The character of Hagar ("stranger") from the Book of Genesis has retained a fascination for many readers over the millenia. In the Biblical story, Hagar is the servant of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Hagar becomes pregnant with Abraham's child, Ishmael, after Sarah herself is unable to conceive. Twice, before the birth of Ishmael and thereafter, Abraham sends Hagar, at Sarah's insistence into the desert to wander and die. Genesis 17 and 21. On both occasions, God rescues Hagar and promises that Ishmael will be the father of a great nation of warriors. Throughout the Biblical account, there is an enmity between Ishmael and his descendants and Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, and his descendants. African Americans frequently describe themselves as Hagar's children, for her character as a lonely outcast. For example, a famous early blues by W.C. Handy is titled "All Aunt Hagar's Children, in a recording here by Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy An extraordinary story by Edward P. Jones takes Handy's title and adds new dimensions to the Biblical tale, stressing themes of common humanity. All Aunt Hagar's Children

The renowned Canadian author Margaret Laurence's (1926 -- 1987) novel "The Stone Angel" (1964) adds its own layers to the story of Hagar. The story is set in Manawaka, a small fictitious prarie town in Manitoba, Canada and spans roughly the late 19th to mid-20th Century. The main character and narrator is a woman named Hagar Shipley, (born Hagar Currie.). She tells her story when she is a woman, terminally ill, in her 90s. Hagar tells the story of her old age with many flashbacks to and dreams of her long life.

Hagar feels herself an outcast, a loner, and independent, as her Biblical namesake. She is not an entirely likeable person but rather is tough, raw, judgmental, and cantankerous. She has been living for 17 years with her 65 year old son, Marvin and his wife Doris in a small home. At the age of about 80, Hagar took up cigarette smoking. She is demanding and makes life difficult for her son and his wife who themeselves are frail and getting on in years. Marvin and Doris try to persuade Hagar to move to a nursing home, but Hagar refuses and runs away.

Hagar is not an unreliable narrator, but she has blinkers in how she sees herself. Laurence presents her convincingly while also inviting the reader to come to his or her own understanding of Hagar. The story is taut, sharp, and sometimes told with Hagar's withering judgments on herself and others. I find the book secular in outlook although replete with Biblical allusions, including Hagar herself, other Scriptural stories, and the young minister of Marvin and Doris, Mr. Troy, who visits and tries to comfort Hagar at critical moments late in her life.

Hagar was the child of a self-made man, Currie, who owned a successful general store in early Manawaka. She has two brothers and a mother who died when Hagar was very young. We see in the book the deaths of these three men and Hagar's reactions and memories. Hagar's father sent her to the eastern part of Canada to a finishing school even though Hagar felt the money would be better spent by sending her brother to college. When she returns, her father tries to make Hagar a suitable match, but she is uninterested. Instead, she marries Bram Shipley, 14 years her senior. Bram is shunned in Manawaka. Her father refuses to see her after the marriage and cuts her out of his will. She truly becomes an outcast, as was the Biblical Hagar.

Bram's first wife died of natural causes. He lives on a run-down farm but has no interest in working the land. He is taciturn, crude, and vulgar. Hagar with her manners and education, seems swayed by the opinions of others about Bram, but, to her own surprise, she responds deeply to Bram sexually. Hagar ultimately has two children, John, who dies, and Marvin, with whom she lives. She leaves Bram but returns when he dies.

Hagar strives to be independent. She tends to blame others for her misfortunes, but she realizes that when she married Bram she knew much of what he was about. She valued Bram's crudeness, vulgarity, and sexuality. She remained ambivalent, and her pride, particularly, got in the way. She was unable to stand up for what she wanted, but adopted the view of Bram of the higher, more reputable citizens of Manawaka, particularly her father. When Bram dies, he is buried in a plot with Hagar's father and Shipley-Currie is inscribed on the grave. There is some belated reconciliation here, perhaps similar to that which might occur between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac.

