Tag Archives: Margaret Laurence

January 11, 2011 · 11:27 pm

The Diviners: Thanks, Margaret Laurence

     There are some things that enrich my life beyond all expectation or proportion: baths, bike rides, sex, and let me say it now: Margaret Laurence. I’ve long suspected she might be my favourite author (despite my discomfort with A Jest of God, I loved the book; The Stone Angel is near perfect in its characterization of Hagar), but on (re)reading The Diviners I’m ready to settle the matter: Margaret Laurence is my favourite.

I don’t mean to suggest she’s the best author out there (let’s leave conversations of ‘best’ to another day), but when reading her books I feel uncanny feelings. I feel like maybe my fears and hopes and expectations for life have been somehow borrowed from a Laurence novel; put another way, I wonder whether Laurence doesn’t anticipate and – perfectly – describe my feelings through her beautiful and flawed protagonists.

You’re thinking, yes, but in A Jest of God, Rachel is nothing but a simpering pathetic woman who longs for sexual realization, freedom and above all the “strength of conviction,” and in The Diviners Morag seems to embody this very strength (often describing her own strength, vivid in her eyes, and making difficult decisions that no doubt call upon this certain kind of strength). I do wonder though whether Morag’s strength isn’t a kind of yearning too, a recognition of “what means ‘strength of conviction’” and a realization that she doesn’t quite have it (though Christie does, and Jules, too). Maybe I most identify with and admire this yearning, and this imitable belief that you might – but haven’t yet – take what you believe you deserve, or brave enough to be the person you believe yourself to be. Admire yes, but find heart-breaking, too. The recognition that sometimes/often women do not find the strength of their conviction, do not find their strength at all. So when I find myself crying (sobbing) at the end of another Laurence novel, I say thanks to Laurence: thanks for recognizing in me (and presumably in countless others) the yearning and the nascent strength and for giving us characters who both do and do not meet their own expectations.

(If you haven’t yet read anything by Laurence I demand that you go out and do so now. Even if you are not a young woman. Or an artist. Or a mother or father. Or a… She’ll still shine a light into your soul, heart, mind  , a light into you. Read. Oh, read.)

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Filed under 100 Books of 2011, Canadian Literature, Erin's Favourite Books, Fiction, Prize Winner

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November 10, 2010 · 1:23 pm

A Jest of God: Best Worst Mother

I love Margaret Laurence. (I know I’m supposed to feel some ambivalence about her because she’s sometimes racist, and maybe classist, but for what it’s worth, I don’t care. Sometimes I wonder whether the politics of a writer  can be left aside when considering the merits of the writing. We’ve been talking in class about this idea: whether because an author does terrible things in their work/public life, whether we then need to dismiss their writing because of their unsavory personal story. We concluded in class that, no, you can appreciate the writing while holding the author accountable for their public actions/beliefs. I don’t know if it’s the same when an author writes about their unsavoury ideas, but does so in a beautiful and compelling way.)

Not a problem in “Jest of God,” though. Margaret Laurence is paying attention to the mother-daughter relationship and the power a mother has over a daughter. Our protagonist, Rachel Cameron, is perhaps more anxious than I am (and that’s saying something these days) and her narrative reads painfully as we experience with her her (almost) never-ending monologues of self-doubt, anxiety and self-loathing. Her mother is such a horrible, horrible mother. And Rachel knows it! And the mother does, too! And the novel is more about how the two of them figure out how to make their relationship work. Sort of. It’s also about Rachel figuring out how to be in her own skin without feeling like her skin is crawling.

I appreciate the book for its merits: beautifully plotted, rich character development, haunting narrative voice. I can’t say I enjoyed it though, if only because Rachel’s anxiety was portrayed so well – and her narrative voice captivates that anxiety so well – that I found reading the novel more anxiety producing than relaxing. So I’d suggest this book only so long as you’re reading it safely on a beach somewhere and not, for instance, trying to get your own life sorted.

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