I loved this book, I thought that it was a very laid back, modern novel that a lot of us could relate to. I think one major theme that prevails throughout the novel is family, and Morag's quest for a real family. Throughout this story Morag is constantly reminded how she did not have a 'normal' upbringing. She struggles with the fact that she did not have realy parents who took care of her they way her peers had been taken care of. In the Halls of Sion section, Morag meets Ella Gerson. She is invited to her house and meets her mother and sisters. Morag is overcome with grief. "Morag has never known anything like this kind of house before. Its warmth is sometimes very much harder to take than any harshness could be, because it breaks her up and she considers it a disgrace to cry in front of anybody. When she finally admits this, out of necessity, the girls leave her tactfully alone. No so Mrs. Garson." (p 205)This quote shows Morag's deep inner sadness when she sees what it would have been like to have a mother and a family. She is ashamed of her untraditional upbringing that she had no choice in the matter. When Morag meets Brooke and they kiss for the first time, Brooke wonders why he had done this because she was no young, but Morag assures him that she is not because of her past. " She would like to tell Brooke everything, to make sure. Clowny Macpherson. Piper Gunn and the Bitch Duchess. Gunner Gunn and the War. The snapshots. Christie ranting the Logans' war cry, the pathetic motto and crest. The Nuisance Grounds. Prin, so long ago. The Valley- The Tonnerre Shack. No. No.. . He would never consider marrying anyone like her. If he knew where she had come from." (pg 213) Morag is ashamed of her past and the fact that she had no 'real' family. She is scared that if Brooke really found out about her, he would never give her a chance. Morag's lack of traditional parental love has greatly affected her life. Throughout the story, because of the death of her parents, she bases much of her decisions on this. For example when Skinner is dying and he does not want Pique to know, Morag sees herself in this situation and does not know how to react because she does not want her daughter to feel the pain she did.

I really enjoyed this book, one of the best I’ve read so far in this class, actually in awhile. It was extremely captivating and once I got started, I could not stop reading. One of the major themes , which we touched on a little in class today, is the theme of gender and race. On page 344 (my pages are different in my edition), Pique has a hard time at school due to being at McConnell’s Landing. Pique wants to drop out of school because of the torment she gets from other kids and teachers alike. One said, “Aw Come on, don’t give me that shit—you know halfbreed girls can’t wait to get fucked by any guy who comes along”. Metis, or mixed race Canadians were of a separate race and people. Its “old patterns” as Morag puts it. In England, Pique was accepted because of the diversity and being amongst writers, like her mother. Coming to McConnell’s Landing, she was an outcast. She was known as the dirty half breed living with a crazy woman who wrote books, living in the middle of nowhere. This was a time when people were defining who a Canadian was. The role of women in The Diviners was unconventional, unordinary. We often see Morag giving into the temptation of men, out of desperation or the feeling of having someone there, caring. Morag married Brooke who treated her like a child. He talked down to her. He calls her “little one” and “darling, dear”, “kid” all degrogetory terms that put her below him, as if she was something he owned, or had to nurse. On page 210, Morag finally stands up for it saying, “Little one. Brooke, I am twenty-eight years old, and I am five feet eight inches tall, which has always seemed too bloody Christly tall to me but there it is, and by judas priest and all the sodden saints in fucking Beulah Land, I am stuck with it and I do not mind like I did once, in fact the goddamn reverse if you really want to know, for I’ve gone against it long enough, and I’m no actress at hear, then, and that’s the everlasting Christly truth of it.” Brooke fails to understand, thinking when he calls her “little one” he is only showing his affection towards her. He likes that she has no past, that she is a nobody. She is pure to him, entirely his. Morag is trying to find herself, her identity but likes the touch of man that can overpower her. It was all about Brooke and what he needed from Morag, “chained forever to that image of yourself which he must have and which must forever be distorted.” (page 211). I think its interesting what Brooke expects from Morag and his interpretation of how a husband and wife should behave toward each other, while looking at the way in which Morag longs to need someone, anything really. Her past, not having parents and living with Christie and Prin, gave her the feeling of being alone and unsure of herself.

