The Stone Angel

Ninety year old Hagar Shipley, intensely full of pride, is reflecting over her long life while clashing with her son and daughter in law, who are attempting to admit her into a nursing home. For anyone who has had to struggle with this issue, or for anyone approaching the time when this will become an issue, Margaret Laurence’s book is an eye-opening picture of old age. Narrated by Hagar herself, the author is pitch perfect as she describes Hagar’s life and her difficulty accepting the next phase.

“I am barely aware of the words that issue from my mouth. I am overcome with fear, the feeling one has when the ether mask goes on, when the mind cries out to the limbs, ‘flail against the thing,’ but the limbs are already touched show more with lethargy, bound and lost. Can they force me? If I fuss and fume, will they simply ask a brawny nurse to restrain me? Strap me into harness, will they? Make a madwoman of me? I fear this place exceedingly. I cannot even look. I don’t dare. Has it walls and windows, doors and closets, like a dwelling? Is it a mausoleum, and I, the Egyptian, mummified with pillows and my own flesh, through some oversight embalmed alive? There must be some mistake.” (Page 96)

The most interesting point of the book is the fact that the main character, Hagar, is so totally unlikable. Her life has been joyless and there are few people that she has helped or even cared about and it is now, at this point in her life, that she is beginning to realize it. Generally, when the character is unlikable, so is the book but that is not the case this time. Laurence’s writing is stunningly beautiful and the narrative flows exquisitely.

We follow Hagar as she follows through on her escape plan and we go back in time recalling when she was a child, when she first marries Bram Shipley (“In ten years he had changed, put away the laughter he once wore and replaced it with a shabbier garment.” Page 113) as Hagar dwells on her memories, which are all she has left.

That it took me this long to discover Margaret Laurence is fairly unbelievable. An accomplished writer who has been awarded Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award she wrote her last book in 1989. I will be looking for some of her other books for here is a phenomenal writer whose prose is worth seeking out. Highly recommended. show less

My, what a wise and wonderful novel. I'd always thought and said I'd read this around 13 years, but I don't think so. Must have been The Diviners. The Stone Angel to me is a miracle of economical character description, simple plotting, and a view of one life from early to "late" age. There's an instrumental by the Qubecois band Barde called Jenny's Travels or something that, to my ears, captures a person's life from cradle to grave; this is a book that does the same. And it does so without regret or anything but honesty, and the main character refuses to resort to praying for convenience, even near her apparent end. She just says if you're there, give me the go-ahead blessing or not. I am what I am. Also captured for me some beautiful show more prairie moods and smells without overly stating its case. show less

Why is it that those teaching high school and undergraduate English literature courses persist in assigning Margaret Laurence? Do they want to instil a lifetime aversion to her works?

Luckily for me, Can Lit was never on any curriculum in my studies. Reading The Stone Angel, I was really glad I hadn't read it earlier in life, as much of the novel would have escaped me. I would never have realized the sheer devastation of it all, and how deftly Laurence portrays it.

The very first sentence speaks of a stone angel high above the town, the monument young Hagar Currie's father had had erected to his wife after she died giving birth to Hagar. Thereafter, the angel is always described as marble. It is Hagar who is the woman of stone, unmoving show more and unable to see the devastation she wreaks around her. It was not until after her adult son's death that she finally realized it. The night my son died I was transformed to stone.

Like a stone angel, Hagar is unyielding. Yet at the same time she was so afraid of others in that "What will the neighbours think?" way. Like the angel, she is unseeing, not recognizing the need of others for love and approval. Her young son Marvin would linger at the kitchen door each evening with his refrain of "I've finished the chores", only to be shooed away. His younger brother John lied to her to please and deceive her, going so far as to invent respectable imaginary friends. Her husband Bram never heard an "I love you", and never knew how much she actually enjoyed sex with him.

The reader only gets to know Hagar through her own words. Now ninety and dementing, she is on the one hand an unreliable narrator, while at the same time completely credible as she reveals herself. Querulous, lacking in empathy, and very strong willed, she insists on remaining with her son and daughter-in-law when they themselves are in failing health.

Hospitalized after a defiant episode, Hagar, a non believer, found herself trapped into a visit from a minister. As he sang a hymn to her about rejoicing, the need to rejoice came to her as a revelation.When did I ever speak the heart's truth?
Pride was my wilderness and the demon that led me there was fear. I was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I carried my chains with me, and they spread out from me and shackled all I touched.

