Virago Modern Classics discussion

Who wants to read The Diviners by Margaret Laurence? This is our buddy-read in August 2025.

If you have read it already, or you are reading it at another (later) time - write here what you think about the book too.

[Please keep in mind to hide spoilers in spoiler brackets.]

I have started this, and am about two-thirds through. I'll just give my general impression now, and then discuss specifics as and when others join in.

Of the four Manawaka novels this is the most polished and I can see why it is a favourite. The Stone Angel and Hagar still however, have my heart.
Both The Diviners and The Stone Angel have a long timeline and have the history and attachment to heritage. There is a feeling of belonging to places, even if people can't or won't go back to them they carry them in their head.
As with all the books Laurence's descriptions of the landscape are vivid and draw you into the places. You can feel the restriction of small town living and the almost taste the London fog.
Looking forward to seeing how the book resolves.

Hi Sonia, Yes, I will also join in - maybe next week, because I will read The Vet's Daughter - first.

I have read this before, and I think all of the other books in the Manawaka series - but quite some time ago - so I am looking forward to a reintroduction to Hagar.

The one I have read multiple times is A Jest of God - it's a cruel story, but it certainly gives an insight into those small and isolated prairie towns - I think the date is late 50s, maybe early 60s.

I'm looking forward to your comments and insights Sonia, and I hope there will be some other keen readers with us :)

Finished it. Enjoyed it and gave it 5 🌟. Will defer comments until others read it.

I've just finished The Vet's Daughter - which is wonderful!

And I will start in the next day or so with Diviners. Happy to hear you've given it the 5 stars Sonia :)

For anyone that hasn't read the previous books in the Manawaka sequence I think you can read them out of order. There are a few minor characters that pop up, and it is nice to see these to find out a little more about them, but they are not influential to the story and would not spoil the other books.

I have just started it.

Started also - and I remember reading this first chapter multiple times - in the past. That list of photos - is just heavy weather - the idea that photos only represent one moment of the past - and clearly Morag as a child has spun stories about her parents - idealising them - and now as an adult - 47 she knows that it is impossible to discern between "real" actual moments in the past and the ideas she has invented - about herself and her dead parents. (I'm not saying the inventing is a bad thing - it was surely done out of necessity - a way of coping with their loss).

Laurence is a heavy-weight - it's that Scottish ancestry.

I suppose she is making the point that the story she is telling now - to herself is also limited - in that most of it is made up.

And in the now of the story Morag is aware that she doesn't know what her daughter is thinking - can only surmise her daughter's reasons for leaving - or the time before - that was different to now - or was it/is it? This concept of how much we live in our head - and writers even more so - recording their thoughts and re-organising them into the written word. This endless gap between what happens in a moment - and what we remember or record of it - never matches those constant ticking moments.

That is why she describes herself looking out at the river - or sitting at her table. It's nice, but also slow. It's a big book - and right at the beginning Laurence slows us right down - deliberately.

Sometimes I hate this authorial control - defying our expectation of what a novel should be - deciding/ controlling how we will read what she decides to give us - making us very much aware of that - dependence. I sort of loathe her already.

I've just discovered this title on my shelves.

I'll try to get to it but I'll be much later than the rest of you!

Hi Carol - after finishing The Vet's Daughter I wanted to take a little Comyns segue - and finish A Touch of Mistletoe. So, Diviners is going to be read slowly - it's a big book - and the author has already "told us" - to read slowly. And that's what I'm going to do. I have read it before, so I'm very curious as to what I will remember - and how I will see things differently.

I'm always surprised with re-reads - that I remember so much - I often feel as I am re-reading that I have forgotten very little - and then I am quite surprised at little details that I hadn't paid attention to before - and those details change the nuance of what I have understood - in the past.

It really exposes me - actually -and that is very interesting. I know that my reading mind - is much less re-active as I get older. I have a broader perspective on how more of the characters will react - more of a broader understanding of their reactions. And also I think I'm more likely to pause and think - ah I see what she means - rather than take just the first, perhaps more obvious interpretation.

Who is reading the novel for the first time; and who is doing a re-read? I think Sonia has stated it is a re-read for her. It would certainly be interesting for me to hear how her past experience compares with her current reading experience?

For me it is a first read, having previously read the other four. I read A Bird in the House back in the 90s, and have no recollection of the stories and the other books last year and this year.

I didn't like it as much as the previous parts of the series that I have read, but it was a good novel.

Mela wrote: "I didn't like it as much as the previous parts of the series that I have read, but it was a good novel."

I think that it was more polished, than A Jest of God and Fire-Dwellers, but it wasn't more enjoyable. Laurence packed a lot, maybe too much into it. The Stone Angel is still my favourite, Hagar is a character that has stuck with me.
I liked how The Diviners returned to one of the themes of The Stone Angel with looking back to where your ancestors came from and the sense of belonging to a place and how it forms you even if you no longer live there.
I am pleased that we read Laurence’s Manawaka novels together, thank you Mela for sticking with me.

Sonia wrote: "...I am pleased that we read Laurence’s Manawaka novels together, thank you Mela for sticking with me."

It was my pleasure.

Have you read her collection of short stories: A Bird in the House or The Tomorrow-Tamer?

I'm finding Diviners hard - it's very academic and dry. I've read it before - all the details are crystal clear - but it's not enjoyable. I'm almost certain it was a university read - and hard-work then also.

Sorry if this comment is in the wrong place, wasn’t sure where to put it!
I don’t know how many of you have Kindles but the latest VMC Fish Tales by Nettie Jones <\b> is on sale at 99p for this month only on Amazon (under Kindle deals).

Mela wrote: "Sonia wrote: "...I am pleased that we read Laurence’s Manawaka novels together, thank you Mela for sticking with me."

It was my pleasure.

Have you read her collection of short stories: [book:A Bi..."
I read A Bird in the House a long time ago and have no recollection of the stories. I think I still have my copy. Not read the other, I see it is on the Internet Archive, so may give it a read sometime.

Hi Petra - is Fish Tales good? I also saw your nominations for October - they also look super interesting.

Petra wrote: "Sorry if this comment is in the wrong place, wasn’t sure where to put it!
I don’t know how many of you have Kindles but the latest VMC Fish Tales by Nettie Jones is on sale at 99p for this month ..."

Thanks. I have bought it ;-)

I have just created a thread for such cases: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

& I am not going to get to this book this month.

I have a very busy month in September, but hope I will get to it then!

Really looking forward to reading everyone's comments. :)