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The Stone Diaries

by Carol Shields, Penelope Lively (Introduction)

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 16,101 ratings · 929 reviews

In celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of its original publication, Carol Shields?s Pulitzer Prize?winning novel is now available in a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition

ONE OF THE MOST successful and acclaimed novels of our time, this fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett is a subtle but affecting portrait of an everywoman reflecting on an unconventional li...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published September 30th 2008 by Penguin Classics (first published 1993)

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Sep 19, 2008 Suzanna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't like this book, but it was mostly because I didn't like the main character and her lack of personal substance. She never, ever, even once, feels any joy, passion, or grief. There is one period in her life where she appears to experience depression, but again, there is a lack of strong emotion, which really is typical of depression. A person who has three children, marries twice, and is widowed twice, usually experiences some sort of deep emotion. This flaw in her personality had me lack...more I didn't like this book, but it was mostly because I didn't like the main character and her lack of personal substance. She never, ever, even once, feels any joy, passion, or grief. There is one period in her life where she appears to experience depression, but again, there is a lack of strong emotion, which really is typical of depression. A person who has three children, marries twice, and is widowed twice, usually experiences some sort of deep emotion. This flaw in her personality had me lacking empathy with her.

It seems the author's basic premise is that the main character, Daisy, lacks strong emotion because she was not raised by her biological mother, who was herself an orphan, and that these things have some how caused both her and her mother to be inherently flawed. (Either that or Daisy has physically inherited this dysfunction from her mother, but I lean toward the former because of some passages in the story.) They lack passion and passionate expression. Daisy never hears she is loved, nor do you find love expressed by her; her mother, Mercy, never said she loved nor otherwise expressed love, although she was loved greatly and with deep passion by Daisy's father.

What I did like most was the author's use of symbolism. Stones and flowers are heavily used, perhaps overly so at times. There is the building of monuments by Daisy's father (of course made of stone), his life as a quarryman, Daisy's gardens, her second husband's love and knowlege of plants, names of characters, and much more. If that sort of thing excites you, you might love this book for that alone.

I would also like to say I'm surprised so many reviewers found this book "funny". I thought it was terribly depressing. There are a few amusing passages, but I couldn't see calling the book as a whole funny.

And lastly, it is strange to me that this is considered a fictional autobiography. Most of the time it is third person narrative; granted, there are points when Daisy is apparently refering to herself in the third person (as Mrs. Flett or some such, which I found a bit disturbing). I suppose it helps contribute to that feeling of her lack of sense of self, the void within her life that she herself doesn't really fill - is not capable of filling. There are other times it does not feel like her voice, just narrative, and there is just a small portion of the book that is in first person. It does not feel at all like a diary, which again may be for the effect of distancing the main character from herself. Someone with this personality disorder might write a memoir in this manner and call it a diary, I suppose. And it does cover Daisy's life from beginning to end.

The novel's well written, and I think the author achieved what she set out to do. Overall, just not my cup of tea. (less)

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Dec 04, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, kindred-characters, prose-poetry

A breathtaking and thoroughly original novel. I'm completely in awe of the choices Shields made in the shaping of this narrative. The whole is flawlessly cohesive. The parts are poetry unto themselves.

Essentially, it's a book about loneliness, every kind of loneliness: starved, suffocating, denied, cherished, physical, existential, or simply the result of petty misunderstanding. --And it's not always clear cut. She allows for ambiguity. She allows for the reader's subjective response, whatever t...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What I enjoyed about this book is the perspective of the writing, or lack of. The chapters chronicles Daisy' life, but always from an external perspective. She is never the voice and rarely do we ever "hear" her speak. All the dialogue is provided by those around her and facts are her life are circumstantial. Hearing about her life from multiple voices make me question what are the real facts of her life, what parts are how she is perceived by others, and how she thinks she is perceived communic...more

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Jun 12, 2009 Sally rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sally by: Lewis Eng

Shelves: mostly-literary-fiction

This Pulitzer Prize-winning book was suggested for the Mostly Literary Fiction book group that I lead at the Hayward Public Library, and we read it for our May 2009 discussion. A poignant and extremely creative approach to the imagining of one fairly ordinary (and extraordinary, in its rendering) individual. My reading of this novel coincided with my 85-year-old mother's illness and hospitalization. I read parts of it while waiting with her in the emergency room, and the following day sitting by...more

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Nov 12, 2008 Tracey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer, book-club, own

I love this book. It has been 14 years since I have read it and I still remember clearly what it means to me:

Life is long....and in this long life you lead a series of mini-lives. In each "life" you become a different version of you. We are blessed with the chance and sometimes forced against our will to reinvent ourselves again and again until one day we are very old and find that we are living in Florida wearing polyester pantsuits. Did you ever imagine that would be you?