I think that the title "The Diviners" highlights the importance of spirituality and water to the novel. The one chapter first and last sections are named for water, and they reference each other. Morag returns to reflecting on the river at the end of the novel, in fact, she's there for the entire "present" while she remembers the stories of her past. On the second page Morag talks to herself, in the first italics of the book, saying "I used to think words could do anything. Magic. Sorcery. Even miracle. But no, only occasionally." The "occasionally" negates the "no". Perhaps she feels that she has done magic, but can't anymore, she has lost her ability to do magic. That explains why, at the end, we feel that she's done and find the end of the novel to be resolved. In "The Diviners", (the section) her magic has followed a path parallel to Royland's. When she learns from Royland on the second-to-last page of the novel that he has lost his gift, she interprets the loss as "the gift, or portion of grace, or whatever it was, was finally withdrawn, to be given to someone else." She expresses some sorrow, but Royland isn't too torn up about it, so she isn't either. He had a gift, used it while he could, and now that he can't he isn't lamenting a loss. Morag feels approximately the same, but on the same page, says "At least Royland knew he had been a true diviner. There were the wells, proof positive...Morag's magic tricks were of a different order. She would never know whether they actually worked or not, or to what extent." She's aware of the parallel, aware that she is as done as Royland is. Although she still doubts if she ever had a gift, the reader does not. Her story that we read, even if it's not the same one the character of Morag is writing, touches on magic.

A theme that I kept thinking of while reading The Diviners was not just family, but more about having a sense of identity and what your family life can do to your knowledge of who you are. I know I personally derive a lot of my identity from my family life, our heritage, where they all live and just what it was like for me growing up. I cannot even imagine losing my parents at a young age and being given to another family, not even my own, to be raised for the rest of my life. That would be enough to rock anyone's idea of who they are. There is a time in the beginning of the book when Morag is talking to Skinner at the nuisance grounds and he says she is visiting her father's workplace. Morag yells "My family is named Gunn, see? And you better not forget it" (82). She doesn't want to identify herself with Christie or Prinn and the Logan name. Everyone she knows thinks of them as her parents, but she is reasonably still clinging to her biological parents in their death. This confusion, about who her family is, is something she has to deal with all while growing up. A moment that is truly touching is when Christie is on his death bed and Morag goes to see him and says "Christie- I used to fight with you a lot, Christie, but you've been a father to me" and to which he responds "Well- I'm blessed" (420). It is a tender father daughter moment and I imagine it must have given her some security even in Christie's death to know that he loved her and felt blessed to have her in his life. To know that even though her birth father died she wasn't without one all that time. Like her childhood wasn't conventional in terms of relationships, it seems like no relationships she had after that were either, but in each one she had to figure out how to make it work for herself and how to fit in.

Margarte Laurence's novel, The Diviners, was a very interesting novel to me. I really enjoyed it. There were several themes that were present throughout the novel. One very relevent theme was the idea of identity. It is something that Morag sturggles with throughout the whole book. Morag lives her life by her own rules because she learned at a young age that the situation she was forced into did not make her popular or well liked. To combat the social isolation, she tries to drop her family, the only identity that she is left with when her parents die. She feels a deep love for Prin and Christie because they have cared for her like nobody else she has ever know, but she refuses to aknowledge it because of the social status Christie and Prin hold within the town. Loving them openly makes Morag's life a little bit worse with her peers. A good example of this is on page 132 when Morag is parked with Julie and Julie's boyfriend, watching the people of the town. Christie runs into two men better of financially than himself and they begin to talk to him about Christie's job and it's potential future. They are talking down to him and Morag wants to be with him and at the same time refuses to stand up for him. She would give anything if he would just stop talking. "Morag stifles a laugh. But wants to cry. Want's to go out and be there with Christie. Also wants Christie not to be there, just not be there at all, and if she had a loaded gun in her hands this very second, would take careful aim and shoot in in the throat." (132) Morag's desire for an identity but her refusal to accept the identity life has handed her leaves Morag feeling lost and lonely. Then Morag finds Brooke and she feels loved and safe. And yet, it is still an example of Morag trying to distance herself from Christie and Prin, telling Brooke that she has no past. She still fears rejection based on Christie and Prin's social standing in Manawaka. She fears Brooke will not love her if he knows that she was the adopted daughter of a garbage man and an overweight woman; if he knows that she was ridiculed and unaccepted by her peers he will also push her away and feel as those in Manawaka felt about her. She tried to begin to tell Brooke about her previous life but ends up saying, "anything else -- Manawaka and that -- it's over. It doesn't exist. It's unimportant." (215) Morag continues to reject her Manawaka life because of the hardships she experienced there. The ironic thing it how she ends up feeling the most connected with Jules, another person from Manawaka. Her life revolves around Manawaka and she has no control over it. This book was interesting and I really enjoyed reading it.

