in which many of his life's loose ends are resolved. This is deep, smart, resonant writing, a subtly cajoling book that satisfies and delights.

now an on stage musical!:
LARRY'S PARTY has been made into a musical and is currently playing in Toronto, then Montreal,and Ottowa. This is a worthwhile read, especailly the beginning and end. At about p. 140 it gets limp until p.200 (of paperback edition). Those parts seem like writing exercises for Shields - but she can write. Note :P. 279 when "he knew himself to be in embrace of profound tenderness, that second cousin to passionate love." and her comments on "mistakes" p.12. I liked Larry from his white socks on p. 5.and his non-aMAZING life. How do you visualize him? I see him as a grown up Ralphy from THE CHRIRTMAS STORY movie.

Wonderful:
I've read most of Shields' books and taught a few, but this is my absolute favourite. It's a charming yet completely believable tale of one man's life. Read it if you need to have your faith restored in humanity.

Larry just stood there and let life happen to him:
John Lennon once wrote "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Lennon never met Larry Weller, a man drifting down the river of life with no rudder and no destination in mind. Larry Weller is a male character dreamed up by a female author, and save for one passage on genital slang, Larry's interior monologues are about as interesting as two-day old Wonder Bread. Good thing men aren't really as dull as Shields makes out; I'd have to give up and move to Mars. Only the final scenes -- Larry's Party -- give a glimmer of the talent this woman holds in reserve. Like so many other people, I was annoyed and frustrated by the gimmicky structure of the book. There was no need to continually reintroduce background material. I wondered if the chapters were not in fact intended to be short stories. Certainly the Larry's Party chapter could stand on its own as a story. A disappointing read.

A story of a life lived and observed:
Carol Shields has a way of writing about the ordinary that elevates it to the sublime. We follow Larry, an ordinary guy, through his life through jumps in time of several years at a leap. Through the chapters, we follow him through a callow youth, through a first marriage and parenthood, divorce, his parents and sister's relationships with him and each other, remarriage and re-divorce, and most central to the book, his mundane job and rise to stellar status in his field of maze designer, of all things. But of course the maze is a metaphor for the complexities of life, trying to find ones way in the world. The dinner party at the end is clearly meant to represent the 'goal,' the center of the maze, but it's left to the readers to decide if Larry is likely to find his way out again. A lovely tour de force.