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agnestrooster's review against another edition
5.0
Fascinating story based on the life of Mary Foote. Interesting both historically, ethically and in a literary sense. I enjoyed it.
sol_blooms's review
5.0
Here is a book that will stick with me and continue to speak into the future. It is a story that has gotten under my skin, and seems personal, and has me pondering the trajectory of my own, yet unknown, Angle of Repose.
sasaha's review
5.0
This book took me forever to read, but I loved it. I loved the story of a strong woman finding her way in helping to settle the West. I also thought it was clever the way the author wrote as if he were undertaking genealogy work of his family. This is the first Stegner book I've read, and he does have a way with words. I look forward to reading more of his books some day-Recapitulation has been recommended to me by several people.
creekhiker's review
5.0
Reread for thesis. This book about ruined me because I can't fathom ever being able to write as well as Stegner.
nomadjg's review
3.0
While relating life in the West of the late 19th century with excellent description, engagement and research, Stegner also manages to tell the stories of three marriages from three different generations and how they survive or fail as a result of unrealized expectations in the context of differing social mores.
As a sidelight, I really enjoyed the voice of Susan Burling Ward's letter which told much of the story. Also, without making it obvious, Stegner showed the cultural diversity of the West adding in Mexican merchants and Chinese cooks like extras on a movie set which he employed to paint a fuller picture of the West as it was exploited to build the United States as we know it today.
As a sidelight, I really enjoyed the voice of Susan Burling Ward's letter which told much of the story. Also, without making it obvious, Stegner showed the cultural diversity of the West adding in Mexican merchants and Chinese cooks like extras on a movie set which he employed to paint a fuller picture of the West as it was exploited to build the United States as we know it today.
shekispeaks's review
4.0
Its a project book.
Good book to get a sense of the West - grand struggles, epic landscapes, hardships, manly ambition etc etc.
Story of a marriage, enjoyable but perhaps a bit dated.
A reminder that San Francisco area was never really the west, it was the civilized parts of the west.
Leadville Colorado / Boise Idaho on the other hand was the real west.
Its a weird thing but the white settler man of the 1890s was a weird beast, he wanted to be alone, he wanted to tame the wild, he wanted to homestead and make the world in his own. Are these urges natural? Was a time and place thing? Is it like people wanting to go to mars?
I suppose we owe them a debt to make the west livable, but do we really? In the end the west was primarily settled by the capitalists the syndicates and the governments. The prospectors (like the Oliver in this book) came and set the tone?
Go west young man to make your destiny, go west young woman to suffer hardships (back in the day)
Good book to get a sense of the West - grand struggles, epic landscapes, hardships, manly ambition etc etc.
Story of a marriage, enjoyable but perhaps a bit dated.
A reminder that San Francisco area was never really the west, it was the civilized parts of the west.
Leadville Colorado / Boise Idaho on the other hand was the real west.
Its a weird thing but the white settler man of the 1890s was a weird beast, he wanted to be alone, he wanted to tame the wild, he wanted to homestead and make the world in his own. Are these urges natural? Was a time and place thing? Is it like people wanting to go to mars?
I suppose we owe them a debt to make the west livable, but do we really? In the end the west was primarily settled by the capitalists the syndicates and the governments. The prospectors (like the Oliver in this book) came and set the tone?
Go west young man to make your destiny, go west young woman to suffer hardships (back in the day)
bydianarojas's review
5.0
I re-read this book every few years because I find something new in it each time. It all depends on my life journey -- I read this as a young woman and saw it one way. Then re-read it as a married woman, and saw it another way. Then as a mother, then in middle age. Every time I sigh. In a nutshell, it's a book about life: a married couple's move to settle in the West and how that experiential journey leaves -- both the westward migration and the their marriage -- causes the couple to reach their "angle of repose" (the steepest angle that stuff can be piled without slumping, but which leaves anything on the surface at risk of sliding). Told from the point of view of a grandson re-examining family history and through it, assessing his own life, the angle of repose reached is one where unhappiness and rancor reign.
I gift it often, and recommend it even more.
I gift it often, and recommend it even more.
cassiev1019's review
Abandoned halfway through. I really enjoyed the first third of the book, but then my interest waned during the Leadville years.
sue_miller's review
4.0
Considered a western for the Read Harder Challenge 2018, this book was beautifully written and an enjoyable read. The story goes back and forth between past and present day as a man is piecing together the lives of his grandparents, Susan and Oliver, as they move to the west and try to settle and make a home.