MovieChat Forums > The Stone Angel (2008) Discussion > Have many Americans read The Stone Angel...

Have many Americans read The Stone Angel?

posted 16 years ago by Dr_J
2 replies | jump to latest

I ask this because I am in Canada, and we all had to read The Stone Angel for English class (I think it was Grade 13, but I can't quite remember now).

Whenever I see the trailer on TV, and how it's from the "International Best-seller" I have to wonder...

1) Is it a best-seller simply because every Canadian high school has to buy copies of the book for their Gr. 13 English classes?

2) Is it being called an "international" best-seller simply because of its best-seller status in Canada? (Which, to Americans, would make it "international")

So, apart from most Canadian high-schoolers, I'd just like to know if any people outside of Canada, where they may not have had to read the book, have actually read it.

My own opinion... I didn't like the book at all. My hunch is that the overwhelming majority of boys who read it hated it.

I seem to remember a class, when asked by my English teacher what's the first theme that comes to my mind if I were to write an essay about the book, my reply was: "I Hope I Never End Up Married To A Woman Like Hagar Shipley"

[–] dzavitz 16 years ago

I read The Stone Angel and loved it, but I was 30 and no one was forcing me to read it. I would never make a bunch of high schoolers read this book and expect them to appreciate it. The themes are dark and hard for a young person to relate to--especially when they have no choice but to read and write about it. I think when you're just at the beginning of adulthood with all of your choices ahead of you, it's very difficult to understand the point of view of someone near the end of life who has had to deal with the choices they made long ago.

By the way, I'm an American, and I think Margaret Laurence was a genius of a writer--but I wouldn't have thought so in high school.

[–] clueless_daisy 16 years ago

I'm fifteen and I read it. I wasn't forced to by school I just wanted to after I saw the movie trailer. I liked the book but I haven't seen the movie. And to help, no one I told about the book had ever even heard of it. Not even my grandmother who was an English teacher.