Pat (phebj)'s Reading Life--Chapter 2

Welcome to my second thread for 2011. My first thread is here.

I have never been to the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch but I liked this picture. That’s the Sawtooth Mountains in the distance. From the IRMR website--Backpacker Magazine described the Sawtooth Valley this way: "What would it look like if the Tetons married the Sierra Nevada - and nobody came to the wedding? This is it!"

I'm currently reading:

The Master by Colm Toibin
Qigong Illustrated by Christina J. Barea (ER)

To read in April:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (LT Group Read starting April 15th)

Read in January (7)

1. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli (graphic novel)
2. So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
3. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (graphic novel)
5. A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
6. 31 Hours by Masha Hamilton
7. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Read in February (3)

8. Love and Summer by William Trevor
9. Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
10. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

Read in March (9)

11. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
12. The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
13. Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine (graphic novel)
14. The Girls by Lori Lansens
15. The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
16. Gone to New York: Adventures in the City by Ian Frazier
17. 101 Great American Poems
18. The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn
19. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Read in April (1)

20. Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater

Gotcha! And I like that pic too...

Hi Suzanne!

Oh, how pretty! I've seen that ranch somewhere, maybe in Sunset mag? Buy any new books today? Happy Thingaversary wishes!

Joanne, these are the books I got today (mostly from B&N):

Fiction:

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (LT inspired and on the 3-for-2 table)
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle (LT inspired--Donna)
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (LT inspired--Bonnie and Suzanne)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (a re-read and on the 3-for-2 table)

Nonfiction:

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization by Nicolson Baker (looked interesting but boy is there a controversy about this on the Amazon reviews. Some people consider it unrealistically pro-pacifist)
A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn (looked interesting and on the 3-for-2 table)

I also received Until That Good Day: A Novel from Linda as a birthday gift (thank you, thank you!) and Dissolution by C.J. Sansom arrived in the mail today (a used book from Amazon).

I'm surrounded by new books and very happy!

Nice! I have The Tortilla Curtain but haven't read it yet. The only Boyle book I've read is Talk, Talk which was good.

Isn't Linda wonderful?! :)

Starred!

I keep forgetting to mention that I'm a longtime Trevor fan. So many new threads today. Well, only two so far, but most days I don't have to run around after everybody!

Nice haul, Pat .. and a nice new thread too. I love the picture. Is that from your porch?

I WISH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I'd like to go sit on that porch.

A very appropriate picture for a Stegner reader! And Happy Thingaversary! I'm off to see for sure how many years.

I love the picture! What a perfect reading spot! I have both Tortilla Curtain & The Invisible Bridge in the stacks.

Sorry I missed your big day, Pat! I hope you had a great birthday!

Is that a real place? It almost looks fake, like CG it is so perfect. I mean, I think it IS a real place, but it is a bit hard to believe!

You make me miss my Rockies, Pat. DH & I talk about moving back to southern Colorado where he's from--to the Sangre de Cristo's.

Your picture made me homesick, too. I have a scenic view from my house but nothing like the Pike's Peak view that I left behind when we moved back to Missouri eleven years ago.

Nice book haul! I hope you like Tortilla Curtain since I seem to have recommended it. ;-) Let me know when you read The Screwtape Letters and we can do an informal readalong. I've been wanting to read that one for a long time, but for some reason am reluctant to pick it up.

Oh poo oh poo. I misread and thought TODAY was your birthday. Please accept this belated wish!

Thanks, Jenn. I'd like to sit on that porch too!

Stasia and Peggy, there is no deadline for good wishes here. Thank you!

Lucy, I also thought this picture looked too good to be true but it exists and I've even (unknowingly) driven past it. Here's the link, if anyone's interested in looking at some more pictures, here.
I liked this quote from their website--Backpacker Magazine described the Sawtooth Valley this way: "What would it look like if the Tetons married the Sierra Nevada - and nobody came to the wedding? This is it!"

I love that name, Becky--the Sangre de Cristos.

And, Donna, I didn't realize you used to have a view of Pike's Peak. That's one big mountain. (Didn't you recommend The Tortilla Curtain to me? I never went back to check before writing that.) I'll let you know when I get to The Screwtape Letters.

Mark I actually started The Invisible Bridge last night. I only read the first chapter but it was great. I seem to be reading everything else but my assigned reading for the Stegner class. I need to remedy that ASAP.

#7: Human Smoke looks interesting Pat. Although I hate reading things that are actually little snippets, so I'm not sure I'll pick it up.

I agree with Mark, what a great vista for reading. Nice table for a glass of crisp white wine ...it's perfect.

A perfect setting...a book, a beautiful view and a glass of chardonnay..oh and my LT friends.. That would be heaven.

How was your birthday?

The only thing that I can think of to equal it (the view) is from the porch (?) (I'm sure that's not what they call it) of Biltmore House except that the mountains are gentle and green.

Peggy
I've never been to the Biltmore House but have visited the Van der bilt mansions in New Port Rhode Island. I hope to visit the Biltmore next year.

Hi Pat! *waves*

#22 Ardene, Human Smoke was an impulse purchase. I had never heard of it before but picked it up and one of the first passages I read was about the writer Stefan Zweig who I first discovered on LT last year. That basically sold the book. Hopefully, I'll get to it soon and let you know how it is.

#23/24 Lynda/Linda, great minds think alike! I agree, we need an LT meetup on this porch.

#25/26 Peggy and Linda, are you talking about the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC? I've never been there but it's on my list of places I want to go.

#27 Hi Stephen, *waves back*

I read Human Smoke a couple of years ago. I will be interested in seeing what you think of it, Pat.

YeeeHa! I learned how to do it on my thread so I wouldn't mess up. Let's see if I can duplicate an image here. This is the porch at Biltmore House, the one in Asheville and well worth the trip!

Definitely! Biltmore House is worth a trip and a half!

#29 Hmm, now I'm wondering what you thought of Human Smoke, Stasia. I have no idea when I'll get to it but it looked like it might not be too hard to get through--lots of white space between the different entries.

I just got Howard's End is on the Landing out the library. Hopefully it will motivate me to read the books I have instead of buying new ones. I wish I could do a book buying ban but I love shopping for books too much.

#30/31 Thanks for the picture of the Biltmore porch, Peggy. That place looks fantastic. Lucy, I assume you've been there?

Happy Belated Birthday, and Happy 1st Thingaversary! Thanks for sharing the pictures, they look so restful.