The Diviners is definitely unlike any other book I have read. The way in which memories are utilized to tell background and history, rather than Morag telling it in first person, is probably one of the most interesting techniques Laurence could have used. The book is loaded with various themes, including metafiction, memory and the power of myths, but it also holds other significant meanings.

An additional theme that I found prevalent in this novel is the improvement and progression of relationships. Morag has shaky relationships with Christie, Skinner, and Pique at different times of her life, but she eventually learns to accept each for who they are and grows stronger with them. For instance, when Morag is young she despises Christie and is ashamed of his actions, especially in public. When Morag goes to the Nuisance Grounds alone and happens to run into Skinner, Christie shows up shortly after. Christie makes a comment about how the garbage can tell fortunes, and Skinner laughs at him. “Morag hates Christie,” the memory reads, “Maybe he will fall down, right now, this second, with a heart attack.” To wish a heart attack on anyone is harsh, and for Morag to think of Christie dying is quite hurtful. However, when Morag is grown up, her relationship with Christie improves, and on his deathbed Morag tells him that despite their differences, she viewed him as her father.

Another theme that I noticed while reading was the reference to birds, in particular, swallows. Morag constantly notices them migrating or flying away. On page 198 it states, “Morag looked out the window and observed that the first of the swallow children had taken off…she kept on looking.” Then, Morag ponders how she has always viewed the world anthropomorphically as she makes up a conversation that she imagines the birds would have. Morag often thinks of hypothetical situations and she spends a lot of time talking to herself because she is alone so frequently. I thought that the focus on birds may be an indicator of her desire to fly away to another place and be free and less solitary in her thoughts.

One of the most intriguing themes that I found in The Diviners was that of sexuality. In particular, the conventional role of women as meek and subordinate in romantic or sexual relationships, and the issues that arose with either embracing or rejecting those conventions.

As we see again and again in the text, Morag struggles to forge a sexual identity for herself, and this tension appears in many dimensions of her character. She realizes she has deviated from the conventional role when, in the middle chapter 5, she intimates her independence: "Oh Ella, I do. I want to be able to talk to the boys the way they want to be talked to. Only I can't seem to get the trick of it." Morag represents a strong female who, by rejecting the sexual status quo, now views it with a passionate objectivity. What for many women is simply their sexual nature appears to Morag a "trick". She wishes both to retain her identity, and feel the companionship that she sees among so many of her peers.

Other women, on the other hand, and particularly minor female characters, seem to fall much more within the confines of conventional romance. In that same chapter, we have the example of Morag's landlady Mrs. Crawley, a woman bound by both her Catholic faith and her marriage. Mrs. Crawley confesses her renunciation of her will when she confides to Morag "but all the same, I sometimes think - well, you know - if I'd known before I was married what I know now, I'd have had some fun, eh? Not that we do anything to prevent God's Will, of course. We're expecting again, did I mention[...]". This is a perfect example of a woman who, unlike Morag, has forsaken her own desires for a conventional relationship. Devoid of her own sexual principles, she sacrifices her body and her volition to God via her husband. Morag reacts to this with repulsion, calling Mrs. Crawley "defeated" by her station.

These are only two points along a broad spectrum in The Diviners; Morag being much more on the side of independence or opposition to sexual convention, and Mrs. Crawley being wholly on the side of the norm. Other women stand at very different points along this spectrum, and they lend a great deal of vibrancy to the text.

This is a great book. I really enjoyed reading it. I think a main theme in the novel is identity and struggling to grasp and be comfortable with one's self. Morag constantly felt the need to justify her self by searching for her parent's past because she was not who Christie and Prin were. Morag's need to go to Sutherland is in reality a search for who she is. She's procrastinated on making this journey and knows that,"[S]he is afraid that she will be disappointed, that there will not, after all, be any relations. She is afraid that she will feel nothing and that nothing will be explained to her," (393). So in a sense, she sort of knows that she's searching for something she already has a firm understanding of. Morag just needs to accept that Christis helped shape her, that he is the reason Morag can write and tell stories. Morag was not formed by Scotland, but by Christie. Once she accepts this, she finally seems to feel at peace with herself.

