I LIED

I would like to apologise for lying during my publishers pitch. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I did not tell the whole truth. While the reasons to read this novel are to avoid the preventable hardships Hagar faced because of her personal flaws, because the first person account is very interesting, and because it makes you think about what you will be like when you get to that stage of the game, I do not recommend that you read this novel anytime soon.

I found the novel quite hard to connect with because the protagonist, Hagar Shipley, is a very annoying character. In the novel, she has only herself because her hubris and intense personality push others away. As the reader, I felt the same effect - it felt like she was isolating herself even from me. I felt no emotional connection to her, and sadly but truthfully, I did not really care what happened to her. While this is an interesting concept, it made it very hard for me to keep reading the novel. There were times where I thought I was going to put it down for good and simply pick a different book because I was so sick of her. Instead, I adopted a bit of her stubbornness and fought back against the toils of Margaret Laurence's classic novel.

I made it to the end only to discover that the last line is literally, "And then-". While I know this was meant to be dramatic, I was left with a feeling that I would label as a mixture of disbelief and sarcastic joy. Perhaps this novel would be better understood by someone older than I, who could better relate to the situations and characters in the novel and get more out of it than I did. On the other hand, maybe I am just an ignorant seventeen-year-old with bad literary taste and an under-appreciation for this 'timeless classic'. Who knows?