Wow! There is so much going on here. Happy Belated Birthday and Thingaversary, Pat! Your haul of books looks awesome. Can't wait to hear what you think of The Invisible Bridge!

I have porch envy.

Thanks for the birthday and thingaversary wishes, Laura and Amy. I had tons of fun buying myself books. Unfortunately, I've started about 10 books lately without making much progress but I think The Invisible Bridge is going to be a winner.

Hi Tui! I have porch envy too. (I went to your profile page and loved the picture of your dog in the snow. Great expression of joy on his/her face!)

She's a she: Esme, Queen of the Universe.
Can you imagine sitting on that porch with a book and a coffee? wow!

Did I miss a birthday AND a Thingaversary? The horror, the horror...

I went off to get Nicholson Baker's book -- but from the library. I'm not a tremendous fan of Andrew Roberts, but I do trust him when he says that something is poorly researched. Still, it should be an "interesting" read!

Tui, what kind of dog is Esme?

Suzanne, my birthday and first thingaversary was on the 8th although I've been purposely blurring the date of my birthday for the last several years. I start telling myself I'm a year older around Jan 1st so I don't have to think about it on the actual day and then I celebrate around my birthday rather than on it. Seems to be working. That plus telling myself in 10 years I'll think my current age is young.

I'll be interested in what you think of Human Smoke. I had never heard of it until I picked it up in B&N. When I came home and checked the Amazon reviews, I was stunned by all the controversy. I'm embarrassed to say I have no idea who Andrew Roberts is.

I'm off to my Stegner class. Hope it's better today!

>39 phebj:: My husband is 9 months older than me and I tend to think I'm the same age he is. Every year after his birthday I start thinking I'm a year older as well!

>39 phebj: & >40 lauralkeet: That's exactly what I do, except that I revel in the 9 months that my DH is the old man!

I just started The Screwtape Letters last night. I've owned it for a few years and just never got to it. But in March Max Maclean will be performing it here in Charlotte and we bought tickets so finally picked it up.

I do not own but need to get a copy of A Grief Observed based on your comments.

Wow somehow lost your thread for a few days Pat but must say the Biltmore and everything around it is wonderful on the eyes. And I'm two years younger than my husband yet he's been retired for over two years! What's up with that? Must remedy;-)

Glad to see you're enjoying The Invisible Bridge.

A belated Happy Birthday and Thingaversary from me! Glad you got some good books to celebrate.

Stegner Class

Well, the good news is that yesterday’s class was much better than the first one and the bad news is that I’m afraid my high regard for Stegner as a writer and a person has been seriously diminished.

The issue we discussed was whether Stegner’s use of the writings of Mary Hallock Foote (a writer/illustrator who was popular in the late 1800s for her portrayals of the American West) as the basis for the main character, Susan Burling Ward, in Angle of Repose amounted to outright plagiarism. As with most controversies this one is not clear cut and there were never any successful lawsuits.

In Wally’s defense, he had the permission of Foote’s granddaughter to use MHF’s writings “as background” in creating a work of fiction. And he gave the granddaughter the chance to read the manuscript before publication but she refused because she “trusted him.”

On the other hand, Stegner clearly used numerous portions of Foote’s memoirs and letters with very few, if any, changes without citing them as Foote’s work. (Again, in his defense, MHF’s granddaughter chose not to have her grandparents identified in what she understood would be a novel.) The problem is he never accurately told the granddaughter how much of Foote’s writing he had “borrowed” and it was alot. And he could have insisted that she read the manuscript.

To further complicate matters, although most of Angle of Repose faithfully follows the course of MHF’s life, at the end Stegner all of sudden does start to fictionalize her life, creating events that never happened and weren’t complimentary to her (SPOILER: particularly in implying that she was an adultress and responsible for the death of her daughter). People who did know who MHF was ended up believing these things and it became a big problem for the family.

One of the things that came up in our class was the issue of gender and power. The teacher mentioned that Stegner had done a biography of John Wesley Powell but had deemed the work of MHF not worthy of a biography and then went on to “borrow” heavily from her work. The teacher said there was a lot of talk in the hallways at Stegner conferences about the “masculine sense of entitlement to the work of a woman.”

The other issue that was raised in class but never answered was what the role of the publisher was at the time Stegner wrote Angle of Repose--i.e., whether they ever discussed with him how much of MHF’s writings he had used and whether he had the necessary permission from the family.

All in all, it was a very interesting discussion about a topic I’m not sure I wanted to know about. I’m glad I read other things of Stegner’s that I loved before this class. Otherwise, I’d be reluctant to read anything more of his. I do have a feeling that the teacher is going to build up his reputation again over the course of the next three classes but at the moment I’m disillusioned.

Wow, what a way to start off - definitely not a positive side of his character. I will watch to see how the next 3 classes work out. He can write so well, it's enough that he used the woman as the basis for a story, why use so much of her writing in that format. Hm...

Having just spent the day reading The Screwtape Letters it is interesting to see his sinful behavior in that light. The things we do. And usually our reasons aren't nearly as good after the fact as they seemed to be to us at the time.

Belated Happy Birthday, Pat!

>45 phebj:: wow, that's fascinating. Angle of Repose is the only Stegner I've read, and I loved it, so it's quite interesting (if somewhat disappointing) to hear this other side. But oh! the cliffhanger you left up there: I do have a feeling that the teacher is going to build up his reputation again over the course of the next three classes... I can't wait to read about your next class, Pat!

#46 Laura, that was some of the students' reaction as well--he's a good writer so why use someone else's words. I liked your comment that usually our reasons aren't nearly as good after the fact as they seemed to be to us at the time. I think he did learn his lesson. When he wrote Crossing to Safety some 15 years later, he made sure everyone of the six children of the couple he based the characters on read and approved the book before it was published.

#44/47 Hi Heather and Darryl. Thanks for the good wishes.

#48 Laura, I'm at least hoping she's going to build up Stegner's reputation again. It would be cruel to offer a class on Stegner (the students of which almost all revere him) and then proceed to destroy his reputation.

#43 Bonnie, I'm glad you found me again!

Hi Pat, and thank you for the class update. This kind of reminds me of when Stephen Ambrose was accused of plagiarism in some of his historical writings. Things like this are like a fly buzzing against the window. They're a little annoying to me, but as long as the fly is not buzzing in my ear, I'm okay with tuning it out (or letting it out) and paying attention to the book. I suspect I would feel differently, however, if I were in the Foote family.