That person you marr...more

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Jan 13, 2008 Sommer added it · review of another edition

Recommended to Sommer by: sadistic teacher

Ugh, love/hate relationship with this one... I read it for an English course in college where all of the required novels were Pulitzer Prize winners from the 90s. Again, I had a sadistic teacher who put together a list of the most depressing books to win in the 90s: The Hours, Mambo Kings, Rabbit at Rest, etc. Granted most of the winners in the 90s were works oozing depressive themes, he still could have inserted a more uplifting selection in there.

So basically this book was uber depressing when...more

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Dec 06, 2007 Grace rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book won a Pulitizer Prize in 1995, and it was an honor well deserved. I'd never even heard of it, I just picked up up at the Goodwill because the description on the back cover intrigued me, but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down.

The story is a fictionalized autobiography of one Daisy Goodwill Flett. Born around the turn of the 20th century and living until the 1980s, Shield's Flett reflects simultaneously on her own tragic life and the life of a North American century. The mix and...more This book won a Pulitizer Prize in 1995, and it was an honor well deserved. I'd never even heard of it, I just picked up up at the Goodwill because the description on the back cover intrigued me, but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down.

The story is a fictionalized autobiography of one Daisy Goodwill Flett. Born around the turn of the 20th century and living until the 1980s, Shield's Flett reflects simultaneously on her own tragic life and the life of a North American century. The mix and overlap between these two subjects is fascinating, and Shields' writing is first rate, making this a pleasure to read.

Though it is written as if it's an autiobiography, The Stone Diaries does not limit itself to subject matter that its protagonist could have known. Starting on the day of Daisy's birth, with her mother, Mercy, and moving both backward and forward through time, the book gives perspectives and experiences of many of the supporting characters as well, including Daisy's father, the woman who raises her, her husband, and her children. Though the speaker is sometimes not clearly identified, the moves between perspectives are far less confusing than would be expected (don't worry, it doesn't read like As I Lay Dying or anything like that). The story is actually told in a way I don't think I've ever seen before, with a mix of omniscent and present narration, and constantly moving time and perspective. Shields deserves her award just for being able to pull that off successfully, nevermind the story!

But the story is compelling. Daisy's life is hard and full of tragedy (the childbearing death of her mother, twice widowhood, etc.), but the tragedy takes backseat the both Daisy's and the other characters' knack for reinvention of themselves when circumstances change. Both as a human story and as a parable for the countries in which the novel takes place (the U.S. and Canada), these reinventions work very well.

I was impressed enough by this book that I passed it on to my mother, and I will be on the lookout for more of Carol Shields' work. I'd definitely recommend it.(less)

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Dec 01, 2007 Trish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this quite some time ago, and could never think of an adequate review. It's simply a wonderful book. It follows in exquisite detail the life of Daisy Stone in ten chapters: Birth 1905, Childhood 1916, Marriage 1927, Love 1936, Motherhood 1947, Work 1955-1964, Sorrow 1965, Ease 1977, Illness and Decline 1985, Death. Daisy's life is ordinary but utterly absorbing; through the years, the reader almost slips inside her skin, sharing her experiences.

Quotable
A thought comes into her head: that...more

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Oct 01, 2007 Tulara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Leigh

The Stone Diaries tells the story of Daisy Goodwill - from the moment she is born to an unsuspecting mother, Mercy. Mercy was heavy and the year was 1905 - sexually backward in her marriage, Mercy was baking a desert for her husband who was due home from his job in the stone quarry. She died in childbirth and sets the stage for Daisy's life. Daisy is given to Mercy's best friend by Daisy's father - his grief is too much to bear. With the addition of someone special in her life, the neighbor gets...more

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Jun 11, 2007 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: grownupbooks

Pluck out any one person’s life for close examination, and you’ll find yourself with a whole pages of footnotes about others; an entire cast of secondary characters that influenced the path that the person takes (or doesn’t). This book traces the life of Daisy Goodwill (who narrates, an observer of her life), from her unexpected birth on her mother’s kitchen floor in 1905 through her death in the nineties. Her story unfolds like a kind of scrapbook of her existence, only she is the one behind th...more

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May 17, 2008 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1950-1999, book-club, literature-and-fiction

Like finding a shoebox in the attic.