When Mr. Troy, late in the book, sings Hagar a hymn about serving God "with mirth" and rejoicing, she has an epiphany of sorts. She says: (p. 292)

"Pride was my wilderness, and the demon that led me there was fear. I was alone, never anything else, and never free for I carried my chains within me, and they spread out and shackled all I touched. O my two, my dead. Dead by your own hands or by mine? Nothing can take away these years."

As with most people, Hagar straddles uneasily between her insight into herself and her ingrained habits and responses.

This is a thoughtful, well-written book about growing old and about the never ending task of coming to terms with oneself and, as Nietszsche might describe it, becoming who one is. The book reminded me of two other recent works I liked a great deal in which an elderly narrator reflects on the course of his or her earlier life. The first is "Veronica" by Mary Gaitskill, in which a middle-aged but terminally ill narrator gains peace with her earlier life of tawdry sex and sexual exploitation. Veronica The second novel is "So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. In this acclaimed novel, a narrator in his 70s revisits and tries to understand haunting events from his youth, including the death of his mother and a sensational adulterous affair and murder-suicide involving a young friend. So Long, See You Tomorrow These two books, and Laurence's, offer varying understandings of the relationship between old age and youth.

Robin Friedman

In her poignant portrayal of Hagar Shipley, Margaret Laurence captures the essence of our basic human struggle and fear: to find meaning in life.

I read "The Stone Angel" many years ago and remembered it differently than a recent reading revealed. Hagar, the protagonist was more bitter than I remembered her, seeming more of a cause than a victim of her unhappy life. She is a proud woman who never connected with her older brothers. Her mother died at her birth; the stone angel (a magnificent marble) was placed by Hagar's father on his wife's grave. The book begins by describing this Stone Angel who sits high above the town, but the angel appears blind due to the stonecutter's haste. I could see the theme of the book upon this second reading. Hagar is the stone angel, with all the faults that went into the creation of the actual Stone Angel. Her pride of being from "the town" prevents her from treating her out of town husband with respect or love. But she does do her duty, clean his farmhouse, have two boys. Because she did not ask her father if she could marry her husband, she alienates her father. She favors her second son, leaving her husband with her youngest son to work as a house cleaner when the boy is about 8. The trouble is that this favorite son loves his father and Hagar doesn't know this. She neglects her older son, and yet he is the one who loves her. She is very caustic, yet she LEARNS and regrets the mistakes she has made. She grows older and wiser, but it takes so long that she dies shortly after learning to loosen up. She becomes compassionate, yet is so used to being short and gruff with people that she has to battle herself to be able to show this. That she is able to be open at the end of her life is, I think, the message of the Stone Angel.

An exceptional read. I would recommend it to everyone of any age. I have shared this with friends who love a good book.

Such a beautiful book about pride and the problems it can bring. Very deep and powerful. Laurence really writes with powerful imagery and metaphors. I would recommend this book!

Margaret Laurence passed in 1987 at age 61, a relative youth compared to the protagonist of her novel The Stone Angel. In this illuminating work, she gives us ninety year old Hagar Shipley, described as a “handsome” woman. Hagar has never been beautiful, but her looks are memorable, finely hewn. She has also spent her life with fierce independence, never really giving herself to anyone—not her husband, not her sons, not her daughter-in-law. Because of her father’s lack of love for her and his stern parenting, she has never truly opened her heart, preferring to be totally self-sufficient. This is the character that Laurence gives us to tell a story of a life. Old and a bit dotty, Hagar remembers her life in vivid detail. We journey with her as a young girl who marries an older man, defying her father. When life deals her lemons, she leaves her husband to make her way. By the end of the novel, in slight and subtle ways, we see her transformation, what life has taught her. The Stone Angel is a remarkable achievement. With delicate wit and lovely prose, Laurence fashioned a beautiful work that explores old age and a life that was never quite lived. Would that Laurence were alive today, living and learning from Hagar.

The writing is excellent. Stunning book.