I hope your instructor is able to do some damage control because I want to keep Wally on my list of favorite authors. I do lay some of the "blame" on the granddaughter. Surely she understood the concept of "poetic license." If she didn't want to read the manuscript, perhaps she could have passed the job on to another family member.

Donna, the whole thing is a bit vague and I was more than willing to give Stegner the benefit of the doubt. But--he was the one who knew how he had used the materials and he was very ambiguous about communicating that to the granddaughter (who seemed to be somewhat in awe of him). He was a writing teacher as well as a writer and it would be interesting to know how he would instruct his students about the way this was handled (assuming a writer other than himself had been involved).

And you're right about the granddaughter although she was never really upset with Stegner. It was one of her two sisters (who weren't involved with the book process) that really took offense with the treatment of their grandmother and who talked extensively with the critics and fanned the flames of the controversy.

How very interesting! How depressing. I haven't read The Angle of Repose, and now I'm hesitating. I don't want to be very angry at our boy. This is going to take some thinking!

What Laura said! I also loved The Angle of Repose and am very disappointed to hear about the plagiarism.

Pat, thank you for taking the time to write your class notes and discussions in such detail -- I've really enjoyed it!

I read Angle of Repose a few years ago, and loved it, although, I have to say that I was not wild about the ending, and when I read Crossing to Safety last year, I enjoyed it even more. I find it all very interesting. Issues of attribution, plagiarism, and authenticity are not going away, and are always interesting subjects for discussion: how much is too much; how far is too far? I'm really looking forward to your notes from the rest of your class. Again, thank you for sharing!

Thanks for sharing your class room experience! I enjoyed learning through you.

Pat, very interesting information regarding Angle of Repose. Although, I certainly do not condone plagiarism I find (given the information we have now) Stegner's book keeps MHF in the thoughts of those who read it. Would any of us be talking about Mary Hallock Foote otherwise? I think not. Now, I'm actually seeking out books written by her....only found one on Amazon. However, a nice little subtitle like -Based on the journals of MHF - would not have diminished his work.

Only three more classes! Ack - I'm only on chapter 4 of AoR. Must hustle.

Hmmmm. I bought Angel of Repose and then found out it was not considered one of his best. Maybe for the reasons you were mentioning... didn't say. Then I see where many of you loved the book. I guess the only way I'll know is to read it! Very interesting learning all the aspects of a writer's background. Like Donna, I have room for liking a book without feeling I need to love the author. Still, will be looking forward to how your instructor approaches the next class. Staying tuned!

Interesting discussion of the plagarism/sourcing issue. Thanks for posting about this - I'm looking forward to reading what other tidbits you learn.

I read Angle of Repose about twenty years ago and along with most all of his other works, loved it. I had scheduled myself to reread AoR this year and I probably still will but this information is sure to color my feelings.

What a great and difficult topic your teacher brought up, Pat -- and it probably is getting the bad news over with first.... Most intriguing (and disturbing) of all was the idea that perhaps Stegner felt, since it was the work of a woman, that it mattered less if he 'copied' it. At the same time it sounds as if he had some doubts and did try to get the family to read it -- tricky business, that. And it would have been so easy to put the 'based on the...' or 'inspired by the...' although sometimes that sort of thing can open more cans of legal worms, weirdly enough.

I've never gotten over learning that William Wordsworth raided his sister Dorothy's journal on a regular basis...... indeed she kept it 'for' him, knowing he would read it and use the material which is even creepier! You wonder how much of that went on, a woman, just willing and grateful to get her ideas out there any old how. It did affect my opinion of ole Will (his treatment of Dorothy was, in the end, appallingly callous) in fact, in a permanent way. But should it? That is the question one could discuss forever -- does the work itself transcend the sins of the creator?

Peggy and Claudia, I think you can still enjoy Angle of Repose despite the controversy. What you don't want to do is read the 1982 literary article we read for our class by Mary Ellen Williams Walsh ("Angle of Repose and the Writings of Mary Hallock Foote: A Source Study," in Arthur, Critical Essays on Wallace Stegner). Walsh quotes Foote's writings side by side with Stegner's and, in Walsh's words, she "lets the evidence itself hang Stegner."

Stasia, I think part of the problem is that what Stegner did isn't clearly plagiarism because he had permission from Foote's granddaughter but it also wasn't exactly informed consent as to how Stegner used the materials.

Anne alot of people weren't crazy about the ending to Angle of Repose and Stegner did rush through it because his publisher needed the manuscript and he was scheduled to travel to Europe. I'm reading a biography of Stegner by Philip Fradkin and he quotes Stegner as saying about the ending: "The dream bit was a kind of cheap way out, but the only one I could think of."

I liked your comment--Issues of attribution, plagiarism, and authenticity are not going away, and are always interesting subjects for discussion: how much is too much; how far is too far?. The teacher mentioned the current popularity of Creative Nonfiction courses that deal with issues related to writing memoirs and the ethics of handling family materials. When you realize that no one's memory is perfect, it's a fascinating topic.

Although, I certainly do not condone plagiarism I find (given the information we have now) Stegner's book keeps MHF in the thoughts of those who read it. Would any of us be talking about Mary Hallock Foote otherwise? I think not.

Lynda, I totally agree with you about that. I guess it's a double-edged sword for the Foote family. The controversy brought MHF back into the spotlight but not in a completely positive way.

Unfortunately, Stegner couldn't say the character of Susan Burling Ward was based on Foote because her granddaughter asked that she not be identified. She did this on the assumption that Stegner was going to fictionalize her grandmother so she wouldn't be recognizable. The other thing I think is interesting is that knowing Foote's granddaughter didn't want her identified, Stegner nevertheless used numerous names from the Hallock Foote family as the names of his characters--Agnes, Bessie, Burling, Rodman, Lyman, and Ward. Fradkin (Stegner's biographer) suggests that Stegner was subject to "cryptomnesia, experiencing a memory as if it were one's own sudden inspiration."

These are some quotes from Philip Fradkin's biography of Stegner, Wallace Stegner and the American West, which our teacher said was the most objective biography of Stegner.

So who is to blame in the Angle of Repose case? In hindsight and given a perfect world, its seems like mistakes were made by everyone. Stegner should have told the family how many of the letters and how much of the memoir he planned to use and the length of the passages as the novel evolved during the writing and editing process. He should have insisted that the manuscript, or at least the potentially offensive passages, be read before publication. . . .

The Foote family also made mistakes. Since they had the opportunity, at least one member of the family--and ideally all three granddaughters--should have read the manuscript. . .