Another way in which Morag peruses a search for her identity is while she is with Brooke. Brooke wants Morag to fit this mold of perfection. He likes the idea that she doesn't have a past. Really, she won't share it with him because she's embarrassed. This is a sure sign that she is lost in the sham that is she and Brooke's life. When she and Brooke are having sex for the first time, "[F]or one unbelievable and appalling second, Morag is suddenly homesick for Manawaka," (218). She is intimate with Brooke for the first time and thinking about home. I find that to be a startling moment of foreshadow. Brooke doesn't care to know about her past, who she really is, and Morag allows herself to deny her past, but can only do it for so long before she can't take it anymore.

Thank god for running into Jules. He is part of her, part of her past and part of who she is because they were the outsiders at school together. They had in incredibly simple understanding and respect for one another that ran deep into their childhoods. While Morag and Jules live together, after she leaves Brooke, she is comfortable. Her life with Brooke was high class and comfortable in the sense that Morag had all the amenities she could ever want, but with Jules, they're living in a one room apartment and there is nothing appealing about it. Yet, She feels safe and secure and at ease because she is free from denying her true self (her heritage).

I really enjoyed reading The Diviners. As we talked about in class, I thought it was really great how the story/stories were organized and told. I enjoyed Morag's remembering and trying to place it all together; allowing her subjective reality to question the potential objective reality. I enjoyed traveling back in time with the characters and as the novel progressed so did the characters.

We have already talked about most of the themes that I caught onto throughout this book. My favorite theme is the act of re-membering memories. It's always fascinating to share a memory that you hold onto and to find that 95% of what you thought was happening wasn't, at least for a different person. Memories are our own individual stories and it's interesting to tap into all of the options. Two of my favorite passages are " I don't even know how much of that memory really happened and how much of it I embroidered later on. I seem to remember it just like that, and yet, each time I think of it, are there new or different details? "(26) also "I remember their deaths but not their lives. Yet they're inside me, flowing unknown in my blood and moving unrecognized in my skull" (27). I really love how she questions her memory. It makes the story that much more fantastic when the character can step aside and leave room for doubt, question and wondering.

This may seem odd, but another thing I noticed periodically throughout the book is that Morag hid her emotions and tears. Every time she is about to cry she locks herself in a bathroom, hidden from the world, hidden from herself. "Morag bolts like a shot elk to the Ladies' Powder Room, upstairs. Locks herself in the john" (165). "on the night train to Everywhere. Only Morag Gunn, swifting into life. Then-- panic. Alone in the coach, Morag Gunn, erstwhile of Manawaka, prudently goes into the john before she will allow herself to cry... She can bear anything, she knows, really, but not for the people to see" (190). Lastly, "Down to the girls' john. Locks herself in a cubicle. What a terrible world it would be without lockable johns." (136). I know it's strange that I picked that up out of this entire book but I think that is shows something about her characters struggle with emotions and the search to put some pieces together so that she can grow.

I really enjoyed this book because of the way Margaret Lawerence uses memory. She connects to the reader by incorporating photographs and going from the present to the past. The way that Morg uses her re-memory is important because she pieces together the events as she sees them. Our own perspectives, when rememebering something, are often different from someone who is remembering the same thing. I believe Morg starts to realize this at the end.
A theme that was consistent throughout the book was the river. The river played an important role because it not only began the story, but also ended the story. In the begining of the story the river represents this movement and becomes the river of now and then. "The River flowed both ways. The current moved from north to south, but the wind usually came from the south, rippling the bronze-green water in the opposite direction" (pg. 11). This symbolizes Morg's memory as she constantly struggles with her past.
"The waters flowed from north to south, and the current was visible, but now a south wind was blowing, ruffling the water in the opposite direction, so that the river, as so often here, seemed to be flowing both ways (pg 477). Here Morg comes to terms with her past and is no longer searching. In the begining Morg doubts herself and now towards the end she finally makes peace with herself and the conclusion of her life.

The Diviners was without a doubt one of the best novels I have ever read. It was something about Lawrence’s view of life that struck me as, well, beautiful. I guess the simplest way of putting it would be to say; Lawrence glamorized a difficult yet semi-normal lifestyle.
One theme that stuck out was this role of a super independent woman. Lawrence definitely showed this through Morag, and her whole story, raising Pique on her own, but also through the character Fan. Instead of being picked up by a man, it is evident that Fan picks up the man instead. “And here is Fan, getting more than she wants. But not really. Fan has set it up for herself as well, in some way or other, unacknowledged.” (Lawrence 339) I really liked Fan because just by living with her, some of her confidence rubbed off on Morag, or rather reaffirmed Morag’s confidence.
Another theme, which was there, but kind of on the backburner, was that of finding ones’ self. Morag expressed her fear of Pique leaving at the beginning of the book. Morag new that she had to find out who she was, because Morag left her home to do the same thing, nonetheless Morag constantly worried about Pique. Upon return, after Pique and Morag catch up, and Morag meets the (new) Dan, Pique informs Morag that she might go out west again. This time Morag, seems to come to terms with her daughter’s need for leaving. “What of Pique? She was not settled here. Maybe never would be.” (Lawrence 436)

