@@Book@@ Crossing to Safety ^PDF^
Crossing to Safety
By : by Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams (Introduction), T.H. Watkins (Afterword)
ratings : 35,113
ratings reviews : 4,736
reviews
Original Title : Crossing to Safety
ISBN : 037575931X (ISBN13: 9780375759314)
Edition Language : English
Series : Sally Morgan, Larry Morgan, Sid Lang, Charity Lang
Paperback, 368 pages
Published April 9th 2002 by Modern Library (first published 1987)
Characters : Pennsylvania (United States) New Mexico (United States) Wisconsin (United States) …more Vermont (United States) …less
Setting : National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (1987), Premi Llibreter de narrativa Nominee (2009)
Description : Called a "magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom" by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Called a "magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom" by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.
Literary Awards : National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (1987), Premi Llibreter de narrativa Nominee (2009)
REVIEWS :Books like this are why I read. Despite some dark passages, it’s a delight to read and I’m adding it as one of my all-time favorites.The story follows two couples through life. It’s an academic novel in a sense – both men start out as English professors at the University of Wisconsin in the difficult years of the late 1930’s – the end of the Depression, heading into WW II. The hunt for the Holy Grail of tenure and discussions of suitable academic work that will get tenure is one theme - poetry? Does it seem ironic that a book I’ve awarded a full pentad of stars is also the cause of great frustration? Not when I tell you that my problem has nothing to do with the novel itself, but rather in conjuring the right words to do it justice. You see every account I run through my head makes it sound more boring than it is. I guess I should just start by telling you it’s about two couples who met during the Great Depression. Sid and Charity Lang live well on inherited wealth. Larry and Sally There are some books that seem to have tiny leaks in their spines and covers and pages and release almost unnoticeable misty, smoky particles of their story – well not so much their story but the mood that is created by the story – out into the “real” world. And when reading these books you find – or at least I find (I should shift my point of reference to me not you) that I am seeing things in my daily routine through a sort of cloud that at first I don’t recognize but then suddenly it dawns on Seen in geological perspective, we are fossils in the making, to be buried and eventually exposed again for the puzzlement of creatures of later eras. Welcome to Wally World. No, not the one with Chevy Chase and a stiff relation on the car roof, the one that is a place of real literary wonder. Wallace Stegner is one of our great national treasures, and Crossing to Safety is a very rich read, a surprising look at the friendship between two couples, four friends. Stegner opens with Charity, a The narrator of this novel, Larry Morgan, at one point says to his wife, “But if I’m going to set the literary world on fire, the only way to do it is to rub one word against the other.” Not only did Wallace Stegner likely set the literary world on fire with this book, he set me on fire! Can you imagine reading an entire book about the long friendship between two couples and being left gasping at the end, longing for more?The characters in this book (primarily Larry and his wife Sally, and A Lost WorldOnce upon a time there was an American Republican President named Eisenhower. Ike wasn’t a very smart man but he was not an evil man. He didn’t like the way the world was run, not even in his own country. But he remained calm in his politics and civil to his political opponents. He set an example. People felt safe around other people.At that time there was a place called Vermont. It contained a smaller place called the Northeast Kingdom. There were no motorways then and this place How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?Stegner did it. We follow two married couples from their bright eyed 1930s youth to their retirement years. There's no razzle dazzle, no shocks or mysteries, no scandals or horrors . Their hurts are subtle and familiar.The writing is solid and reflective and downright beautiful.I found the story to be mostly about acceptance. Loving people even when you don't like them. Finding satisfaction in life even when your plans "Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases…" —Wallace StegnerAs with A Gentleman in Moscow and The Heart's Invisible Furies, the inescapable popularity of this book on Goodreads was the white flash of a rabbit's tail that first caught my eye. Then as I dipped into the lavish reviews, it became the godlike voice that boomed at me through The warm shudders I experienced as I sank into each night with this book on my lap, the stunning imagery of diminished time against an unchanging landscape, and the quiet story of academic couples faced with tragedy, makes me certain that Stegner will be an author I grow with this year. This year I made a pact with myself to become more familiar with the works of authors I love. Now here I am, back to visit Stegner, "The Dean of Western Writers," after having admired the program he started at This defines the term character-driven novel, multi-faceted and deeply defined Steigner hones each with a surgeon’s precision. A story of two couples, the joys and challenges of their marriages and enduring friendship and a life cocooned within Ivy League’s walls. • Larry Morgan (narrator): workaholic, driven, rags-to-riches college professor & author extraordinaire “I was a cork held under, my impulse was always up” • Sally Morgan: ah Saint Sally…“I had to live, out of pure gratitude”• Sid My review of Stegner's Angle of Repose in which I was fairly critical of the book, several readers objected and insisted I read Crossing to Safety. Well, I listened to the audiobook during a long 7h drive today and found it more interesting than Angle and yet not in my upper echelon of American 20th C novels. Crossing reminded me more of Richard Russo's style that it did of Updike (both of whose writing I prefer). I liked the descriptions very much (as I did in Angle), but had a hard time really Oh, my heart, what a novel.I'm incredulous that this novel is not up there among the best novels of the 20th century . I only heard of Stegner last year.I can't remember ever reading a novel about a friendship between two grown-up couples. Such friendships are rare. Lots of things have to align for that to happen, besides proximity, compatibility between four people, and the kids, a similar socio-economic standing, political and intellectual similarities.Written in the 1980s, this is a novel For me this book is difficult to review. On the one hand I needed two weeks for 280 pages which is not a good sign, on the other hand I enjoyed reading it a lot. In the end I did not know how to rate it. Instead of deciding spontaneously I listened two the both voices in my head (yes, I hear voices), the Good Guy and the Bad Guy. I will give you just a short summary of their dialogue.GG: "You must be kidding. Three stars for this excellently written masterpiece?"BG: "I don't object that part, Life is a process of gradually narrowing choices. You learn this early in life, often when playing sports. You know you’re not going to be a Major League Baseball player because you can’t hit a curveball, or a fast fastball, or, in fact, the ball off a tee. Later, in school, you discover that your eyesight – and fear of heights – is going to keep you from being a jet pilot; and that your biology score is going to keep you from being a doctor, or passing biology; and that you aren’t ever going to.
Posting Komentar