Walsh {Stegner's biggest critic} should have--at the very least--attempted to interview Stegner and been less hasty in her judgment. . . . Other scholars who followed Walsh's lead should have researched all the primary sources, including Micoleau's {she was the granddaughter who gave Stegner permission} letters to Stegner.

It did affect my opinion of ole Will (his treatment of Dorothy was, in the end, appallingly callous) in fact, in a permanent way. But should it? That is the question one could discuss forever -- does the work itself transcend the sins of the creator?

Lucy, I think that's a fascinating question and hopefully one we'll discuss in class. This week we're supposed to be talking about The Big Rock Candy Mountain, the following week about Crossing to Safety and the last week on our conclusions about how Stegner used his sources.

I'm hoping (and assuming) I'll have more positive things to say about Stegner in the coming weeks.

spoilers?

>61 phebj:, It WAS a cheap way out, and it reminded me of an incomparable 8th grade teacher who forbade us to use cop-out endings in creative writing: ...and then I woke up and discovered it was all a dream... I remember wondering what Ms. Clouser would say. It was especially jarring because the rest of the book was so wonderful.

I love reading about your class, Pat. Thank you!

I'll second that!

My case got settled so I never had to report for jury duty today and got to go to my Stegner class which was about The Big Rock Candy Mountain. I loved the book, which I finished last night, and the class was good but I’ve got company coming for dinner so will have to wait until tomorrow to post more about it.

Right now, I just want to say “Happy Birthday, Wally!” He would have been 102 today.

Hi Pat- how are you stranger? Miss seeing you around. Looking forward to your thoughts on The Big Rock. Have a nice weekend.

>68 phebj:: Oh fun. Add Wally to the list of people I share a birthday with. He's 22 years older than Toni Morrison, who turned 80 today.

I still need to read Big Rock Candy Mountain! Thanks for the reminder, Pat.

Can't wait to hear about your class!

Stegner Class--Part I

We had a great class discussion yesterday about The Big Rock Candy Mountain. It was published in 1943, when Stegner was in his early 30s, and was his first important novel and mostly autobiographical. As Stegner was quoted in the Fradkin biography, he wrote this book “more out of my life than out of imagination.” He was looking at the “old problem of the dominant father who I think wore on me all of my life. . . . what he did to my self-confidence was disastrous for a long time.”

The autobiographical elements of the book are the main characters (Stegner--i.e., Bruce Mason, his parents and his brother), the arc of the story (it starts with the meeting of his parents and ends with their deaths), Stegner’s feelings about his parents (he revered his mother and hated his father), and the geographic movements/dates when things happened/ages of characters (these mirror what happened with Stegner’s family).

The book ends when the Stegner/Bruce Mason character is in his mid-20s and an angry young man after growing up with a violent and unreliable father and experiencing the deaths of his brother, mother and father within a three year time period. Fradkin quotes Stegner talking about BRCM: “I wrote it because it happened to me. . . . A lot of myself is invested in that book. As I wrote some pages of it, I couldn’t see the typewriter for tears.”

The teacher pointed out, however, that it isn’t all true. She read us some portions of letters Stegner wrote about BRCM. “Bruce Mason is what, for the grace of God, Wallace Stegner might have been.” “Bruce Mason is a possibility from that background but only one possibility” (not necessarily reality). In another letter about BRCM, Stegner said he didn’t know where non-fiction ended and fiction began in the book.

We didn’t particularly reach any conclusions in our discussion about writers using their own life in their fiction but it was interesting to consider the different perspectives of the writer and the reader. One of the students is a writer and he said people he knows often tell him that he’s gotten things wrong in his fiction. They’ll see themselves in a character or know of the events he writes about and tell him he’s gotten the facts wrong. Several people in the class talked about having a strong desire to know the facts behind a novel and being confused when a book is semi-autobiographical.

Well, this sums up what we discussed the first hour. The second hour was spent discussing the influence of the history of the American West on Stegner and how he portrayed this in BRCM. I’ll probably write this up tomorrow. We have several visiting family members in town this weekend so lots of social events to attend!

Oh, and I did love The Big Rock Candy Mountain as a book. I'm still deciding whether to give it 4 1/2 or 5 stars, mainly because it wasn't until the last third of the book that I started flagging tons of pages. But it will definitely be one of my favorites for the year.

Oh, Pat, I so enjoy your course notes and reflections! I am a Stegner fan, but I've not read The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Onto the WL it goes.

Pat- Thanks for sharing your class notes! The Big rock sounds great!

That sounds extremely exciting, Pat - both book and discussion! I have BRCM, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Meanwhile, I have it on my radar and appreciate your generous notes.

Thanks for the Stegner info Pat. You're making me very anxious to get back to reading or rereading his work.

Thanks for sharing your class info with us, Pat. It looks as though I am going to have to get to The Big Rock Candy Mountain sooner rather than later.

*waving hello* .. love your class notes on The Big Rock, Pat. I haven't read this one yet and have added it to my obese wish list.

>73 phebj:: Stegner said he didn’t know where non-fiction ended and fiction began ...

That's why I take memoirs, biographies, and autobiographical fiction with more than a grain of salt. I think even the well-intentioned writers (or speakers for that matter) can have fuzzy memories that are easily "amended" to fit the story.

I have Candy Mountain near the top of the TBR stack. Looking forward to Part 2 of the class notes.

Great discussion -- I like the point you make Donna, from what Pat's quote of Stegner.

Hi Anne, Mark, Peggy, Bonnie, Stasia, Caroline, Donna and Lucy. You're all in for a treat when you get to The Big Rock Candy Mountain. At least I hope you feel that way. It is a very sad book at times. I'm probably going to give it 4 1/2 stars because the beginning was sometimes slow going for me but the last third of the book was superb and I couldn't wait to finish it.

Donna, the teacher actually commented that a good biography of a person was almost always going to be closer to the truth than a memoir/autobiography by that same person. I am finding the whole concept of "truth" to be a fascinating subject--definitely more fuzzy than clear.

Great class update, Pat. Practically feels like I was there with you.

Just checking in to say Hello... :)

Hi Pat, Thanks for sharing your class notes. :) I picked up a used copy of Big Rock recently and just need to find the time to read it! Hope you had a good weekend.

Hi Lynda, Angela and Joanne! I had a great, but busy, weekend with some out of town visitors. I finally got around to typing up the rest of my class notes from Friday.