Still, nothing changed. There is no sappy ending. That is not Margaret Laurence's style. Hagar may have been granted a moment of insight, but she dismissed it immediately, afraid yet again to examine her life.

Laurence wrote The Stone Angel when she was in her mid thirties. It is an astonishing insight into a character decades older. She feared her publisher would not accept the novel; ninety year old unsympathetic protagonists are a hard sell.

Writing to her good friend Adele Wiseman, with her thoughts about her novel, she quoted Martin Luther: Here I stand; God help me, I can do no other.

She may have been thinking of herself, but she managed to sum up Hagar completely. show less

Laurence's acclaimed novel has some resemblances to Cather's My Mortal Enemy -- both protagonists have moved from prairie towns to cities, both defied their guardians to marry unsuitable matches and were disinherited, and both face the end of their lives with a certain amount of bitterness. But there the resemblances pretty much end. Where Cather's novella seemed truncated to me, The Stone Angel is ample and full of detailed description of indoor and outdoor spaces, both physical and psychological.

Hagar Shipley, the 90-year old protagonist/narrator of the novel, has shared her house with her 60-something son and daughter-in-law for 17 years, but caring for the increasingly needy old woman has become difficult and burdensome for them, show more and she resents their attitudes.

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 worthlesss really, has a rarity for me lately.... 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, who has lived a hard life of toil and carved out a space of self-sufficiency for herself, is proud and stiff, quick to speak her mind and slow to forgive. The novel is full of her memories of the people and places in her life as she tries to cope with her increasing debilitating and humiliating physical condition. This is a humbling novel for anyone who thinks they want to live on into old age. show less

This Canadian classic drew me right in. Hagar Shipley is a 90-something year old woman nearing the end of her life. She lives with her son, Marvin, and his wife Doris. As they age themselves and have a more difficult time caring for her, they begin to try to convince her to move to a nursing home. Hagar is adamantly opposed and takes drastic steps to avoid moving.

The book is told from Hagar's point of view and she reminisces about her life as a child, wife, and mother in rural Manawaka while also revealing how aging is affecting her, both physically and mentally. Reminisces isn't really the right word though. Her age and mental state means that often she almost relives some of these times. Hagar is pointed and direct, funny and show more unfiltered. I really liked her, even while seeing how difficult she would be to live with and care for.

The novel is written with skill, beauty, and insight. I loved it. show less

Hagar Shipley is 90 years old and has lived through great societal change, from pioneers on the prairies to the (then) modern times of the mid-20th century. Her body and mind are failing, but her spirit is unbroken. Indeed, she is almost a woman of stone: she had two sons, but one of them died, and this incident made her the hard-seeming woman she is today. Her body and mind are failing, and her son is reaching the limits of his ability to care for her. She fights the move to a nursing home, just as she fights her uncooperative physical self, and she drops in and out of her memories, looking back over her life and eventually coming to terms with some of it.

The story was well constructed and executed, with present tense being used for show more 90-year-old Hagar and the past tense for her memories. It is also well written, although it feels a bit “heavier” descriptively than other books I’ve read lately. (The only thing I could *really* have done without was references to Brampton Shipley’s manhood.)

This book resonated with me personally; my own grandmother is approaching her 90th birthday and her kids are having to make tough decisions about how best to look after her while maintaining her independence. Even though the story, or the present-day aspect of it anyway, is set 50 to 60 years ago, the challenge of how to care for an aging population is still sadly relevant, especially nowadays with COVID-19 and outbreaks in long-term care homes.

I would recommend this if you’re interested in CanLit by female authors. It might also make an interesting pairing with the Alice Munro story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”, which is also about the challenges of dealing with ageing (in that case, Alzheimer’s).

Postscript: the title and the first line definitely gave me Weeping Angel vibes. "Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand." USED TO?! That means someone blinked! show less

I read this for my Zoom book club in September, and thought it was just wonderful. Laurence builds a fantastically nuanced portrait of a prickly, complex woman and her long life, all done through very close first-person narrative, which is not easy. Totally engrossing book, although please remind me not to buy any more used mass market paperbacks—such tiny print! I'm getting old. And speaking of which, this is definitely not a book I would have appreciated in my 20s and 30s. It's such a bittersweet portrait of a smart, disappointed, self-sabotaging but well-intentioned person, and I don't think I would have had the same compassion for her when I was younger (which is all on me, not the writer or the story).