Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For this first episode of 2024 we are joined by the chair of Virago Press, Lennie Goodings to discuss a novel by her fellow Canadian, Margaret Laurence. First published in 1964, The Stone Angel is a landmark in modern Canadian fiction. The narrator is the unforgettable Hagar Shipley, a spiky, sharp-tongued, proud and profane ninety-year-old who is trying to resist her family’s attempts to transfer her into a nursing home. This battle is interwoven with memories of her long and difficult life, much of it spent in the Manitoban prairie town of Manawaka, a place closely based on Laurence’s own home town of Neepawa and which would provide the setting for three more novels and a collection of stories. We discuss the book’s place in the Canadian pantheon and speculate on why it hasn’t become and established classic outside Canada (it is no longer in print with Virago). We also discover some unexpected coincidences among Margaret Laurence’s neighbours during the years she lived in England in the late sixties and early seventies. This is a book that deserves to find many more new readers. * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It started with a rusty bike. I was clearing out the garage and I found my old one that I hadn't ridden for years.
0:07.0	So I searched how to fix up a bike on Tik-Tock.
0:10.0	I found loads of videos on there, like how to fix a chain, change the brakes and mend a puncture.
0:16.3	That led me to a video about local bike routes around Manchester. Turns out there's a nice one that goes past work, so I started cycling in.
0:24.0	Now it's only me that's a bit rusty.
0:27.0	It starts on Tik-Tock.
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0:40.0	Maybe this is catching up with creative friends, experimenting with a new look or trying out a new recipe.
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0:57.0	Embracing the icy crisp winter air, warming your hands with a Starbucks,
1:04.7	wrapping up in snugly layers upon layers.
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1:18.8	whatever era you're in find your perfect order in store on Starbucks delivers and the Starbucks UK app, subject to availability while stocks last. The Hello and welcome to Backlisted, a podcast which gives new life to old books.
1:57.0	Today you find us in a prairie town in the Canadian province of Manitoba in the late 1890s.
2:03.2	We're on the edge of the town dump, a place of sulfurous fumes,
2:07.4	discarded food and shattered furniture.
2:09.6	It's a hot day in July and a group of teenage girls are tiptoeing around the edge of the pit.
	...

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