Take a photo of a barcode or cover
albatrossonhalfpointe 's review for:
The Diviners
by Margaret Laurence
"The culmination and completion of Margaret Laurence's celebrated Manawaka cycle, The Diviners is an epic novel. This is a powerful story of an independent woman who refuses to abandon her search for love. For Morag Gunn, growing up in a small Canadian prairie town is a toughening process - putting distance between herself and a world that wanted no part of her. But in time, the aloneness that had once been forced upon her becomes a precious right - relinquished only in her overwhelming need for love. Again and again, Morag is forced to test her strength against the world - and finally achieves the life she had determined would be hers."
This book took me a LONG time to get into at all. I considered many times putting it aside because the first part of it was so unbelievably boring. I decided to tough it out though, and eventually, it did start to hold at least some of my interest. I still didn't much care for the writing style, with the bouncing between present and flashbacks, but it was OK, I suppose. I don't really have much else to say about it, though. I read it, but it didn't enthrall me. Time to move on.
OK, I lied. I do have one other thing to say about this book. While the fact remains that I wasn't overly enamored with the way it was written, I can appreciate why it was considered such an important book when it was written. Morag is a woman who decides to have a baby, and decides to have it alone. She's just left her husband, and has no intention of either staying with the father she chooses for the baby or finding some other understanding man who will be a father to her child. She deliberately makes herself a single mother. Nowadays, there's nothing really shocking, or even particularly interesting, about that, but when it was written? Pretty much the only reason to be a single mother would be if your husband had died. And if you got pregnant out of wedlock, you certainly didn't keep the baby. Either you aborted in a dark corner with a coat hanger, or you went away somewhere, had the baby, and had it adopted. The idea of keeping it, raising it yourself, and making no apologies for the fact that its father has little or no place in your life? Unheard of. Unheard of to the point where Margaret Laurence apparently got death threats after publishing this book. People were so appalled by her wanton disregard for the family and all that, and it was just generally a big deal.
Plus, let's not forget that in addition to deliberately becoming a single mother, the father she chose for her child was a Métis - a halfbreed, to many of the people then. So really, the whole damn thing was just a giant scandal. So for that reason, I can see why it was important. Although I think we've moved past the *intense* taboos surrounding this stuff, so I'm not sure I would really still consider it all that important. Anyway.
This book took me a LONG time to get into at all. I considered many times putting it aside because the first part of it was so unbelievably boring. I decided to tough it out though, and eventually, it did start to hold at least some of my interest. I still didn't much care for the writing style, with the bouncing between present and flashbacks, but it was OK, I suppose. I don't really have much else to say about it, though. I read it, but it didn't enthrall me. Time to move on.
OK, I lied. I do have one other thing to say about this book. While the fact remains that I wasn't overly enamored with the way it was written, I can appreciate why it was considered such an important book when it was written. Morag is a woman who decides to have a baby, and decides to have it alone. She's just left her husband, and has no intention of either staying with the father she chooses for the baby or finding some other understanding man who will be a father to her child. She deliberately makes herself a single mother. Nowadays, there's nothing really shocking, or even particularly interesting, about that, but when it was written? Pretty much the only reason to be a single mother would be if your husband had died. And if you got pregnant out of wedlock, you certainly didn't keep the baby. Either you aborted in a dark corner with a coat hanger, or you went away somewhere, had the baby, and had it adopted. The idea of keeping it, raising it yourself, and making no apologies for the fact that its father has little or no place in your life? Unheard of. Unheard of to the point where Margaret Laurence apparently got death threats after publishing this book. People were so appalled by her wanton disregard for the family and all that, and it was just generally a big deal.
Plus, let's not forget that in addition to deliberately becoming a single mother, the father she chose for her child was a Métis - a halfbreed, to many of the people then. So really, the whole damn thing was just a giant scandal. So for that reason, I can see why it was important. Although I think we've moved past the *intense* taboos surrounding this stuff, so I'm not sure I would really still consider it all that important. Anyway.