I have to agree that identity is one of the most powerful themes of this novel, but I think it's relationship to the idea of "rejection" is interesting. There are so many instances in the book where ideals and people are rejected.
Because Morag was separated from her parents at such a young age, she rejects her feelings of family-pride. She tries to be a mother and instill family values in Pique, which is shown when Pique returns after her travels, but her strong rejection of self confuses the process. On page 258 she tries to encourage Pique but her constant doubt and rejection of her own sense of place only allow her to think out-loud in a way. "Morag had perhaps not been talking about Pique but about herself. She must not do that." Then after giving her more advice about what to do about Gord, Morag reflects to Pique thoughtfully "...having often used this advice (unsuccessfully) on herself."

Morag is unexpectedly strong, which comes through after Christie dies. Her confused however always seems to out way her happiness. When she meets Brooke and is finally "happy", or at least content, she becomes caught up in playing the "housewife" and rejects the confidence she had when she was in her teens. For example when she remembers being with Prin in church and feeling she had a "goddamn good" figure.
Even in the end, by the time Morag has constructed a better idea of who she is supposed to be, it is through rejecting one of her idols. She talks to Catherine Parr Traill in imaginary conversations and respects and ponders how she successfully lived in the wilderness; how a woman could always be "going and doing." Traills words in her writing of, "in cases of emergency, it is folly...to sit down to bewail..in terror. it is better to be up and doing." Morag looks to these as a life-guide line. Further, she feels guilt and self-loathing for being so empty and unmotivated. But in the end she rejects even these rooted ideas, saying "I'm about to quit worrying about not being either an old or a new pioneer." Which for Morag, was probably necessary for her to actually form a new identity, a real identity, that could be justified by looking back on her life.

I really enjoyed this book and its view on remembering memories. I think the river perfectly discribes this act of recalling events from the past. Another main theme of "The Diviners" is the discovery of self through expression, whether it be writing for Morag or songwriting for Pique. Morag spends the majority of the novel dealing with different struggles such as Pique's departure and return and writer's block. For Morag she discovers and rediscovers her true character through writing. "I've got my work to take my mind off my life. At forty-seven that's not such a terrible state of affairs. If I hadn't been a writer, I might've been a first-rate mess at this point. Don't knock the trade," (12) says Morag. The fact that she acts as the narrator of this novel allows the reader to see this discovery first-hand.
Later in the novel when Pique and Morag have reunited Pique speaks about the her departure and search for self. In this search she visits her father, a songwriter. "'My dad gave me some songs,' Pique said. 'That was the best thing he gave me.'... 'I never thought he would actually teach them to me,'... 'He thought it would be the same if you listened to a record and picked up anybody else's song that way. I couldn't explain.'". For Pique this discover of her father and his music helped her greatly on her own road to discovery.

The themes of metafiction, memory, and the power of myth are all very prevalent throughout the novel, The Diviners. These main themes tie into many of the smaller themes in the book. Another major theme in the Diviners is the power marginality and inclusion play within the human psyche. Human beings suffer often from loneliness, and the feeling of being placed in the margins of life. Sometimes they try to eliminate those characteristics of themselves, which they think are causing this loneliness. They long for inclusion. Morag demonstrates this trait throughout her entire life. She professes no interest in being apart of society but secretly wishes for this inclusion with all her being. She admits, “I envy girls like Susie Trevor so much that I damn near hate them. I want o be glamorous and adored and get married and have kids. I still try to kid myself that I don’t want that. But I do. I want all that. All I want is everything” (182). Morag doesn’t want to be marginalized within society. She pretends she chooses the separation from society because she does not know how to be apart of it. As a child she is often ashamed of Sandy because of the negative connotation of his profession within society. She alienates Sandy physically and psychologically in her attempts to thwart loneliness and gain inclusion in society. She makes sure never to be seen with him. After leaving home, she refuses to acknowledge her past. When she meets Brooke she tells him that she does not have a past. Throughout the course of life though Morag begins to realize that despite her constant efforts to escape Christie and Manawaka, they both laid at the root of her person, goading her on relentlessly toward her fate. She has adopted many of Christie’s speech styles and phrasing. She even finds herself weaving myths for her child like Christie did for her. Morag realizes that “her quest for islands had ended some time ago, and her need to make pilgrimages had led her back here” (357) Morag sees that she is not an island and can never become one. She is forever tied to her roots, which define her in many ways. She tries to share this with her daughter Pique’s boyfriend saying, “ ‘you can change a whole lot. But you can’t throw him away entirely. He and a lot of others are there. Here.’ Morag reached out and touched the vein on Dan’s wrist” (354).