Stegner Class--Part II

The second part of our class last Friday was mainly a discussion of myth vs. reality in the history of the American West but the teacher also made a few comments that caused my ears to prick up about what I’m starting to think of as Stegner’s chauvinistic tendencies.

The myth part of Western history is reflected in the title of The Big Rock Candy Mountain which comes from the name of a 1928 song about a hobo’s dream of paradise in the American West. The song portrays the West as a place where the impossible can happen (“handouts grow on bushes,” cigarettes grow on trees, etc.). This song also contains the lyrics where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs, which Stegner used as the title for a book of essays he wrote about the West.

Despite the fact that Stegner seems to hate the way his father lived his life--always looking for the next opportunity, never sticking with anything, subjecting his family to poverty and constantly moving them all over the West, he gives him a kind of pass in BRCM when he writes the following:

In an earlier time, under other circumstances, he might have become something the nation would have elected to honor . . . . Harry Mason lived with the woman who was my mother, and whom I honor for her kindness and gentleness and courage and wisdom. But I tell you . . . in spite of the hatred I have had for him for many years, that he was more talented and more versatile and more energetic than she. Refine her qualities and you would get saintliness, but never greatness. His qualities were the raw material for a notable man.

So basically, if Stegner’s father had just been born earlier, when the frontier was still open, he could have been a great man. The teacher compared this to Stegner’s belief that Mary Hallock Foote’s life was not worthy of a biography (but John Wesley Powell’s life was).

The teacher did try to resurrect Stegner’s reputation a bit (from the previous class when we disussed whether he had plagiarized the work of Mary Hallock Foote) by saying his desire to portray the West as it really was, as opposed to the myth, was what caused him to use so much of Foote’s writing. He wanted to give an authentic picture of what life was like for a woman in the American West in the late 1800s. She said he felt a moral burden to get the West right. I’m not sure I buy that but I do like Stegner much better than I did a week ago mostly because I enjoyed The Big Rock Candy Mountain so much and feel I understand him better because of it.

For the next class, we’re reading Crossing to Safety, a novel based on the friendship Stegner and his wife had with another couple that lasted for almost 40 years. The teacher mentioned we’d get to see what Stegner thought of his wife through this book. Not sure what to make of that comment at the moment.

ETA: I forgot to include the teacher's most provocative comment. When we were discussing Stegner thinking his father could have been a great person but not his mother, the teacher said that "women are not supposed to like Stegner!"

That's interesting again, Pat. I have to say that I do like Stegner, but an abbreviated Stegner. I've read only Crossing to Safety, which I adored, and Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs which I read with the group last year. You read it then too, didn't you?

Yes, I read Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs with the LT group read too, Peggy. And, I got so much more out of that book because of that experience. I've read four of Stegner's books now and would rank them in the following order:

1. Crossing to Safety
2. The Big Rock Candy Mountain
3. Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs
4. Angle of Repose

Crossing to Safety is my favorite, too, although I've only read one other. I'm working on a collection of his short stories as well. I do remember thinking through both Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety that Stegner shows great love and respect for the women in his life, or at least in his books. I felt that especially when he writes about Sally in Crossing to Safety. So what I'm learning -- vicariously through you -- surprises me. Do you think your instructor's remarks represent the current literary thinking on Stegner? I can't wait for your next installment, and again, thank you for sharing it with us!

#88: Crossing to Safety is number one on my list too, Pat. I cannot wait to get to The Big Rock Candy Mountain to see if I rank it as highly as you do.

>88 phebj:: women aren't supposed to like Stegner? Oh dear. I totally loved Angle of Repose although I came to it without any of the background that I'm now learning through your thread. It does sound as if Wally and I would not have a whole lot in common :) Sigh. Still thinking of reading Crossing to Safety one of these days.

Reading all of this with great interest.

I'm so glad I'm visiting here this morning. As always, I love the conversations re. your class. Thanks again for taking the time to share this with us.

>86 phebj:: "women are not supposed to like Stegner!"

I find those kinds of comments interesting. The corollary, of course, is that it's OK for men to like him.

What aspect of his work is it that it's OK for men to like but not OK for women to like?

Do you think your instructor's remarks represent the current literary thinking on Stegner?

What aspect of his work is it that it's OK for men to like but not OK for women to like?

The interesting thing is that these remarks the instructor makes are mostly "asides" that are part of our general discussion and I'm wondering if they are her view of Stegner.

Two weeks ago she mentioned that "there was a lot of talk in the hallways at Stegner conferences about the 'masculine sense of entitlement to the work of a woman.'" This was in reference to Stegner using so much of Mary Hallock Foote's writing in Angle of Repose even though he had determined her life wasn't worthy of a biography.

Last week it was "women are not supposed to like Stegner" when we were discussing Stegner's comment in The Big Rock Candy Mountain that his father (who failed at everything he did) could have been a great man if he had moved West before the frontier closed but his mother, while she might have qualified for sainthood (presumably partly for putting up with his father), did not have the makings of a great person.

I’ve been reading bits and pieces of a Stegner biography by Philip Fradkin and the only thing I’ve found in it so far about the feminist point of view of Stegner is in connection with the supposed plagiarism of Mary Hallock Foote’s work in Angle of Repose. His biggest critic in that regard is the English professor Mary Ellen Williams Walsh and her essay on Stegner’s use of the Foote material is seen by some as a feminist attack on Stegner. Supporters of Stegner see the charges of Walsh and others as the “angry denunciations by feminists who claimed that a male writer had deliberately set out to destroy the reputation of an accomplished female artist.” (“Destroy” refers to the only part of Foote’s life that Stegner did fictionalize--her supposed adultery and responsibility for her daughter’s death.)

According to Fradkin, most scholars (including some feminists) see Stegner as portraying what it was like to be a real woman in the West. The following is from Fradkin’s biography of Stegner:

There is irony in the fact that some feminists were critical of Stegner. His female characters are generally regarded as being portrayed with sympathy and understanding. His male characters, however, tend to take over his books. They are not always admirable. Stegner wrote from the depths of what he had experienced and who he was. He was not a feminist, at least as the term came to be defined in its politically correct sense. He “did not hold the fundamental feminist conviction that women are oppressed,” wrote Krista Comer of Rice University. She added: “He imagined women, in his own novels, not as symbols of entrapment but as complex characters with legitimate motivations and understandable needs.” In other words, she said, his women characters mattered.