Here is the life of Daisy presented mostly through narration, but buttressed by letters, tombstones, photographs (which occasionally contradict the narrative), words etched into a Victorian plate, a luncheon menu, Aunt Daisy's Lemon Pudding recipe, to-do lists, a list of books read and a sheet with every address Daisy lived.

People are introduced and explained, summed up, classified. I envy anyone able to boil down other people to an understandable core. Still...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, canada

It's ironic that I read this book while I was reading Sex and the City. The two novels are as disparate as different planets. One book is a about an ordinary housewife struggling with life's little trials, the other, a place peppered with big names and obscene money, fur coats and Lear jets.

Guess which one was better.

This book is phenomenal. It's probably the best book I've read in the last year. And it's funny to think about because there is no person, or plot twist, or moment that makes it m...more

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May 16, 2008 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read this novel around 1995 when I was in a book discussion group. I did like it a lot, thought it was a rich piece of literature. And it made me curious about other works of Carol Shields. So I've read a number of her works.
About a month ago, I decided to reread THE STONE DIARIES. Much of it I'd forgotten, and it was odd to read my occasional pencil-written comments; still, I found that I agreed with my "younger self" in many cases about passages I found meaningful. I highly recommend...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Simona rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Simona by: Brian Shipkin

A really good read: describes the life of a woman (Daisy) and her family from before she was born to after her death. Shields uses interesting narration and is gifted at playing around with time. With her non-linear style, you learn everything and more about the main character. However, you don't learn who the main character is for some time because of the detail Shields goes into for every character in the book. This is not a drawback, though. In fact, it's one of the book's major strengths.

Th...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Stuart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this is a terriffic novel. it is beautifully written and addresses some interesting ideas: the offhand catastrophes of everyday life; the way one person can casually devestate another without feeling a thing; the crime - and inevitability - of wasted time; the ability of women to suffer in silence to their dying breath; the impossibility of accurate autobiography; the sad ridiculousness of the idea that there is any justice to be had in this world.

the author treats her characters in this book a...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Andrea rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Forced to read this in my Canadian Lit post-1945 class, my mother rightly predicted that I would hate it. HATE. Magic realism on the prairies didn't work for me. Why? Because I'm from the Prairies. Full stop.

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Mar 30, 2009 Madeline rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-list

"My mother's name was Mercy Stone Goodwill. She was only thirty years old when she took sick, a boiling hot day, standing there in her back kitchen, making a Malvern pudding for her husband's supper. A cookery book lay open on the table: 'Take some slices of stale bread,' the recipe said, 'and one pint of currants; half a pint of raspberries; four ounces of sugar; some sweet cream if available.' Of course she's didvided the recipe in half, there being just the two of them, and what with the scar...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Antof9 rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2006-read, unfulfilling

Read this on a flight and then shortly thereafter used it to revive a bookring, so my review is abbreviated. And the notes I took on this are lame .... However, here's the review I wrote on BookCrossing, such as it is:

I loved this description: "This last year she has been in danger of becoming an eccentric or else one of those persons who does not bother to put a saucer under her cup."

LOL!

Unfortunately, I am having a hard time remembering much more of this book. I do remember feeling very very s...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Ursula rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, fiction

The Stone Diaries purports to be a biography/autobiography of Daisy Goodwill, and as such it begins slightly before her birth in 1905 and ends slightly after her death in the 1990s. The thing about Daisy, though, is that (with apologies for co-opting Gertrude Stein) there is no there there. She is adrift, lacking an inner life, detached from the world around her but seemingly not curious enough to spend much time trying to figure out why or how to remedy that.

The first few sections were interest...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Nranger7 rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I guess I cannot stand Pulitzer Prize winning books. I have yet to read one that I've enjoyed. I actually was disappointed that the author passed away simply because I couldn't tell her how much I disliked this book.