Unfortunately, one cannot ever truly wipe away the past. One can obscure it, paint it a different a color, but to obliterate it completely is a futile effort. Another theme presented in The Diviners is the willingness of human beings to sacrifice portions of their identity in order to meet the desires of others. Morag’s relationship with Brooke illustrates this point. She wants love badly and when she meets Brooke she sees an opportunity to dispel her loneliness through union to him. Even before their relationship begins, Morag vows to sacrifice anything and everything for the opportunity to be with Brooke. After realizing his romantic feelings for her, Morag vows, “to not be separated from him. She will not be able to bear the pain. She is all at once without shame of any kind, totally unscrupulous in what she would do, totally vulnerable. She will do whatever he wants her to do” (192). Human beings often sacrifice themselves to fit the needs and desires of others. The weight of Brooke’s expectations weighs heavily upon Morag. She begins to spin her identity to resemble what she feels Brooke wants in a wife. She keeps her appearance refined, her waist slender, and her past to herself. But this charade can only be kept up for so long. Prin’s death makes these feelings start to surface. Morag “is dressed in a fairly pricey cotton dress and light blue summer coat, her hair is short and swept back and upwards. At this moment she hates it all this external self who is at such variance with whatever or whoever remains inside the glossy painted shell. If anything remains” (248). Morag realized that all of her pretenses do not change what lies beneath: her true feelings and disposition. After ending things with Brooke, she muses “we needed to play each other’s game… we were living each other’s fantasy” (165). In her quest for love and acceptance Morag continuously sacrificed pieces of her identity. What she did not realize is that acceptance can only be truly achieved by understanding someone for all they are and still desiring them. This is illustrated in her relationship with Ella. Together they are themselves completely with no false pretenses or efforts to be something they are not. They achieve a true close bond as a result.
Another important theme is the paralyzing quality of the unknown. Fear of what is uncertain often immobilizes human beings so that they are unable to act or make the right decisions. Fear of inadequacy colors many of the characters in the Diviners, especially Morag. She is perpetually afraid of the unknown future and whether she will measure up to her expectations in it. While at Ella’s home she receives a makeover. When looking in the mirror she breaks down crying hysterically. She wonders, “What the hell is she crying about? Because she fears she can’t carry through with the New Her and because in some ways she doesn’t want to … because she wants her own child and doesn’t believe she will ever have one? Because she wants to write a masterpiece and doesn’t believe she will ever write anything, which will even see the light of day? Because life is bloody terrifying, is why” (184). Morag has all these expectations for what she wants to be and the fear that she will be inadequate paralyzes her. Morag realizes that her loneliness don’t not come from actually being physically alone but “it is the sense of being downgraded, devaluaded, undesirable” (185). Morag’s fear of the unknown future plagues every decision she makes. Even moving becomes a daunting task. When she wants to move out of her first place of residence while in Toronto, “she is afraid to do in case it should turn out to be (a) no better; (b) worse; (c) actually herself that is insufficiently alluring” (188). Instead of embracing the change she desires Morag stays stationary, afraid that she will make her life worse. This fear also characterizes Morag’s ability to stay with Brooke for so long. She was afraid that she would be alone and be worse off without him. To her pretending to be happy with Brooke was a better alternative to being undeniably miserable and alone. After leaving Brooke she tells Jules, “I’ve known for a long time something had to give, somewhere but I was too scared to do anything about it. I still am. But I’ve got to” (270). The death of Royland’s wife also reflects the terrifying and paralyzing element of the unknown. Royland’s wife leaves him because of his atrocious behavior. He finds her, apologizes profusely, and promises great change in his behavior. Royland’s wife agrees to go back with him, but ends up killing herself before she leaves. Royland tells Morag, “I set eyes on her in the morgue. Drowned herself. I guess she couldn’t put her hand to any easier way that moment. She was scared of me. Scared to come back. Scared not to come back. Didn’t believe I’d change any” (241). Royland’s wife preferred death then to live life in fear of the mistakes she could make. Throughout the Diviners fear plays a significant role in determining the characters actions and interactions.

