Reader’s Corner: Departures and Arrivals by Carol Shields
Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, we hope you have a pleasant flight today. Our flight attendants will soon be serving a light lunch followed by gâteau cerise —that’s cherry cake— and a selection of drinks. Weather conditions are excellent, and below you, you can see vast fields of corn, wheat, and other interesting grain crops. The clouds to your left are of the cumulus variety and typical of the region. You are invited to take photographs if you so wish. Aircraft personnel can assist you with manicures or small psychological crises. If you wish counselling, please put on your light and wait patiently and pleasantly. Or you may wish to join one of our in-flight clubs. We have stamp collecting in the forward section, crochet work in the rear and, conditions permitting, aerobic dancing in the aisle.
― Carol Shields, Departures and Arrivals
Poignant, tender, and introspective, Carol Shields crafts a humanistic journey of hidden opportunities in the limbo of Departures and Arrivals. In an airport, vignettes of different people in different lives fade in and out of focus, each one displaying some complex emotional insight into the human experience.
From frenzied, melodramatic, moments to soft and subdued ones, each vignette uncovers the lost and gained hopes, dreams, and opportunities of contemporary life. The affectionately mocking dialogue never detracts from the thoughtful subtleties of each interaction, though the characters range from businessmen to ex-lovers to a pair of strangers dressed in white. Sometimes absurd against the chaotic backdrop of modern life, each moment nonetheless stands out with its own unique display of emotions.
Elegant and resonant, Departures and Arrivals is a meditation on the dynamic factors that shape people’s lives. Shields’ delicate control of language creates engrossing dialogues and monologues which display the inherent nostalgia of the ordinary, creating a beautiful portrait of life in the contemporary limbo of an airport lounge.