I'm guessing the changes from first person to third person were delibrate and artsy-fartsy, but I found it annoying. I barely got through the first chapter because I was sick and tired of the constant explanations of how the character of Mercy was a large woman. (I get it! She's fat...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Little rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm never quite sure what to think about books in which the narrator declares him or herself unreliable (Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye being the quintessential example of the unreliable narrator). And Daisy straight up says that she's unreliable on a couple of separate occasions. And most of the novel is written in third person by Daisy about herself. Or at least that's what she says. But some of the book isn't exactly Daisy's narration: parts are epistolary, some bits are just lists, s...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Lynne Colley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of my student's parents suggested I read this book wich won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1995. The opening sequence is a rather powerful one that you're not likely to forget. It describes the unusual birth of the main character, Daisy, whose life is told through the eyes of various characters in her life. Daisy herself narrates much of the first part of the story. The book is divided into ten chapters of Daisy's life from Birth, Childhood, and Marriage, through Ease, Illness and Decline...more One of my student's parents suggested I read this book wich won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1995. The opening sequence is a rather powerful one that you're not likely to forget. It describes the unusual birth of the main character, Daisy, whose life is told through the eyes of various characters in her life. Daisy herself narrates much of the first part of the story. The book is divided into ten chapters of Daisy's life from Birth, Childhood, and Marriage, through Ease, Illness and Decline, and then Death. The story takes place in Canada, but I don't think setting is critical to the plot. At first I was put off by the freqent change of narrator as the story progressed, then I began to admire the way Shields was able to manipulate the point of view without the reader becoming confused. You could tell how much time had passed by who was telling the story. None of the narrators repeat the same story; they each cause the story to move forward. There is a genealogy tree at the beginnig of the book that helps the reader keep track of how all the characters are related.

A feature of this book that I admired was the complex sentence structure of Shields' writing. With her multiple clause sentences, set off with parenthetical information in dashes, she could easily compete with the Victorian writers of the 19th century. A typical example of Shields' writing: "It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal--otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again--but the act of recording requires that she remove her gloves, rummage through her bag for her pen and for the notebook itself." (p. 151) Here's another packed sentence: "She understood that if she was going to hold on to her life at all, she would have to rescue it by a primary act of imagination, supplementing, modifying, summoning up the necessary connections, conjuring the pastoral or heroic or whatever, even dreaming a limestone tower into existence, getting the details wrong occasionally, exaggerating or lying outright, inventing letters or conversations of impossible gentility, or casting conjecture in a pretty light." (p. 76) Despite the change in narrators throughout the story, Shields maintains similar complex sentence structure for each voice throughout the novel. (less)

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Dec 27, 2012 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book, with all its perspectives and time shifts could be confusing, but it's not. Shields did a wonderful job of making clear which characters were which, who had which kind of personality, and what time the current chapter was focusing on.

One page (89) really stuck out to me and rang true to my experience:

'The real troubles in this world tend to settle on the misalignment between men and women--that's my opinion, my humble opinion, as I long ago learned to say. But how we do love to brus...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Mom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What an extraordinary and original novel! I was totally engrossed, feeling as if I'd found my great-grandmother's diary and a box of keepsakes -- letters from friends and family, old photos, ticket stubs and scribbled notes.

Daisy Goodwill was born in 1905 and lived until sometime in the 1990's. Her life is an everywoman's life: childhood, marriage, widowhood, remarriage, motherhood, brief career as a gardening columnist, widowhood, old age, death. The story is told in bits and pieces -- some ch...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Maryanne O'Hara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book after having spent many months in the hospital with a very ill child in 1995. We had literally been prisoners in a room on the 9th floor of Children's Hospital in Boston.

Our reprieve was spent on Martha's Vineyard, in July, and those two weeks were truly an idyll. The thing I remember most about that time was that I read The Stone Diaries. It was a slow, leisurely reading at State Beach, where the waters are fairly quiet, and I was so comfortably squashed into a beach chair, my...more

