Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
Wallace Stegner’s The Spectator Bird was one of my best reads of 2017. Like many of the unknown (to me) authors I read, I stumbled upon Stegner after browsing through my local used bookstore. I was once again intrigued by the cover (I do judge books by the cover 🤷♀️) and read the summary. It was enough to get me hooked. It didn’t disappoint. In fact I went back to the store after I finished reading and got as much Stegner as they carried.
In this wonderful book (only 204 pages long) we are following Joe Allston and his wife on a trip to Denmark. Joe is a retired literary agent, he is just “killing time until time gets around to killing me”. This is his second trip to his mother’s homeland and it will be a trip where he revisits his past. He’ll look at the choices he’s made and how he has come to be the man he is today. I’m not really giving you a lot here but this is an amazing journey. Stegner is a wonderful writer and I felt privileged to get to travel with Allston. He resonated with me because of his thoughts on regret and the choices we make. I’ve noticed that one of the things I love about reading is that I’m a spectator in the life of whatever character I’m following. This book satisfied the literary voyeur in me. I hope that it will satisfy the reader in all of you.
In this wonderful book (only 204 pages long) we are following Joe Allston and his wife on a trip to Denmark. Joe is a retired literary agent, he is just “killing time until time gets around to killing me”. This is his second trip to his mother’s homeland and it will be a trip where he revisits his past. He’ll look at the choices he’s made and how he has come to be the man he is today. I’m not really giving you a lot here but this is an amazing journey. Stegner is a wonderful writer and I felt privileged to get to travel with Allston. He resonated with me because of his thoughts on regret and the choices we make. I’ve noticed that one of the things I love about reading is that I’m a spectator in the life of whatever character I’m following. This book satisfied the literary voyeur in me. I hope that it will satisfy the reader in all of you.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“I sometimes get the feeling my whole life happened to somebody else.”
How many of us live our lives in estrangement, watching it pass by and not taking the trouble to steer it? And how many of us are honest about it?
This is a story of Joe Allston, a man whose past comes alive one day and he watches it resurface in front of that one person who should have been aware of it, but wasn't; a man who dreads his old age but keeps it mostly to himself, and a man who let go of something one time and never considered holding onto anything after that.
The best part about this protagonist is that he is far from being heroic. He is just like us, a bit frustrated, a bit ignorant, and a bit scared.
If you choose between two good, do you completely let go of the one abandoned?
People with million of thoughts inside their heads are usually the ones who have nothing to say. We understand this when the story unfolds from the pages of a journal kept by our protagonist.
How many of us live our lives in estrangement, watching it pass by and not taking the trouble to steer it? And how many of us are honest about it?
This is a story of Joe Allston, a man whose past comes alive one day and he watches it resurface in front of that one person who should have been aware of it, but wasn't; a man who dreads his old age but keeps it mostly to himself, and a man who let go of something one time and never considered holding onto anything after that.
The best part about this protagonist is that he is far from being heroic. He is just like us, a bit frustrated, a bit ignorant, and a bit scared.
If you choose between two good, do you completely let go of the one abandoned?
People with million of thoughts inside their heads are usually the ones who have nothing to say. We understand this when the story unfolds from the pages of a journal kept by our protagonist.
As a reader, there are some books (and authors) you have been meaning to read. But other books (and authors) would come before it. Unfortunately, Wallace Stegner fell into this category for me. I’ve been meaning to read his work for at least 20 years, and The Spectator Bird has been on my shelf for the past five years. I would get ready to read it, and then I would put it down for something else. Finally, I have read this well-received Stegner novel.
The Spectator Bird is the story of retired literary agent, Joe Allison and his wife, Ruth. They have settled in Northern California after a long career in the New York City publishing world. Joe discovers a postcard from a friend in Denmark. He reads the postcard, and it brings back the memories of a European trip that the couple took years ago.
Ruth finds out that Joe kept a journal about the Denmark trip and asks him to read the journal entries. Joe reluctantly agrees and those journal entries make up the bulk of the novel. Stegner examines the marriage dynamic as Joe reveals more details than he wanted to share. Also, it brings into account that things in the past should stay in the past.
The Spectator Bird is very much a novel about character and how the past brought to life can upset a comfortable lifestyle. The strength of the book is Stegner’s clear and straight-forward prose and as a reader I felt like I was attending a masterclass on how to read a novel that doesn’t need a plot or action to drive the narrative.
I feel bad for this taking long to read Wallace Stegner. The Spectator Bird is not the first novel mentioned with Stegner’s work. Literary critics and longtime Stegner readers consider [b:Angle of Repose|292408|Angle of Repose|Wallace Stegner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329151576l/292408._SY75_.jpg|283706] and [b:Crossing to Safety|9820|Crossing to Safety|Wallace Stegner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436043179l/9820._SY75_.jpg|1488871] as his best novels. However, I believe that The Spectator Bird does not have to take a backseat to either of those aforementioned works and is a great place for readers new to Stegner.
