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A review by nancf
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
5.0
I had heard this book and author mentioned by several people, including Ann Patchett who recently included it in her "New to You" series. In addition, The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize among other awards. As I am writing this, I realize that I hadn't read the Introduction by Penelope Lively included in this 15th-Anniversary Edition. I will do so before I return the book to the library later today.
The Stone Diaries in a birth-to-death story (rare, per Ann P.) of Daisy Goodwill. It is told mostly in Daisy's voice, with much detail, though many years are summarized. The reader follows Daisy from her inauspicious birth in a stone mining village in Canada in 1905 to her death in a Florida nursing home around 90 years later. I referred often to the Family Tree included in the front of the book, and I love when an author includes that feature. Although there are many supporting, and quirky, characters, the story is Daisy's and it is told very well.
I am happy to have discovered Carol Shields and will look for her other books. (Ann P. recommended Unless.)
"She is a woman whose desires stand at the bottom of a cracked pitcher, waiting." (11)
"The religious impulse, as everyone knows - certainly I know - is hard to pin down. There are ecstatics, like my father, who become addicted to the rarefied air of spiritual communion, and then there are cooler minds who claim that religion exists in order to keep us from feeling our own absurdity." (48)
"The real troubles in this world tend to settle on the misalignment between men and women. . ." (89)
"Cuyler Goodwill is seventy years old, that talismanic age . . ." (132)
"It's not so much a question of one big disappointment, though. It's more like a thousand little disappointments raining down on tope of each other. After a while it gets to seem like a flood, and the first thing you know you're drowning." (190)
"Even her dreams release potent fumes of absence." (209)
". . . trying to remember a time when her body had been sealed and private." (230)
"In the pleat of consciousness that falls between sleeping and waking. . ." (230)
The Stone Diaries in a birth-to-death story (rare, per Ann P.) of Daisy Goodwill. It is told mostly in Daisy's voice, with much detail, though many years are summarized. The reader follows Daisy from her inauspicious birth in a stone mining village in Canada in 1905 to her death in a Florida nursing home around 90 years later. I referred often to the Family Tree included in the front of the book, and I love when an author includes that feature. Although there are many supporting, and quirky, characters, the story is Daisy's and it is told very well.
I am happy to have discovered Carol Shields and will look for her other books. (Ann P. recommended Unless.)
"She is a woman whose desires stand at the bottom of a cracked pitcher, waiting." (11)
"The religious impulse, as everyone knows - certainly I know - is hard to pin down. There are ecstatics, like my father, who become addicted to the rarefied air of spiritual communion, and then there are cooler minds who claim that religion exists in order to keep us from feeling our own absurdity." (48)
"The real troubles in this world tend to settle on the misalignment between men and women. . ." (89)
"Cuyler Goodwill is seventy years old, that talismanic age . . ." (132)
"It's not so much a question of one big disappointment, though. It's more like a thousand little disappointments raining down on tope of each other. After a while it gets to seem like a flood, and the first thing you know you're drowning." (190)
"Even her dreams release potent fumes of absence." (209)
". . . trying to remember a time when her body had been sealed and private." (230)
"In the pleat of consciousness that falls between sleeping and waking. . ." (230)