The Stone Diaries

Barker is the eldest son of Clarentine and Magnus Flett. He grows up as the Goodwills’ neighbor, although he leaves for college before Daisy is born. He moves to Winnipeg, where he studies botany, and he is particularly obsessed with a flower called the lady-slipper, which he admires for “its folded silken parts and the pure, classic regenerative mechanics” (46). He is forced to give up this passion in 1905 when his mother, Clarentine, arrives with a newborn Daisy. In order to provide for them, he begins teaching botany at the college, which he resents. He describes himself as a serious man who prefers order in his life. He does not seek out relationships with women and instead sleeps with prostitutes when he feels lonely. His students think he is handsome yet forgetful and often speculate about why he is still a bachelor. When Daisy gets sick with the measles, he begins having sexual thoughts about her—even though she is 11—and he shamefully tries to ignore these feelings until she leaves with her father in 1916.

In 1936, Daisy travels to Ottawa, where Barker is now working, to visit. He has written to her and romanticized her all this time, often rehearsing what he would say to her. When she arrives, he simply says her name, and the narrative skips to their marriage that same summer; their small wedding takes place in city hall. With their three kids and large home in Ottawa, they become the picture of a normal, happy family.

However, in 1947, Barker is depressed because he is retiring soon and does not know what to do with his life now. He also laments his estrangement with his family: His father moved to Scotland, and his two brothers, Simon and Andrew, do not write often. In his retirement, Barker writes for the Recorder magazine, a horticultural journal, until his death in 1955 of a malignant brain tumor. In his last letter to Daisy, he professes his love for her and regrets not telling her more often.

Cuyler is Daisy’s father, who married her mother, Mercy, in 1903. Mercy was an orphan at the Stonewall orphanage, and Cuyler was the mason called on to fix the orphanage’s door. He loved Mercy wholeheartedly and feels betrayed that she did not tell him she was pregnant with Daisy, though it is implied that Mercy herself did not know because of her ill health. When Mercy dies and he sends Daisy away, he stays in Tyndall, Manitoba, to grieve; in his grief, being a stonecutter, he slowly builds a stone tower on Mercy’s grave. Soon this tower attracts tourists, and he gains a moderate amount of fame. During this time, he also becomes more spiritual. The stone tower becomes a way for him to express his spirituality and his devotion to Mercy, for “he has come to believe that the earth’s rough minerals are the signature of the spiritual, and as such can be assembled and shaped into praise and affirmation” (63).

When he moves to Indiana with Daisy, he becomes a well-spoken, confident, successful man and is unaffected by the market crash. He likes to travel and returns from Italy with a new wife named Maria. He retires to the Indiana countryside with Maria in 1947 and becomes obsessed with building a pyramid in his backyard. In 1955, he is working in his backyard when he feels lightheaded and lies down in the grass. He reflects on his life, unable to remember Mercy’s name, and decides to take down the pyramid. He dies there in his yard at 78 years old.

Magnus is Barker’s father and Clarentine’s husband. He immigrated to Canada from Scotland at age 19 and settled into the stonecutting business in Tyndall. After Daisy is born, Clarentine leaves Magnus because she claims she cannot forgive him for not giving her money for the dentist to fix an infected tooth. However, later Magnus denies this, saying he would have paid for her to go to the dentist, and he is confused as to why she left at all. He looks back on their marriage and cannot understand what he did wrong. Soon he begins reading Clarentine’s old romance novels, particularly Jane Eyre, and he imagines romantically calling her back to him. He looks at old photos that seem to him to prove her happiness.

In 1927 he moves back home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland and chooses to live a simple country life. In 1977, assuming that he is dead, Daisy and her niece, Victoria, travel to Scotland to visit his grave, but they discover that he is still alive at 115 years old. He is famous for his age and his ability to once have been able to recite the entirety of Jane Eyre from memory. He lives in an old age home, has almost no hearing, and can barely speak, but Daisy gets him to say her name and leaves satisfied with their encounter.