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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
I was bound to enjoy this--it's set in 1970s California (albeit the Peninsula), much of takes place in Denmark (and there is Danish sprinkled throughout, as well as plenty of description of DK), and there's even a mention of a wild car ride in Rome, from the American Academy down into Trastevere.
Most of all though, I love books like this--about age, memory, and distance. About relationships with others and with oneself. About forgiving and making choices. And especially about the squirreliness and crankiness that comes with long lasting relationships.
In the end, there are two people who have spent a life together and know exactly how to read each other. Somehow that combination (to the couple, not the reader!) is at once irritating as well as very comforting--true intimacy.
Most of all though, I love books like this--about age, memory, and distance. About relationships with others and with oneself. About forgiving and making choices. And especially about the squirreliness and crankiness that comes with long lasting relationships.
In the end, there are two people who have spent a life together and know exactly how to read each other. Somehow that combination (to the couple, not the reader!) is at once irritating as well as very comforting--true intimacy.
The writing is superb. But it is slow. Very slow. There is a whopper towards the end! I preferred "Crossing to Safety," "Angle of Repose" and others. The man could write though. I just didn't love this one.
This is the first Wallace Stegner book I've read and I don't think I have ever read anyone with his ability to use precisely the right word. With the great Edward Hermann narrating, it was a delight to listen to. Highly recommend.
Audiobook |
Wow. This author writes so beautifully and clever that he has potentially ruined me for so many other authors.
There was one point in time in this book that I laugh cried. I was moved to tears but laughing at the simplistic relatability of it all.
If you are stumbling across this review because you are wondering if you should read this book after reading the summary, just read it.
Wow. This author writes so beautifully and clever that he has potentially ruined me for so many other authors.
There was one point in time in this book that I laugh cried. I was moved to tears but laughing at the simplistic relatability of it all.
If you are stumbling across this review because you are wondering if you should read this book after reading the summary, just read it.
Stegner manages as well as any author I’ve ever read to tell a story which should feel pointless and slow in a way that is both compelling and filled with human insight and philosophical reflection points for the reader. His stories always maintain a level of realness that borders on the biographic, reminiscences on current culture and personal history that cannot help but feel like 100% authentic opinions.
Joe Alston is back, older and more surly than he was in All The Little Living Things. As an aging retiree hidden away in the California hills with his lovely wife Ruth, physical issues and the slow march of time are forcing him to reminisce more and more upon the decay and ends of his friends and the tragedies that have defined his lifetime. A postcard from an old friend brings him to unearth old journals and reminisce with Ruth over a trip to Denmark twenty years ago, just after the surfing death of their only son. A trip spent picnicking and castle exploring with the decaying nobility of a thousand generations. On that trip, Joe managed to track down his own mother birth place and uproot a whole heap of skeletons in Danish closets. But what are the things he has refused to face in himself?
The thing I love most about Stegner’s writing of Joe is his grumpy, anti-puritanical rejection of the liberality of the 1970’s. He is no prude and tries to reject any sense of self-righteousness, but he sees the sexual revolution and the constant nobility of passion among artists as foolishness and trivial compared to deeper human connections and timeless reflections on human experiences. He is a stoic and an unwilling romantic with a snail’s pace willingness to look himself honestly in the mirror. He is of the silent generation but he is willing to talk through everything in its time. He is frustrated but willing to examine his own prejudice to as deep a depth as anyone can expect to find capacity.
In Stegner’s writings, deep family issues are always brought to light and characters who would be expected to refuse to face those things and grow through them always prove to accomplish those simple straightforward miracles.
Joe Alston is back, older and more surly than he was in All The Little Living Things. As an aging retiree hidden away in the California hills with his lovely wife Ruth, physical issues and the slow march of time are forcing him to reminisce more and more upon the decay and ends of his friends and the tragedies that have defined his lifetime. A postcard from an old friend brings him to unearth old journals and reminisce with Ruth over a trip to Denmark twenty years ago, just after the surfing death of their only son. A trip spent picnicking and castle exploring with the decaying nobility of a thousand generations. On that trip, Joe managed to track down his own mother birth place and uproot a whole heap of skeletons in Danish closets. But what are the things he has refused to face in himself?
The thing I love most about Stegner’s writing of Joe is his grumpy, anti-puritanical rejection of the liberality of the 1970’s. He is no prude and tries to reject any sense of self-righteousness, but he sees the sexual revolution and the constant nobility of passion among artists as foolishness and trivial compared to deeper human connections and timeless reflections on human experiences. He is a stoic and an unwilling romantic with a snail’s pace willingness to look himself honestly in the mirror. He is of the silent generation but he is willing to talk through everything in its time. He is frustrated but willing to examine his own prejudice to as deep a depth as anyone can expect to find capacity.
In Stegner’s writings, deep family issues are always brought to light and characters who would be expected to refuse to face those things and grow through them always prove to accomplish those simple straightforward miracles.
Stegner has become one of my most favorite writers and I've only read two of his novels. He has such an incredible grasp of his characters that you feel as if you've known them for years. And so many beautiful passages and insights; not flowery or pretentious, just elevated to an art form.
"Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus."
I'm not going to waffle on about this one - *cue cheers at the back* - because I'm rather ill at the moment and not in any kind of mood to write an exhaustive - and probably exhausting - review.
However, what I will say is that Wallace Stegner is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors - and I can say that with confidence after reading just two of his books. Crossing to Safety was one of my favourite reads of 2016 and although The Spectator Bird doesn't quite hit that book's lofty heights, I very much enjoyed it.
Stegner is absolutely wonderful at exploring friendship and memory, love and loss - not to mention all the subtleties of emotion and feeling that go in-between. His prose is poetic and affecting, and it's amazing how a story that seems so simple can have so many layers and pack such an emotional punch. It was a delightful little read.
I can't wait to explore the rest of Stegner's oeuvre - maybe Angle of Repose next?
I'm not going to waffle on about this one - *cue cheers at the back* - because I'm rather ill at the moment and not in any kind of mood to write an exhaustive - and probably exhausting - review.
However, what I will say is that Wallace Stegner is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors - and I can say that with confidence after reading just two of his books. Crossing to Safety was one of my favourite reads of 2016 and although The Spectator Bird doesn't quite hit that book's lofty heights, I very much enjoyed it.
Stegner is absolutely wonderful at exploring friendship and memory, love and loss - not to mention all the subtleties of emotion and feeling that go in-between. His prose is poetic and affecting, and it's amazing how a story that seems so simple can have so many layers and pack such an emotional punch. It was a delightful little read.
I can't wait to explore the rest of Stegner's oeuvre - maybe Angle of Repose next?
"I was reminded of a remark of Willa Cather's, that you can't paint sunlight, you can only paint what it does with shadows on a wall. If you examine a life, as Socrates has been so tediously advising us to do for so many centuries, do you really examine a life, or do you examine the shadows it casts on other lives? Entity or relationships? Objective reality or the vanishing point of a multiple perspective exercise? Prism or the rainbows it refracts? And what if you're the wall? What if you never cast a shadow or rainbow of your own, but have only caught those cast by others?" 1st Read.
I love Stegner's writing, and this book was no exception. It was not nearly as good as Angle of Repose or Crossing to Safety because the plot was a bit clumsy, but the excellent writing held my attention when the plot did not.
An aging man revisits a trip from earlier years (in memory, of course). One of those books in which nothing much happens. What can I say, I love that stuff!