Review: The Stone Diaries
Posted in Books and tagged with 4 eh, Book Review, Books, Governor General on 03/08/2010 08:00 am by JennShields, Carol. The Stone Diaries. Vintage Canada (2008). Originally 1993.
The Stone Diaries is the story of one woman’s life; a truly sensuous novel that reflects and illuminates the unsettled decades of our century.
Born in 1905, Daisy Goodwill drifts through the chapters of childhood, marriage, widowhood, remarriage, motherhood and old age. Bewildered by her inability to understand her own role, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her own story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography.
From The Publisher
I enjoyed this book, Daisy was slightly reminiscent of the kind of woman Betty Friedan would disdain. However, I think there are a lot of women who can relate to this. Daisy is trying to figure out what makes her happy while, at the same time, trying to fulfill her role as mother, wife, daughter, friend, etc. You can see her struggle with this her whole life and even at the end she is wondering if it was enough. If she was enough to everyone. I liked how the book was divided into the major events most women go through. I also liked how there were a few pages of pictures in the middle of the book. It really added to the illusion that you were reading a diary or scrapbook.
I am writing this review a little bit later than I had planned, but the fact that I had to reference the book a few times means it was not very memorable.
Themes include self-discovery, relationships, and family.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:53 am
crazy women defining themselves by their roles and what they are to others… i wish i could say it is because of the time periods but i think that mindset is still very previalent
also when writing words like previalent i wish there was an auto spell check for the comments section. I could copy into word but that seems really labour intensive
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March 8th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Great review–now I know not to read it!
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March 9th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Have you ever read Saving Cecelia Honeycutt?
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Jenn Reply:
March 9th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
No I haven’t, but I just read the summary online and it looks like something I would enjoy. Have you read it?
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March 10th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I remember liking this but I don’t remember much about it either. And that is a pretty good reference of what makes for a good book! Can you remember the basics a few weeks later!?
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