- Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc USA; Reissue edition (27 Mar 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 014023313X
- ISBN-13: 978-0140233131
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 986,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Stone Diaries (Telling Stories)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, captured in Daisy's vivacious yet reflective voice, has been winning over readers since its publication in 1995, when it won the Pulitzer Prize. After a youth marked by sudden death and loss, Daisy escapes into conventionality as a middle-class wife and mother. Years later she becomes a successful gardening columnist and experiences the kind of awakening that thousands of her contemporaries in mid-century yearned for but missed in alcoholism, marital infidelity and bridge clubs. The events of Daisy's life, however, are less compelling than her rich, vividly described inner life-- from her memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death. Shields' sensuous prose and her deft characterizations have made this, her sixth novel, her most successful yet.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Sunday Telegraph
‘I can think of few novels containing so much that is resonant and unforgettable.'
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a brillaint book I would recommend it to anyone who likes a story about real people and their emotions. One of the best things about this novel is that it follows the main character from her birth right through to her death ( not many books do this ! ) You will feel that you really know Daisy Goodwill by the end of the book.In my opinion better than Larry's party !
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If one were to rate this book for its imaginative usages of stone-based imagery, metaphors, similes, and geography, this book would be clearly a five-star effort. If a reader is looking for an imaginative variety of writing styles all in one book, this is also a five-star effort, using wonderfully easy phrases. On the other hand, if you want to feel deeply connected to a story and its characters, this may not the book for you.
The book's format is a pseudo-biography of a Canadian woman told through a series of vignettes about her life. These start with her birth in 1905, continue with her childhood in 1916, describe her first marriage in 1927, falling in love at 31 in 1936, raising her children in 1947, pursuing a career as a gardening columnist from 1955-1964, experiencing a set-back in 1965, living into retirement in 1977, having health reversals in 1985, and eventually passing on. The book comes equipped with a family tree and family photographs to complete the biographical feel.
You can think of this book also like a series of short stories. In fact, many will enjoy the book more that way than as a fictionalized biography. For example, the birth is very compelling. The section about her writing career is quite amusing and fun to read as you follow through a series of letters.
As much as I loved the stone references, to me they turned the book into self-satire so much at times that it created too much emotional distance from the book. If the references had been cut back by about 60 percent, I think they would have been brilliant. As it was, I was looking for one such reference on every page (almost like Where's Waldo?) and would break out into giggles when I found the next one even if the material was supposed to be sad.
Toward the book's end, the references abated but the story still didn't move me. Perhaps it was just that the writer's craft was so well done that its sparkling jewels outshone the content of the story by too wide a margin. There was a similar gap between the story (often far-fetched well beyond kidding around) and the characters, with the story being more interesting than the characters. Even though you often get internal dialogue, the book remains like something that you are watching from a disinterested distance rather than living within and feeling connected to.
My great grandmother, Edith Foster, was a lot like Daisy, and also was born in rural, central Canada. She lived until I was about 19, and I well remember her stories about life on the plains of Canada and immigrating to the United States. The Stone Diaries, even with its exaggerated elements, seemed pale compared to the real challenges of those days . . . which this book often omits.
The best part of Daisy's development as a character is the evolution of her confusion of fact and fantasy. At several points, you will feel like you can no longer trust your own mind and have a good sense of what that situation must be like. Nicely done!
After you enjoy the aspects of The Stone Diaries that appeal to you, I suggest that you assemble a brief autobiography that you can share with your children and grandchildren. They will probably enjoy the kinds of details this book focuses on, because they will reflect on their own origins in compelling ways.
See the past and present clearly!
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
... by my all-time favourite author. Carol Shields has a delicious way with words; her phrases are lush and the cadence of her writing is impecable. She, like Alice Munro, has a marvelous openness to everyday details, and she is able to highlight the smallest object or action and give it enormous meaning.
As a Canadian myself, I recognize the landscape (social and otherwise) painted here perhaps better than someone 'from away' might, but the book as a whole is a wonderful access point to understanding the inner workings of our culture. Daisy could, at times, be me; at other times she is my mother; and at others, my grandmother. She is also any number of other women that I know...
Reading clubs can have enormous fun playing with Shields' various modes of writing (try writing your own or your mother's story in one or more of these modes!). I would also recommend reading Shields' Larry's Party as a companion novel, as the two work complement each other spectacularly. As well, anyone who can should try to read Shields' several volumes of poetry, which are older and hard to find, but still well worth the effort.
As a Canadian myself, I recognize the landscape (social and otherwise) painted here perhaps better than someone 'from away' might, but the book as a whole is a wonderful access point to understanding the inner workings of our culture. Daisy could, at times, be me; at other times she is my mother; and at others, my grandmother. She is also any number of other women that I know...
Reading clubs can have enormous fun playing with Shields' various modes of writing (try writing your own or your mother's story in one or more of these modes!). I would also recommend reading Shields' Larry's Party as a companion novel, as the two work complement each other spectacularly. As well, anyone who can should try to read Shields' several volumes of poetry, which are older and hard to find, but still well worth the effort.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
carrying the torch forward
Carol Shields wrote something remarkable with this novel. It is an attempt to get in as much of a woman's life as possible, using different approaches in different sections which... Read more
Published 28 days ago by schumann_bg
... staring at the hard Florida light that creeps in between the slats...
This is an amazing book - a kind of hybrid - a fictional autobiography. The pretence is carried through even to the point of a number of photographs being included, supposedly of... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Eileen Shaw
Exceptional
Daisy Goodwill's life story supplemented by stories of friends and family. Spans late 19th Century and 20th Century, set largely in Canada and US. Read more
Published 4 months ago by JoTownhead
Well written but not revolutionary
A fictionalised autobiography of a life spanning most of the 20th Century, 'The Stone Diaries' is one of those books that manages to remain absorbing even though nothing... Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2009 by BookWorm
As much of a painting of a life as it is a novel
For me, this wonderful book was as much a painting as it was a book: Carol Shield's descriptions are so intense, so vivid and so dramatic that I could not help but visualise the... Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2009 by I. Holder
The Ultimate Book - Worthy of 6 stars!
The Stone Diaries is the biography of the fictional Daisy Goodwill. What makes Daisy Goodwill so remarkable is the fact she is so unremarkable. Read more
Published on 5 Aug 2007 by imla
Superb!
I really enjoyed this book. It tells the story of one woman's life from the beginning through to her death at the end of the twentieth century. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2005 by "emmavjones"
Loveless Connections from Stony Surroundings
If one were to rate this book for its imaginative usages of stone-based imagery, metaphors, similes, and geography, this book would be clearly a five-star effort. Read more
Published on 8 May 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Could Not Put it Down!
This was a great read. I dont agree with the other readers that you did not get to know Daisy. I felt at the end of the read that I knew her quite well. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2004
Hugely disappointing
Having bought this book some time ago, I was looking forward to reading it and, in fact, chose it as my local reading group selection. What a disappointment! Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2001
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