The Stone Diaries
by Carol Shields | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0394223802 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0394223802 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Hawaii-Bookworm of Honolulu, Hawaii USA on 7/5/2007
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
3 journalers for this copy...
From Publishers Weekly
Canadian writer Shields's novels and short stories ( Swann ; The Republic of Love , etc.) are intensely imagined, humanely generous, beautifully sustained and impeccably detailed. Shields follows her heroine, Daisy Goodwill Hoad Flett, from her birth--and her mother's death--on the kitchen floor of a stonemason's cottage in a small quarry town in Manitoba through childhood in Winnipeg, adolescence and young womanhood in Bloomington, Ind. (another quarry town), two marriages, motherhood, widowhood, a brief, exhilarating career in Ottawa--and eventually to old age and death in Florida. Stone is the unifying image here: it affects the geography of Daisy's life, and ultimately her vision of herself.
Wittily, ironically, touchingly, Shields gives us Daisy's version of her life and contrasting interpretations of events from her friends, children and extended family. (She even provides ostensible photographs of Daisy's family and friends.) Shields's prose is succinct, clear and graceful, and she is wizardly with description, summarizing appearance, disposition and inner lives with elegant imagery. Secondary characters are equally compelling, especially Daisy's obese, phlegmatic mother; her meek, obsessive father, who transforms himself into an overbearing executive; her adoptive mother, her stubborn father-in-law.
Canadian writer Shields's novels and short stories ( Swann ; The Republic of Love , etc.) are intensely imagined, humanely generous, beautifully sustained and impeccably detailed. Shields follows her heroine, Daisy Goodwill Hoad Flett, from her birth--and her mother's death--on the kitchen floor of a stonemason's cottage in a small quarry town in Manitoba through childhood in Winnipeg, adolescence and young womanhood in Bloomington, Ind. (another quarry town), two marriages, motherhood, widowhood, a brief, exhilarating career in Ottawa--and eventually to old age and death in Florida. Stone is the unifying image here: it affects the geography of Daisy's life, and ultimately her vision of herself.
Wittily, ironically, touchingly, Shields gives us Daisy's version of her life and contrasting interpretations of events from her friends, children and extended family. (She even provides ostensible photographs of Daisy's family and friends.) Shields's prose is succinct, clear and graceful, and she is wizardly with description, summarizing appearance, disposition and inner lives with elegant imagery. Secondary characters are equally compelling, especially Daisy's obese, phlegmatic mother; her meek, obsessive father, who transforms himself into an overbearing executive; her adoptive mother, her stubborn father-in-law.
This is from the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" list.
This book is the first in my "1008 Registered Books RABCK" drawing. The winner is HeresDeb! I hope you enjoy it!
It finally finished its long journey here! Thanks so much for your generous RABCK Hawaii-bookworm! After reading the cover and skimming parts of the inside, it looks like it will be an interesting book. Thanks again :-)
Sending to nimrodiel, who graciously offered to adopt some of the books off my bookshelf and find them new homes :)
Your huge box made it here safely.
I found this hiding in my TBR pile. Guess it missed being put into the bags going to the Winthrop Gardens LFL.
I read this this week, and while I finished it I had a hard time with it. Part of it was because the main character just sort of drifted along for a big part of her daily life. It probably didn't help that much of my reading was in the early morning, I fell asleep reading several times.
Thanks for sharing it with me HeresDeb. I know it will hopefully find a reader who appreciates the story more than I did.
I read this this week, and while I finished it I had a hard time with it. Part of it was because the main character just sort of drifted along for a big part of her daily life. It probably didn't help that much of my reading was in the early morning, I fell asleep reading several times.
Thanks for sharing it with me HeresDeb. I know it will hopefully find a reader who appreciates the story more than I did.
Journal Entry 8 by nimrodiel at The Village Squire in Crystal Lake, Illinois USA on Saturday, August 15, 2015
Released 8 yrs ago (8/14/2015 UTC) at The Village Squire in Crystal Lake, Illinois USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Left propped up on a shelf in the ladies room by the entrance to the restaurant.