The Stone Diaries is broken up into 10 chapters, each corresponding with a portion of Daisy Goodwill's life. The first begins in 1905, the year of her birth, and continues through ~1995, the year of her death. Most of the chapters are narrated from a 3rd person perspective, but by Daisy herself, except for a few that are composed entirely of letters and newspaper clippings.
I loved this book as soon as I began. We begin by learning about Daisy's parents at the time of her birth, who are both dynamic and interesting characters. I did have a problem with the constant descriptions of how fat Daisy's mom was, only to flip through to the middle of the book, see a picture of the woman and realize that she was really only about 20 pounds overweight. This was in direct contradiction (in my opinion) of the way she was described, which included a detailed description of her husband, 'falling into' her 'folds of flesh'. She was also supposed to be so fat that she when she gave birth she, nor her husband, had any idea that she was even pregnant.
As the story progressed I started to get confused. As Daisy, the protag and narrator, grew older and started contemplating her youth and her first marriage, some of the things she was talking about didn't happen, or happened differently. At first I thought I simply wasn't remembering things correctly. As I went on though, I realized that the story was simply written from her point of view as she aged. The older she got, the more warped her memories were and the more some details were completely forgotten while others were exacerbated.
When I finished this book I was left feeling completely satisfied. This was partially a result of the fact that it began the day she was born and ended the day she died and thus everything was completed resolved by the end. However, it was also partially due to Carol Shields' ability to tell a compelling story.
The only problem I had came with some perspective issues. As I mentioned, most of the book was told from a 3rd person perspective, but was narrated by Daisy herself. However, occasionally she would slip in some parenthetical information in the 1st person. I found this to be distracting and unnecessary.
I realize I've left out almost all description of the plot. While there is nothing particularly compelling or interesting in the plotline (girl grows up, marries boy, boy dies, marries other boy, has children, other boy dies, works for newspaper, etc.) the lack of fresh plot ideas doesn't take away from the beauty of this book. For me, it was enough to spend a few days with an average woman and view her entire life through her eyes.
All in all, I'd rate this an 8/10. I read this because it's one of the Pulitzers I hadn't read yet, and one of the interesting things about this particular book as it relates to the other Pulitzers is that it's the first one that is really primarily geared toward a female audience.
"The odd thing about the pictures that fly into Daisy Goodwill's head is that she is always alone. There are voices that reach her from a distance; there are shadows and suggestions - but still she is alone. And we require, it seems, in our moments of courage or shame, at least one witness, but Mrs. Fleet has not had this privilege. This is what breaks her heart. What she can't bear. Even now, eighty years old." Carol Shields - The Stone Diaries
YTD:
Books read - 1
Pages read - 361
Currently reading - The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
No comments:
Post a Comment