The Spectator Bird will be one of my favorite reads of 2020. This quiet novel about human connection and love is a short-term escape worth taking in lieu of what the world is dealing in the COVID19 pandemic.
The Spectator Bird is the story of retired literary agent, Joe Allison and his wife, Ruth. They have settled in Northern California after a long career in the New York City publishing world. Joe discovers a postcard from a friend in Denmark. He reads the postcard, and it brings back the memories of a European trip that the couple took years ago.
Ruth finds out that Joe kept a journal about the Denmark trip and asks him to read the journal entries. Joe reluctantly agrees and those journal entries make up the bulk of the novel. Stegner examines the marriage dynamic as Joe reveals more details than he wanted to share. Also, it brings into account that things in the past should stay in the past.
The Spectator Bird is very much a novel about character and how the past brought to life can upset a comfortable lifestyle. The strength of the book is Stegner’s clear and straight-forward prose and as a reader I felt like I was attending a masterclass on how to read a novel that doesn’t need a plot or action to drive the narrative.
I feel bad for this taking long to read Wallace Stegner. The Spectator Bird is not the first novel mentioned with Stegner’s work. Literary critics and longtime Stegner readers consider [b:Angle of Repose|292408|Angle of Repose|Wallace Stegner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329151576l/292408._SY75_.jpg|283706] and [b:Crossing to Safety|9820|Crossing to Safety|Wallace Stegner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436043179l/9820._SY75_.jpg|1488871] as his best novels. However, I believe that The Spectator Bird does not have to take a backseat to either of those aforementioned works and is a great place for readers new to Stegner.
The Spectator Bird will be one of my favorite reads of 2020. This quiet novel about human connection and love is a short-term escape worth taking in lieu of what the world is dealing in the COVID19 pandemic.
I am going to say unkind things about this book but I did enjoy reading it, and I would recommend that you, reader, read it. I'm not going to use the spoiler tag because I'm not going to mention any of the major things that could be spoiled, towards the end.
This book surprised me. I didn't know much about Stegner but I thought of him as austere, perhaps he had once written of cattle? Good perhaps but no fun. Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a perfectly garrulous and urbane exercise immersed in the modern commercial world, more in the mode of Updike's Rabbit Is Rich or even, in ways that don't matter, John Irving.
It is gobsmacking that this book won the National Book Award. In its construction and in its substance, it is unconvincing. It works more clearly as a series of disconnected vignettes than anything that builds novelistically. We are told in no uncertain terms that the premature passing of an adult son constitutes the major trauma of the main character but then learn nothing about him. The primary contrivance of the book is that said protagonist is induced to dig out some diaries he had written during an interlude in Denmark 20 years earlier, and his wife insists that he read them aloud to her over the course of a few days (she, too, had been along for the trip). Any reader, I think, will have frequent interludes of recognizing this situation as preposterous.
The main couple of the book are in their early 70s, and we hear a great deal of how terrible it is to be affluent, erudite, and old in the California of 1974. I will never have any sympathy for any character who is inordinately pissed off about the injustice of dealing with (say) arthritis after 70 years of life. I cannot relate to that degree of entitlement. There are set pieces in the present tense as well as in the past, and they all "work." Stegner is gifted. The garrulous quality of the book is a balm, it keeps things readable. Oh yeah, we meet Karen Blixen.
Stegner at this time was apparently obsessed with the tendency for "modern, contemporary novelists," a group for which his main character has no small contempt, to use sex in their novels as a meaningless titillation. We sure hear more about that than the guy's dead surfer son. One wonders which authors he meant. Updike?
The book is very much about a workaday (i.e., not titled) American rube (I say this with love) encountering the inbred nobility of Old Europe. The back half of the book is taken up with a scandal of staggering implausibility centering on an esoteric topic that I will not mention. As said earlier, all of the character portraits are fun and convincing but the book overall is not.
This book surprised me. I didn't know much about Stegner but I thought of him as austere, perhaps he had once written of cattle? Good perhaps but no fun. Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a perfectly garrulous and urbane exercise immersed in the modern commercial world, more in the mode of Updike's Rabbit Is Rich or even, in ways that don't matter, John Irving.
It is gobsmacking that this book won the National Book Award. In its construction and in its substance, it is unconvincing. It works more clearly as a series of disconnected vignettes than anything that builds novelistically. We are told in no uncertain terms that the premature passing of an adult son constitutes the major trauma of the main character but then learn nothing about him. The primary contrivance of the book is that said protagonist is induced to dig out some diaries he had written during an interlude in Denmark 20 years earlier, and his wife insists that he read them aloud to her over the course of a few days (she, too, had been along for the trip). Any reader, I think, will have frequent interludes of recognizing this situation as preposterous.
The main couple of the book are in their early 70s, and we hear a great deal of how terrible it is to be affluent, erudite, and old in the California of 1974. I will never have any sympathy for any character who is inordinately pissed off about the injustice of dealing with (say) arthritis after 70 years of life. I cannot relate to that degree of entitlement. There are set pieces in the present tense as well as in the past, and they all "work." Stegner is gifted. The garrulous quality of the book is a balm, it keeps things readable. Oh yeah, we meet Karen Blixen.