I have found one of The Diviners’ major themes to be that of memory and the heightened understanding that it lends to identity and reality. Not only do the novel’s opening words relay the notion of memory’s dual-motion fluidity, but the entire Part 1 is titled “The River of Now and Then” (the river being the main symbol for memory), and the title of the book itself, “The Diviners”, stands in reference to the hunt for water buried deep beneath the ground, or, as we may infer from the symbolic connection between memory and the river, the hunt for memory and the truth or lack of that is braided throughout it.

In the opening chapter, Pique leaves a note for her mom, Morag, noting, “If Gord phones, tell him I’ve drowned and gone floating down the river crowned with algae and dead minnows, like Ophelia” (11). Here we are introduced to the danger of the river to overwhelm an individual, and to carry them this way and that, as it does Morag throughout the novel—in many passages it is evident that her memories, real and fabricated alike, consume her self. Nonetheless we see Morag’s deep affection for the river, “Now [Morag] perceived river-slaying as something worse. No wonder her children considered themselves children of the apocalypse” (12). The notion of life without the river, without memory to indulge oneself in, presents itself as apocalyptic for Morag. We also see her adoration for memory reflected in the fact that she can’t seem to throw out old photographs lying around her house—images of the past that provide clear reference to days gone by, and she can’t let them out of her life. She is also described as a fish on page 15, “…still a little fish, connected unthinkingly with life, held to existence by a single thread”. Thus she is an organism that lives in water, our symbol for memory, so we can infer that her character indulges in the past and her memories of it to a great extent.

We see real development of this meme later on when Morag discusses memory and its implications towards reality: “Whatever is happening to Pique is not what I think is happening, whatever that may be. What happened to me wasn’t what anyone else thought was happening, and maybe not even what I thought was happening at the time. A popular misconception is that we can’t change the past—everyone is constantly changing their own past, recalling it, revisiting it. What really happened? A meaningless question. But one I keep trying to answer, knowing there is no answer” (70). Here, our protagonist reveals the multiplicity of perception and memory’s ability to remold reality. By doing so, she brings both reality and the reality of the past into question. If no one can correctly identify what is happening to Pique or what happened to Morag, then how are we to know what is really happening or what really happened? Morag presents reality as evasive, and the reality of the past as even more so—for not only was it evasive at the time that it occurred, but since then its subject has had the opportunity to remold it as they see fit, its status as “true” is double weakened.

One of the other major themes of The Diviners, that I don’t think we addressed that much in class, is that of family. Throughout the novel the reader is presented with looks into several families who aren’t the prototypical nuclear family.

With few exceptions, such as A-Okay and Maudie, there aren’t many families that would be considered normal (The Skinners, the abusive neighbors to Morag, and even her own living situation come to mind). Even when Morag encounters a prototypical family in the form of her friend Ella’s, Morag is unable to handle it:

“Morag has never known anything like this kind of house before. It’s warmth is sometimes very much harder to take than any harshness could be, because it breaks her up and she considers it a disgrace to cry out in front of anybody”(201).

This inability to cope with a “normal” family almost certainly stems from the death of her parents and her upbringing by Prin and Christie. Her inexperience with a “normal” family could also be a reason why she is willing to accept the terms of her rather unorthodox relationship with Skinner. Additionally, her relationship with Dan Mcgrath comes to a halt when she realizes that she is harming an actual, normal family, in Scotland.

It is only on Christie’s deathbed that she is willing to accept not the normal life that she longed for with her parents, but rather what was with Prin and Christie:

“Christie- I used to fight a lot with you, Christie, but you’ve been my father to me.” “Well I’m blessed,” Christie Logan replies”(420).

Morag seems to realize that it doesn’t matter the make up of your family, as long as you are loved. It is this love that her relationship with Pique is centered upon.

This was a great book. Even though it was much longer than anything else that we read, it was a quick read and not hard to get through. I loved the strength and diversity of each character. I didn't feel as if any two characters were replicas of each other in overly noticeable ways. Although we talked about many key points of this novel, one that we didn't touch on much is individuality. Throughout the novel all of the characters were faced with many hardships one way or the other. For Christie it was the fact that he was the garbage man for the town. Although this was a looked down on job by many in the town, and both him and Morag got teased immensely for it, he never quit, but instead was happy about his life and his job. "You know how some have the gift of the second sight? Christie goes on. Well, it's the gift of the garbage-telling which I have myself, now. Watch this" (Laurence, 85). Even though Christie is given a lot of crap for his job, he is still able to look on the bright side of things and find the good in anything.

