The Stone Angel in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 27, 2011 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: death, literary-fiction, family, women-writers, canadian

No one can like Hagar Shipley, mainly because the moment you begin to she offers up another one of her crusty, unreasonable tirades and you think better of it. But, despite her self-sabotaging lack of compassion and understanding, you want to like her because you cannot help feeling sorry for her. If only…

The stone angel is a crumbling edifice erected to the memory of Hagar’s mother, who died as Hagar was born. It is, perhaps, a symbol for all that could have been, or a symbol for how useless me No one can like Hagar Shipley, mainly because the moment you begin to she offers up another one of her crusty, unreasonable tirades and you think better of it. But, despite her self-sabotaging lack of compassion and understanding, you want to like her because you cannot help feeling sorry for her. If only…

The stone angel is a crumbling edifice erected to the memory of Hagar’s mother, who died as Hagar was born. It is, perhaps, a symbol for all that could have been, or a symbol for how useless memorials are if they are replacements for lives joyfully led.

Into the white Wachakwa valley, then past the dump grounds and the cemetery on the hill. Peering, I could see on the hill brow the marble angel, sightlessly guarding the gardens of snow, the empty places and the deep-lying dead.

Margaret Laurence seems to me to sum up Hagar with one sentence somewhere deep into this character study.

When did I ever speak the heart’s truth?

And the answer, of course, is “never”. Hagar never speaks her heart to others and she never allows herself to hear from her heart either. When it wants to send her in a direction that would ease both her life and that of those close to her, she refuses an interview, she pushes it down. She is never content with what she has, nor does she ever know what she pursues. Her luck is bad, but it is mostly of her own making.

When we meet Hagar, it is already too late. She is old. She cannot change much. But, she is beyond stubborn in persisting that she will change nothing.

I can’t change what’s happened to me in my life, or make what’s not occurred take place. But I can’t say I like it, or accept it, or believe it’s for the best. I don’t and never shall, not even if I’m damned for it.

I initially read this book when I was in my thirties. I remember that I liked it, but I suspect I could not relate to it on the level that I did this time. After all, I am not so young and time is a factor for me now, just as it is for Hagar. I have not done everything right, but I am very glad I do not have the weight of Hagar’s burden to carry. I wish her peace. I wish us all peace, for we are all afflicted with at least one of Hagar’s thoughts.

Hard to imagine a world and I not in it. Will everything stop when I do? Stupid old baggage, who do you think you are? Hagar. There’s no one like me in this world. ...more

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Nov 13, 2022 Chrissie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2022-read, legimus, medical, relationships, canada, swedish-narration, series, life-stages, fiction, classics

The three books of the Manawaka Sequence by Margaret Laurence are all set in or around the fictional prairie town Manawaka, based on the author’s hometown Neepawa, Manitoba, Ontario. The times are hard. It is the interwar years of droughts, the Crash and the Depression. The time and the place are the same, but each book zooms in on different characters. In The Stone Angel the ninety-year-old Hagar Shipley and her closest family take center stage. Hagar is stubborn, outspoken and peevish in manne ...more

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May 25, 2015 Catherine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-literature

Absolutely wonderful! Will be adding a review later.

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Mar 30, 2024 Linda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"Now I am rampant with memory. I don't often indulge in this, or not so very often, anyway. Some people will tell you that the old live in the past--that's nonsense. Each day, so worthless really, has a rarity for me lately. I could put it in a vase and admire it, like the first dandelions, and we would forget their weediness and marvel that they were there at all. But one dissembles, usually, for the sake of such people as Marvin, who is somehow comforted by the picture of old ladies feeding li "Now I am rampant with memory. I don't often indulge in this, or not so very often, anyway. Some people will tell you that the old live in the past--that's nonsense. Each day, so worthless really, has a rarity for me lately. I could put it in a vase and admire it, like the first dandelions, and we would forget their weediness and marvel that they were there at all. But one dissembles, usually, for the sake of such people as Marvin, who is somehow comforted by the picture of old ladies feeding like docile rabbits on the lettuce leaves of other times, other manners. How unfair I am. Well, why not? To carp like this--it's my only enjoyment, that and the cigarettes, a habit I acquired only ten years ago, out of boredom."

Hagar Shipley is the 90 year old maddening, often rude, sharp tongued narrator who looks back on her life as she fights off her son's and daughter-in-law's attempts to move her to a nursing home. She simultaneously conducts internal and external versions of conversations with her family, and then reprimands herself for being unkind when she isn't actually feeling that way. But she can't help herself. She is feisty and combative, and is making a final stand to assert her independence as she witnesses her bodily and mental controls slip away. You have to admire her fierceness.

Laurence skillfully weaves a dual narrative of the past and present day Hagar, and the transitions between them are seamless. The narrator looks back on her childhood, a difficult marriage, and the loss of her husband and son on the Manitoba prairie. Old age is a tough topic, and it was especially so in 1964 when the novel was written. It may not be a book for the young, but, man, does it pack a wallop for everybody else.

At turns funny and horrifying, but always riveting, I couldn't believe I had never heard of this title. Canadian writers have struggled for a long time to be taken seriously--it wasn't really until Margaret Atwood came on the scene (and even she had to fight for recognition) that people began to take notice, and The Stone Angel deserves to be noticed.

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