I will have to ask more about this in Friday’s class but right now it seems that the things it’s not alright for women to like about Stegner are his “theft” of the work of Mary Hallock Foote (coupled with the “destruction” of her reputation) and portraying women as being OK with what a feminist would consider being oppressed.

>95 phebj:: but right now it seems that the things it’s not alright for women to like about Stegner are his “theft” of the work of Mary Hallock Foote (coupled with the “destruction” of her reputation) and portraying women as being OK with what a feminist would consider being oppressed.

If you have correctly interpreted her position then your instructor implies that it's OK for a man to feel those things but not a woman. Since one of the objections is made in the name of feminism, does she not see an inconsistency here?

#96 If you have correctly interpreted her position

Of course, it's possible I haven't and since she hasn't said anything more than what I've indicated, I don't want to imply anything further on her behalf.

What I've found notable about her comments are that they've been the only things so far that give an indication of what she thinks of Stegner. It's not a lecture class but more a discussion that she leads so it's hard to tell what her opinion is and I'm really interested to know what that is.

>97 phebj:: You've got me interested, also...and I don't even know her or the class!

Well I came to love Stegner about twenty years ago when I read much of his work and still have to say Angle of Repose was and remains my favorite. But I loved just about every bit of what he wrote although I knew nothing of his feelings nor the tilt of his feelings regarding feminism. I'm planning to start rereading Stegner this year with Angle of Repose, Crossing to Safety and The Spectator Bird.

I try to judge writers according to the generation they come from and Stegner, for a man of his era appears to be reasonably enlightened to me. It seems only fair to place his attitudes and actions within a 'historical' context and judge him from that perspective, also giving some allowance for stuff he might have had to overcome. Some 'sins' are unforgivable no matter what era, but others seem to be part of a changing and evolving body of opinion about what's right and wrong. I've noticed that the one or two generations immediately previous to one's own can be the hardest to look at objectively -- maybe it's harder not to think they should have known better.

I've been reading too much about Stegner--I'm starting to dream about him! Thanks for all your comments about my class everyone. It's making me stop and think about how big a deal these "feminist attacks" really are. I must say they're making a big impression on me because it's the first time I've heard of them and I'm trying to decide where they fit into the big picture. Right now, I think the plagiarism issue is a much bigger deal. Whether that is related to the feminist issue--I'm not so sure.

Also, I want to recommend an article by Rebecca Mead called Middlemarch and Me: What George Eliot teaches us in the Feb 14th/21st 2011 Anniversary Issue of The New Yorker. Here are a couple of quotes that I liked from it:

In her journals, which were not published in their entirety until twelve years ago, Eliot writes with anguish about her limited accomplishment, and a sense of too often falling short of her capacities.

Once, when she was asked which real-life person had been the inspiration for Causabon--a man whose "soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic; it was too languid to thrill out of self-consiousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying"--she tapped her own breast.

In "Middlemarch," when the newly wed (and newly disappointed) Dorothea defends Causabon's sterile intellectual efforts by declaring, "Failure after long perserverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure," she is expressing a notion that is at the center of much of Eliot's work: that individuals must make their best efforts toward a worthy end, but it is the effort toward a goal, rather than the achievement of it, that makes us who we are.

For anyone that's interested, Lucy set up a New Yorker magazine support group on LT where you can talk about NYr articles that you find interesting or just the predicament about how to stay up-to-date with such a content rich weekly magazine. She talks about "the way they keep on coming, like tennis balls out of one of those machines."

Here's the link to the group: http://www.librarything.com/groups/newyorkermagazinesup#forums

Hi Pat, thanks for the link.

Pat, your class has done its work if you are dreaming about Stegner! I am a woman who likes Stegner - at least his writing. But I also liked my book on Motorcycle Maintenance so maybe I'm not the kind of woman your instructor was referring to.

Loved the quotes about George Eliot from The New Yorker. Yours is a very educational thread.

I'm bummed. I was totally out of renewals for Angle of Repose and the librarian wouldn't allow me to take it out again. I need to put in a new request and wait for it to come back to my library. I'm just going to catch up on what I have lined up at home before I request it again. I am a bit put off by the feminist/plagiarism aspect and feeling no rush to get back to it, and that's a shame because I was enjoying it. In this case.....ignorance would have made a blissful read.

BTW: I had planned to attend Paula McLain's book signing at B & N last night but with all the MIL stuff I completely forgot about it. I was hoping she'd autograph my review :}

>104 Donna828:: Donna, I really loved the Pirsig. I read it 35 years ago and it's still vivid in my mind.

#103 Hi Yolana! Hope to see you over on the New Yorker magazine support group threads.

#104/106 Hi Donna and Tad. All this talk about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is making me sorry I passed my copy on. I was in Borders yesterday but never came across it on the bargain table.

#105 Lynda, I'm sorry if I took some of the enjoyment out of Angle of Repose for you. I also felt hugely disappointed when we had the plagiarism discussion. It was sort of like finding out Santa Claus isn't real. Did I really want to know that?

Too bad about missing the Paula McLain talk but obviously there are more important things going on in your life right now. I hope things work out with your MiL. I think I saw on your thread that she's hanging in there. Sending positive thoughts your way.

Pat -- there is a read-a-thon starting tonight at 8 p.m. Here is the link to the general discussion group: here . There is no separate thread yet.

We had a great discussion in class today about Stegner's book Crossing to Safety but a quick look at my notes doesn't seem to have anything especially substantive.

I'm going to join Lucy in doing an LT Readathon for the next 24 hours so it probably won't be until tomorrow night or Sunday that I'll post more about my Stegner class. Hopefully by then I'll remember more about what we said than what I wrote down!

Waiting anxiously for comments re. your class.

Thanks, as always!

Pat, I went to a big used book sale at a local high school tonight, and I don't know what happened but somehow Crossing to Safety and The Big Rock Candy Mountain ended up in my bag. I blame you :)

Laura

Drat, those books! They seem to simply jump right off the shelf into the bags and carts when we are not looking. Before we know it, they are driving in the car with us and finding a home on the book shelves. They smile down on us as we enter the room, waiting, simply waiting to be read.

>112 Whisper1:: Exactly. I'm so glad someone understands :)

Hi Linda and Laura! Laura I will gladly accept the blame for Crossing to Safety and The Big Rock Candy Mountain. They're two of my favorite books and I think you'll enjoy them. Don't let them wait too long!

Hi Pat, I hope you enjoyed your first readathon. I find them great fun and a perfect excuse to read, read, read. I always tell my husband I am not to be disturbed unless there is an emergency. I like seeing what everyone else is reading, but I usually keep my regular sleeping hours. I can't focus when I'm too tired.