Another example of individuality is Skinner. He tries so hard from a young age to make something of himself when he comes from a family of hardships and has no help from them. The one heroic deed that I find exceptionally compelling is when he complies with Morag's wishes and gets her pregnant so that she could then have the one thing that she wanted the most. He told her that he would not be in the way, and that Morag could raise their child to her own standards. His only wish was to be able to see the child, Pique, a few times as she was growing up. Although this may seem weird and awful to some, I find it to be a romantically heroic deed. "Look, I didn't say before, but you don't want to get pregnant, do you? Because- Would you mind very much if i didn't do anything to try not to?...I don't mind, no" (Laurence, 301). From this example it can be seen that Skinner has Morag's best wishes at heart and would do anything for her, even if it is outside of societal norm. This was just another way for Skinner individuality to shine through.

One important theme that we see in The Diviners is, the inability of some of these characters to change their ways for the better. We see this particularly in the Logan family. Both Christie and Prin both seem to be very static in their ways. Indeed with Prin we see her change to an even more static character when she begins to become too overweight to go out anymore. "Prin Doesn't mean to be mean. She sits all afternoon in the squashy leather-seated easy chair in the kitchen, chewing, and then she looks and lo and behold no doughnuts are left." (42). Prin continues this behavior until she is no longer able to leave the house, and we as readers interestingly enough do not get a good idea of who Prin is throughout the novel. She is very static in the fact that she remains in the chair to the readers eye. Chrisite is the opposite of Prin in the fact that he remains very active and goes to work everyday, However it is with Christie that we see a different kind of static he will always be a garbageman and he has no desire to advance himself further he will remain forever static. "Some of them, because I take their muck for them, they think i'm muck. Well, I am muck, but so are they. Not a fathers son, not a man born of woman who is not muck in some part of his immortal soul, girl. That's what they don't know, the poor sods. When i carry away their refuse, I'm carrying off part of them, do you see?" (47). In a way Christie finds redemption in the fact that even though he is a garbage man he has the ability to carry off bits of people who think he is scum. It's his way of getting back at the society that has shunned him and prevented him from moving forward. However, he does not seem to mind the fact that he is a garbageman and will forever remain a garbageman.

Another significant theme in the novel is songs, and how the characters in the story interact with such songs. Songs not only help the characters define themselves, but also their connections to others, especially to their pasts. One example is where Pique is discussing the gifts from her father. “’My dad gave me some songs,’ Pique said. ‘That was the best thing he gave me.’” Then, “Hypocritical Morag. Jealous of the fact that he had that to give… But songs. And he had been singing them so long ago, long before everyone in sight began going around singing their own songs.” (Pg. 274) Later on in the novel, we see this connection to the past in Skinner’s singing of Jules Tonnerre, Louis Riel, and the Métis. The song has a significant resonance with Morag especially. “They are silent for a while. Morag wonders whether he has not, after all, sung it for her as much as for Pique. Pique likes the tune, and the strong simple rhythm, but otherwise it is lost on her. It is not lost on Morag. The echoes, and all the things he could never bring himself to say in ordinary speech, have found their way into the song.” (Pg. 405) These songs are far more than just songs – they are important connections, ones needing passing on, and they cannot be passed on as simply words on paper, but they instead need expressing through music.

Let me begin by saying that this book was amazing. I really enjoyed reading it and I loved the complexity of the characters and their relationships. Another theme in the book that I thought was really interesting was the role of family in a person's identity. We see Morag struggling throughout the whole book to find herself and her family. She struggles with what the word family means and how you define it. She comes to the realization that family isn't the cookie-cutter, mom, dad, 2.3 children, a dog and a white picket fence. She finds that her family is Christie and it always has been. She finds that family means love, support, and care; which Christie has always given her.

There are some interesting themes in this novel. I thought the parallel between the divining of Royland and the writing of Morag was a clever literary device. Royland searches for water. Morag searches for truth through writing. Royland knows when he is successful at his task, but for Morag, she can’t be sure how to define success. Royland’s powers fade with age. Morag must contemplate that her search will fade, but be carried on by other writers.