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Feb 03, 2012 Dawn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is book was good. It begins with a hugely fat woman whose loving husband is off at work when she begins to have major stomach pains. She collapses and the neighbor comes over just in time to see a baby pop out. The woman didn’t even know she was pregnant.
The main characters in this are simple but lovable. The husband of the above woman, Cuyler, is a quiet man who doesn’t understand why his wife died (in childbirth) and why she didn’t tell him she was pregnant. He thought it was an affront...more This is book was good. It begins with a hugely fat woman whose loving husband is off at work when she begins to have major stomach pains. She collapses and the neighbor comes over just in time to see a baby pop out. The woman didn’t even know she was pregnant.
The main characters in this are simple but lovable. The husband of the above woman, Cuyler, is a quiet man who doesn’t understand why his wife died (in childbirth) and why she didn’t tell him she was pregnant. He thought it was an affront. The next door neighbor, Clarentine, sees that Cuyler doesn’t know the first thing about fathering so she leaves him a note, takes her clothes and what money she has and the baby. She raises the baby, Daisy, writing letters to Cuyler to tell him how his little girl is. She is a strange woman.
The book moves very quickly. It’s Daisy’s entire life from birth to death in 361 pages. At times I wished she would slow down and tell me more. There were several chapters where I started to get settled in and really get to know the characters when she would jump another many years into the future. Because of this, I didn’t get a deep sense of anyone in the book. Even Daisy was a bit of a mystery because she didn’t take the time to explain herself always.
Also, the narrator is Daisy. I think. Although the narration is told in mostly third person, a few first persons just in there and make you think that it’s Daisy telling you her story. But I’m not sure why it’s like this. Possibly Daisy was embarrassed or unsure of her life so she wanted to tell her story as an outsider. Not get too close, that sort of thing.
There are several real photographs in the center of the book labeled as the characters in the book. I double-checked and saw that this is a fully fictional book and these people never existed. I’m not sure why these pictures were included. Possibly to just give you a sense of who the author wanted you to think they were. Possibly to show misinterpretations. For example, Daisy’s mother was described a extremely fat. You just picture this ginormous woman who is so fat her eyes are all squinty and then you get to the picture labeled with her name and see that she wasn’t so fat after all. Daisy never met her mother and probably just heard people talking of her and got it into her mind that she was much larger than she actually was. I’m not sure I liked the photographs. They didn’t add anything to the story in my mind. They were more confusing than anything.
I liked the way this was written. Other than the speed at which the story was told, the writing was easy to follow and held my attention. I liked hearing about all of the people and how they reacted to one another. Also, there were a few characters that you only met through letters and it was amazing the detail you got from these letters. One woman you could just see what type of woman she was (snooty and self-involved) just by the few letters she wrote. Very interesting.(less)

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Oct 22, 2011 Dianne rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, pulitzer-winners

I know this won't win me any friends among Canadian readers, but I don't like Carol Shields writing. Granted I've only read this one through to the end. A few years ago I started another one and didn't like it either so I quit about a quarter of the way in. I suspected at the time I was not a "good" reader and that her books were over my head. I've gained some "reader confidence" since then and learned that it's ok to not like certain styles of writing just on the basis of personal taste. Hence...more I know this won't win me any friends among Canadian readers, but I don't like Carol Shields writing. Granted I've only read this one through to the end. A few years ago I started another one and didn't like it either so I quit about a quarter of the way in. I suspected at the time I was not a "good" reader and that her books were over my head. I've gained some "reader confidence" since then and learned that it's ok to not like certain styles of writing just on the basis of personal taste. Hence the freedom I feel to hate Ulysses by James Joyce without guilt, but that's a whole other story.

This novel follows the life of Daisy Goodwill from her birth in her mother's kitchen in 1905 to her death in the 1990s. It wasn't an ordinary life, if there even is such a thing. She never knew the mother who died bringing her into the world. She was raised by a neighbour until circumstances changed, requiring Daisy to go home and live with her father. At that point she is eleven years old and she and her father are complete strangers to one another. Each chapter is titled for a specific stage of her life: Birth, Childhood, Marriage, Love, Motherhood, Work, Sorrow, Ease, Illness and Decline, and Death.

I found the gaps too long between some of the chapters. For example, the "Childhood" chapter ends in 1916, just as she reconnects with her father, then that chapter comes to an end and the next one "Marriage" begins with her as a bride-to-be at 22 years of age. I think gaps like that are what prevented me from arriving at a place where I would care about the characters and how things would turn out for them. The story itself is good and the writing as well, I just couldn't get invested in any of the people in the story.