Hi Donna. I really enjoyed my first readathon and definitely will do more in the future. There is no way I could ever compromise my sleeping time even for reading. I turn into a very grumpy person if I'm tired.

Stegner class

Our class discussion last Friday was on Crossing to Safety, Stegner’s last novel (but not his last book), published in 1987. It’s the story of the friendship between two married couples who meet in 1937 and remain friends for almost 40 years. The Morgans (Larry and Sally) are based on Stegner and his wife and the Langs (Sid and Charity) are based on the Stegners’ friends, Phil and Peg Gray. The Charity Lang/Peg Gray character is controlling and manipulative but also generous and the reader ends up hating her one minute and liking her the next.

Stegner was much more careful with this book to get permission from the Gray children (Phil and Peg had passed away) before it was published. Someone in the class said they had read that one of the children actually thought Stegner had been too kind to her mother in the book. The following are Stegner’s own words about writing this book (from Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs):

. . . Crossing to Safety is an attempt to understand and make sense of an important relationship in the lives of my wife and myself, a friendship that was rich and rewarding but that left us fumbling for meanings and unsure of our emotional ground.
I wanted to comprehend how a woman as charming as Charity, a woman with every grace and every opportunity, affectionate, generous, thoughtful, intending only good, could at the same time be a domineering matriarch, a willful putter-downer of her husband, a tyrant sometimes to the children whose every first word and first tooth and first illness she lovingly preserved in the family records; a woman who could say in anguish, at the end, “My God, I have done so much harm!” when all she had intended was affection and aid.

Alot of people were reading the book for the 2nd or 3rd time for the class and said it was their favorite Stegner. I’m in the middle of my 2nd read of it and I agree. It’s a quiet book in a way but it’s a great portrait of the ups and downs of the friendship between these four people which revolves around Charity’s dominant personality. Several people in the class, including me, thought the character of Charity was similar to Bo Mason in The Big Rock Candy Mountain (who in turn is based on Stegner’s father). Another person said he thought it was the embodiment of Stegner’s fears about feminism and women controlling men.

I asked the teacher about her comment the previous week about women not liking Stegner and she said when the Mary Hallock Foote controversy first came up in the late 70s/early 80s, all of Stegner’s defenders seemed to be men (partly because his students were mostly men) and women bristled at this. The other thing she said was that although Stegner respected women this was not the same thing as thinking they were equal and feminists didn’t like his idealizing women in his books and what she referred to as them having hidden lives. This was partly in connection with the portrayal of Stegner’s wife in Crossing to Safety as someone who didn’t seem to have her own life outside of supporting Stegner in his writing. It was an interesting relationship in that Stegner’s wife in RL and in the book was very sickly and Stegner spent alot of time taking care of her. The teacher said Stegner felt guilty about not taking better care of his own mother.

The teacher did mention three women literature scholars who support Stegner, including his portrayal of women: Melody Graulich, Terry Tempest Williams and Patricia Limerick. She couldn’t think of any men who didn’t support him.

I agree with Lucy that you have to look at the person in the context of their times. Stegner was born in 1909 and was in his 60s when he wrote Angle of Repose and his 70s when he wrote Crossing to Safety and, with the exception of Susan Burling Ward who was based on Mary Hallock Foote, did not write about women characters who earned their own living. He wrote what he knew.

One thing that I realized during this discussion was that I prefer the books based on Stegner’s own life (The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Crossing to Safety) as opposed to Angle of Repose which is primarily based on the life of MHF. BRCM and CtS are so much more alive to me and more powerful emotionally.

Next week is our last class and we’re supposed to be discussing our conclusions about how Stegner used his sources, particularly the writings of Mary Hallock Foote.

Wow, great stuff. I know I won't regret snagging those books at the book sale!

I've always thought of Angle of Repose as my favorite Stegner, perhaps because it was the first one I read. However, I read it and Crossing to Safety so long ago that I might have to do some Stegner rereading. First, though, I need to read Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Thanks for the clarification of Stegner and his views on women....and vice versa. This has been such an interesting class. It could easily have been much longer. Anything else on the learning horizon?

Donna, There are no more literature classes on the horizon for the Spring. I have a geology course coming up in late April that I'm looking forward to and then a couple of half day classes--one on public art in downtown Boise and the other about a production of a dance company based in Boise (The Trey McIntyre Company). I doubt they'll do any more literature classes in the summer so it probably won't be until Fall that they'll be anymore to choose from.

Hope you like The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Your Stegner class continues to hold my interest, Pat. I'm going to check my library's next booksale for his works. I'm going to need a shopping cart when I go for my wishlist is 10x's the size of my regular grocery list.

I saw that you were reading about Keith Richard's memoir in the (was it?) New Yorker. I'm reading Life off and on and finding it fascinating. All I knew about him was he's the guitarist in the Rolling Stones who wears the skull ring. But is actually a co-founder of the group etc. etc. Interesting stuff.

Another thoughtful and insightful post on Stegner, thank you!

Loving your posts about your Stegner class Pat. They're making me want to start rereading him as soon as possible. However, I've sworn off any lengthy books untill after I retire because I hate having them drag out because I just don't have the time to give them their just desserts. So I doubt I'll get to him before July or August.

Lynda, I love library book sales. I have a big one coming up at the beginning of April. I hope you find lots of things on your wishlist at yours. Lucy and I have just started to read old New Yorkers together and she was the one who read the review of Keith Richards book. So far I haven't felt compelled to get a copy of the Richards book but that may change if you end up really liking it.

Thank you, Lucy!

Stegner's books can be lengthy Bonnie. I think The Big Rock Candy Mountain was almost 600 pages but the teacher mentioned in class that the manuscript was originally closer to 1200 pages! I'm really excited about your retirement for some reason. Probably because I love mine so much. How are those wedding plans going, btw?

I managed to read a grand total of 3 books for February, my worst reading month since I joined LT. Two of them were "required" reading--Love and Summer by William Trevor for my book group and The Big Rock Candy Mountain for my Stegner class. On my own, I managed to read one graphic memoir--Maus I by Art Spiegelman. I don't think there's anyway I can do worse in March but I will be very glad when this book funk is OVER!

Pat, as always, your posts about your classes are wonderfully rich, and I so appreciate you sharing them. Thank you!

I hope to get to The Big Rock Candy Mountain soon.