Stegner at this time was apparently obsessed with the tendency for "modern, contemporary novelists," a group for which his main character has no small contempt, to use sex in their novels as a meaningless titillation. We sure hear more about that than the guy's dead surfer son. One wonders which authors he meant. Updike?
The book is very much about a workaday (i.e., not titled) American rube (I say this with love) encountering the inbred nobility of Old Europe. The back half of the book is taken up with a scandal of staggering implausibility centering on an esoteric topic that I will not mention. As said earlier, all of the character portraits are fun and convincing but the book overall is not.
Wallace Stegner's great gift is to create fictional people so real that you want to reach out and smack them when they are doing dumb things. Joe Allston was one of those people that made me so MAD some of the time that I wanted to throw the book at the wall. But at the same time, he is so, so, so human. And I think it is a BRILLIANT look at a person who is depressive (if not straight up depressed) and who has that negative turn to his personality. You know, the guy who rails against growing old, like there is something to be gained by it. And yet. And yet, he knows himself to be wrong a lot of the time. He sees others living in a way that makes them happier and more satisfied - including his own wife, who has the patience of a saint.
The book is not strictly a book about anything - it is just about *people*. So worth the read, but only if you're not looking for a stunning, action-packed narrative full of energy.
I don't necessarily think this is a book that would be appreciated by many younger folk - probably most meaningful to those of us who are at least approaching Joe's years. Maybe. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I would have liked it much at 30.
The book is not strictly a book about anything - it is just about *people*. So worth the read, but only if you're not looking for a stunning, action-packed narrative full of energy.
I don't necessarily think this is a book that would be appreciated by many younger folk - probably most meaningful to those of us who are at least approaching Joe's years. Maybe. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I would have liked it much at 30.
A return to Joe and Ruth Allston from All the Little Live Things. Much of the book takes place in a journal that Joe kept when he and Ruth took a trip to Denmark, 20 years prior to the "main" narration. In the process of going through his papers, Joe comes across it and Ruth insists that he read it aloud to her -- it's cathartic for both of them and reminds the reader of how we bring our baggage forward with us. Stegner has a keen eye for the ebb and flow of long-married life; his portraits of Joe and Ruth are as vivid here as they were previously.
Wallace Stegner does a great job developing the character of Joe, an aging arthritic. The book moves slowly just painting a picture of the normalcy between people. Joe’s sense of humor comes through at times, with his snarky remarks. I probably would like this book even more if I was older, but not to worry, it’s universal.
Everyone can understand love, aging, desire, commitment...
“Ruth... once a week she goes to down to the retirement home. The convalescent hospital. Death camp...How she stands spending a whole morning among those dim and feeble, tottering dead, knowing that she and I are only a few years from being just like them, is beyond my understanding.”
“And I find that I resent the assumption both of them make, that I have stopped and am in need of repair. It irritates me to have people blowing out my gas line and testing my spark plugs and feeling all over me for loose wires.”
“A reasonable endowed, a reasonably well intentioned man can walk through the world’s great kitchen from end to end and arrive at the back door hungry.”
“It is something. It can be everything. To have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking, boasting, reciting and fighting go on below. A fellow bird whom you can look after...”
Everyone can understand love, aging, desire, commitment...
“Ruth... once a week she goes to down to the retirement home. The convalescent hospital. Death camp...How she stands spending a whole morning among those dim and feeble, tottering dead, knowing that she and I are only a few years from being just like them, is beyond my understanding.”
“And I find that I resent the assumption both of them make, that I have stopped and am in need of repair. It irritates me to have people blowing out my gas line and testing my spark plugs and feeling all over me for loose wires.”
“A reasonable endowed, a reasonably well intentioned man can walk through the world’s great kitchen from end to end and arrive at the back door hungry.”
“It is something. It can be everything. To have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking, boasting, reciting and fighting go on below. A fellow bird whom you can look after...”
THE SPECTATOR BIRD is one of those stories that causes you to hold your breath and lean in until the last line. It tells the story of an aging literary agent, Joe Allston, who lost his parents and only son. With no roots and no future heir, Joe wrestles with what remains. Is he just a spectator in his life or can he lay claim to any of it? Stegner won the 1977 National Book Award for this title, and it’s well deserved.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
At first, The Spectator Bird seemed to be a somewhat meandering book – the first third is given over almost to a stream of consciousness about the domestic mundanity of a middle aged couple. Over time, however, it reveals itself to be something quite lovely, as narrator Joe Allston recalls a trip he and his wife made to Denmark to investigate his family history. Diary entries from the journey are interspersed with snippets from their modern day conversations as they try to make sense of their past and their place in the world, with the overall effect being a gentle, unexpectedly moving vignette on ageing and mortality. It is, perhaps, not the most challenging book ever to take a major national prize but it deserves more attention than it has since received.