I found some rather odd figures of speech in this book. They're in the right places and at the right times; my problem is that I don't understand them. There must have been fifty times throughout the book that I came to a metaphor and stopped, wondering what the heck did that mean. I love creativity, but I think this authour and I are on different wave lengths. I'll give you a few examples:

1. In talking about a professor she said "He rides straight up the walls of his sentences."
2. "For Abram Skutari......religion is an open window as well as the curtain with which he darkens the window"
3. "...the word 'woe' made them fall over laughing, such a blind little bug of a word"
4. "...if she says 'So you two gals are out on the town, huh?' then aunt Daisy will say, shaping her mouth into soft ovals of confederacy...."
5. "Vanity refuses to die, pushing the blandness of everyday life into little pleats, pockets, knobs of electric candy."

I could think through some of these and figure out what she might have meant, (the word "woe" is bug-like though I don't know how it's blind, and maybe I have some idea what "a soft oval of confederacy" looks like) but I can't come up with any connection between "the blandness of every day life" and "electric candy" (electric candy?). As something that should paint a clearer picture for the reader or help us understand a situation more easily, these metaphors and others in this book didn't work for me.

I don't know if I'll read anymore of Carol Shields' books or not. I think I'd like to try one more, but it's way down on my priority list now. I know that a lot of people love her writing so definitely give it a try. I didn't "get" her at all, but you might not have that problem. Would love to hear what you think.
(less)

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Jun 10, 2011 Gaye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can I say confused? I enjoyed the writing enormously. The prose was deep and meaning-filled...I'm just not sure I always got the meanings I was meant to. I loved so much of this book and then I would be oddly surprised and find that things weren't what I had thought they were. Symbolism was rife in the book and the tangents of sex were odd, random and so out of place. The pacing was all over the place – or maybe I was all over the place. I was at times eager to read on and at others wishing the...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Nicola rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, bookmooch

In The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields takes on the tricky task of making an ordinary, even boring, woman’s life story feel poignant and important. Surprisingly, she not only succeeds, she succeeds magnificently. (Give the woman a Pulitzer! …oh, wait.)

Stone is, at times, perfectly written, rife with beautiful, thoughtful observations about life. Shields imbues with significance tiny, everyday moments; makes banality into romance. Parts of the novel are truly breathtaking. It’s fair to say that the...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Shana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first took notice of this book when a local bookstore had it as their book club selection a few years ago. I have no idea when I actually got around to buying it, but I saw it used, probably at the Strand, and picked it up. Unfortunately, it languished on my shelves for some time because I have more than an entire bookshelf overflowing with books I've bought and not yet read. I finally started reading it about a week ago because my friend Ellen is working her way backward through the Pulitzer...more I first took notice of this book when a local bookstore had it as their book club selection a few years ago. I have no idea when I actually got around to buying it, but I saw it used, probably at the Strand, and picked it up. Unfortunately, it languished on my shelves for some time because I have more than an entire bookshelf overflowing with books I've bought and not yet read. I finally started reading it about a week ago because my friend Ellen is working her way backward through the Pulitzer Prize winners and recommended it to me and, just as importantly, because I couldn't find The Lacuna anywhere, an autographed copy of which I'd purchased for my mom and planned to give her as a gift. (And lest you think I'm a bad gift-giver because I'm going to read it before giving it to my mom, you should know that she likes it that way. She says that she enjoys reading my notes and underlines so much so that if I give her a new copy of a book I've read, I go through and recreate my underlining and notes in her copy.)

I still don't know why exactly my friend recommended it to me. Perhaps it was because the novel is about women's lives or because it deals with questions of what it means to be an author, both subjects I have academic and personal interests in. Maybe it is because of Daisy's fundamental loneliness and mixed-up family, two things I can identify with. Whatever it was, Ellen made a spot on recommendation. Though I wouldn't say that this book is going to be favorite of mine, it poses some fascinating questions about life and love and what means to be a writer. It presents us with the life of a rather ordinary woman and seems to say that even ordinary lives have a story as well as the odd extraordinary event. It also asks to think about the way stories are shaped, especially life stories, and by whom. It combines many genres and voices in a way that too few works do.

As I said, I'm not sure this book will make it to favorite status, but I was thinking about it even when I wasn't reading it, and I am thinking about still. It's the sort of book you reflect on, and the more you think about the novel and its questions, the more you like and appreciate it.(less)

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About Carol Shields

Carol Ann Shields was an American-born Canadian author. She is best known for her successful 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award. Her novel Swann won the Best Novel Arthur Ellis Award in 1988.

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“There are chapters in every life which are seldom read, and certainly not aloud.” — 19 people liked it

“Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.” — 14 people liked it

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