That Just Happened!

Shields, 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.

 Rooke, Leon.  Shakespeare’s Dog: A Novel.  Thomas Allen Publishers (2003). Originally published 1981.

 A tour de force of inventive wit “Shakespeare’s Dog” is the eccentric and high-spirited story of William Shakespeare and how he came to bed and wed Anne Hathaway. Told from the point of view of the Bard’s dog, this astonishing novel of comic bliss, hailed as a triumph of language and an amusing delight.

From the Publisher’s Website

I can’t believe that all of the contenders that year, this book was picked as a winner.  Really.  This book is written from Shakespeare’s dog’s perspective.  If this is what my dog is thinking then I am super glad he can’t talk like Hooker does in the book.  Sometimes it seems as if Shakespeare understands him and sometimes he does not.  It really didn’t add anything to the story and it seemed a little contrived.   What totally blows my mind is that this was made into a play.  For the stage.  I mean, what exactly did they make a play about?  A dog sniffing around cursing?  Shakespeare’s imagined conversations with his canine companion?  I have a feeling this play would be worse than the slow death I experienced at Death of a Salesman (and I’m not talking about the main character).

I feel like I can now curse out someone quite thoroughly in a Shakespearean way and I know about 15 different words for vagina.  Educational?  Maybe.  Practical?  No, well…maybe.  I really just could not get into this book.  It took me a few tries to get past the first chapter and once I had I wondered why I even bothered?  I mean, this is something I would expect the Giller Prize committee to have commended (oooh snap!)  not the Governor General Award committee.  Perhaps it was just a really bad year for literature.  I don’t know. 

Not worth the time, I can’t even pick out a theme really.  Perhaps survival and relationships.  I never thought I would ever be giving out this score, but this book really did sucketh.

I read this novel towards my personal Governor General Award Winner for Fiction Challenge.

Richards, David Adams. Nights Below Station Street.  McClelland & Stewart. (1988).

Nights Below Station Streetis David Adams Richards’s haunting chronicle of like among the working classes in a small northern New Brunswick mill town.

It is Christmas of 1972, and the novel centres on the Walsh family.  There is the father, Joe, strong, cheerful, and optimistic in the face of continuing unemployment.  There is his wife, Rita, hard-working and willing to believe the best about people; and there is their teenage daughter Adele, whose explosive but caring relationship with her father wars constantly with her desire for independence.  Richards uses his remarkable powers of observation and sympathy to delineate his characters’ wayward emotions and their inner lives.

Nights Below Station Street, which was made into a Gemini Award-winning film of the same name, won the Governor General’s Award for 1988.

From the Back Cover

This novel is like a snapshot into the lives of the Walsh family and their immediate friends.  I felt like the author was building up to a huge event, but it never really ended up coming.  There was a wedding at the end of the book (I refuse to tell you who.  No, I won’t.) but it wasn’t exactly the conflict you expect after following the characters through this short period in their life.  I recently discovered that this is the first book in a series of three, so perhaps more comes to blows later in the series.

I think it is interesting that there was a lot of build up, but it did not seem to go anywhere.  I think the author managed to closely mimic real life.  In real life you go to school, work hard, join teams and then there is graduation.  An everyday event (like the wedding) that is special, but no amazing confessions, or blowouts occur.  The characters in the book seem to be moving about their lives, which is marked by notable events, but never facing any out spectacular happenings that we as Readers have come to expect.  Who wants to read about something that they are living?  And about characters that so closely mimic those people you know in real life? 

Well, I do.  I thought this book was really good.  I liked that I could recognize the characters and the events in this book as ones that I know in my life.  It kind of gives validation  to my feelings and thoughts.  ”Misery loves company” and although at first I could relate to the petulant teen and her disfunctional family, I started to see the love between them that rode the undercurrents of their life.

I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone who likes reading about the human condition.  Themes include relationships, love and marriage, and community.

I read this towards my Governor General Award Winners for Fiction Challenge.