joannneuroth 's review for:

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

5.0

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This is a tangibly lovely novel. Morag Gunn, successful, published author, prompted by events and transitions in her Ottowa-based log home on a living river, remembers scenes from her childhood, hard-fought independence, chosen single-parenthood, moves to Vancouver and London, and her return “home” to the countryside she has come to love. The characters in her life are colorful, unpredictable, sassy and deep. She loves them and longs to not be alone. With them, though it’s not how she’d choose it, she’s very much not alone.

The "divining" of the title involves having the instinct to see treasure below the surface of things.  Not only Morag's neighbor (who actually dowses for water) but also her feisty adoptive father Christie has this skill -- she explicitly equates divining with Christie's vocation as town scavenger who feeds and scours the "Nuisance Grounds" town dump.  She's divining herself here.