Are you busy with too many other things? (That can actually be a good thing, I think?) or really having a funk, finding it hard to settle down to really enjoy anything? I get into a place where my eyes start hurting and I do have to just not read for several days. In fact, I could be nearing one of those times now. I try to do a lot outside and more music at those times. The readathons (I've done three) really push my eye-capacity.

One reason I've taken up reading a silly number of books at a time is that there is a higher chance that I'll be in the right mood for one of them..... ha ha

Pat- I didn't realize you were struggling through a "book funk". Sorry to hear that! It looks like a common malady around here lately. Need more warmth & sunshine!

So, Pat! Guess what? My reading group today was deciding on future reads and Angle of Repose got a high rec. from another member. We will probably read it in the next few months. Woohoo! I have the book and want to read it sooner than later.

AND... thanks to your class notes and discussions I felt so knowledgeable! Ha! I actually knew something about the book's origin and controversy and wowed the old ladies! *grin*

#126 Anne, I hope you like The Big Rock Candy Mountain when you get to it. It started out a little slowly but picked up as it went along and the last third was very powerful.

#127 Lucy, I think I have a real book funk. I started at least 10 books in February that I only read 10-30 pages of and then put down with no interest in picking them up again. I actually think it was triggered by having too many books I "had" to read. I also think there are just too many books that I want to read--it's distracting!

#128 Hi Mark. I have noticed alot of people talking about being in a book funk so at least I'm in good company.

#129 I hope your book group likes Angle of Repose, Claudia. I think it can be enjoyed despite the controversy. Glad my class notes were helpful although sometimes I wish I had never heard of the controversy.

How's defeating the book funk coming along, Pat?

Hi Caroline. I think I'm coming out of the book funk. I seem to be interested in my two current reads--The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle and The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. At least I think I'm going to finish these two. Are things finally thawing out in Boston?

Thaw? Not if the icicles hanging off my roof are any indication. Then again, we are being promised 40s temps for the next few days ...before it snows again at the end of the week.

Glad to hear you're coming out of your book funk. I've read Tortilla Curtain and really liked it. I'll just have to sit and wait patiently for your take on The Country of Pointed Firs ... no pressure... ;-)

Two great books!

I think the biggest cause of book funk in my world is when I've read something so spectacular and gripping and absorbing that everything else just seems blah for awhile.... it doesn't even have to be the 'greatest' book, just one that really took me out of myself.

Love that we're getting to "sit in" on your discussions about Stegner, himself, as well as his writing. I've read Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety, and enjoyed them both, but as I was reading a passage in Crossing to Safety, I remember thinking, "this guy is so in love with his own words (I think he was describing the way light was playing out over a woman's leg) that he is taking me away from the story, just so that I can admire his facility with words."

Hi Caroline, Lucy and Bonnie! Thanks for stopping by.

I lost my battle with my cold on Thursday (I use a homeopathic remedy that usually works) and have been dealing with a foggy head ever since. So although I've been on LT I haven't had the brain power to post much.

Luckily, I have been reading. I finished The Tortilla Curtain which I really liked, am making slow progress with The Country of the Pointed Firs and just started The Girls by Lori Lansens which I'm enjoying. I made it to my Stegner class on Friday so hopefully I'll post something about that soon.

Hope you feel better soon, Pat! Get extra rest. :)

Sorry to hear about the book funk and the cold Pat. I've heard really good things about The Girls so hopefully it will bust you out of the funk.

I hope you feel better soon.

Hope you feel better soon! My brain isn't so great today, so I'll leave it at that!

Hi Pat, hope you feel better soon. March is usually the month when we see the most things "going around" here at school.

Looking forward to the latest installment of Stegnerism.

About a third of my colleagues are coughing, sneezing and generally looking like death warmed over, Pat. So you are definitely not alone fighting this season's flu. I've taken to spraying Lysol around the door to my office in the hopes that it'll prove to be an effective barrier to their germs crossing the threshold. Hope you feel better soon!

Pat, I'm sorry you're not feeling well. I'm sending warm, comforting thoughts and wishes for a speedy return to health.

Ugh - hope you feel better soon!

Pat- Hi ya stranger! Sorry to hear you are under the weather. Hope you get well quick. Miss seeing you! Glad to hear you liked Tortilla Curtain. I have this one in the stacks.

Thanks for all the good wishes. They seem to be working--I'm feeling better and finally got around to typing up my class notes.

Stegner class

Last Friday was our final class and our teacher started it out with the following question--In the hypothetical lawsuit of Walsh v. Stegner, is Stegner guilty? (Walsh was the feminist literary scholar critical of Stegner’s “theft” of the writings of Mary Hallock Foote in Angle of Repose.)

I have to say I was surprised by how many people in the class still felt strongly about this issue four weeks after it was first discussed. It has faded quite a bit for me. Of the 40 or so students, about half thought he was guilty--but of different things. Some of the indictments were: poor judgement, arrogance, manipulation, calculation (“he knew exactly what he was doing”) and plagiarism (“he presented MHF’s words as his own without crediting the source”).

Those defending Stegner said he had permission from one of MHF’s granddaughters and it was her responsibility to make sure she was happy with the book before it was published, that no one would have ever heard of MHF if not for Stegner, and that relationships and history were the real topics of Angle of Repose not MHF. Some people were also not too happy with Mary Ellen Williams Walsh and thought she should have consulted with Stegner before writing her article and found out what his agreement with the Foote family was. They agreed with Jackson Benson, one of Stegner’s biographers, that Walsh’s article was the equivalent of “character assassination” of Stegner. So, all in all, a more heated discussion than I expected but then I’m of the opinion that all the parties involved made mistakes.

The teacher talked briefly about a book by Linda Karell called Writing Together/Writing Apart: Collaboration in Western American Literature which discusses how often authors use other people’s work and all the players that may be involved in writing a book (e.g., other writers, editors, spouses or partners). Karell sees authorship as a collaborative process and raises the question of what an author needs to give credit for. The Stegner/MHF controversy is included in the book but we never found out what Karell said about it. I’ll have to see if my library has Karell’s book.

The following are the teacher’s final comments about why Stegner is considered such an influential writer.

Stegner is best known for being a combination of a western writer and an environmental activist. He served as a model for the next two generations of western writers who cared about the land.

Stegner defined the West in opposition to myth; he believed Western literature and history needed to be tied to reality.

Stegner founded the creative writing program at Stanford University. Some of his students were Sandra Day O’Connor, Edward Abbey, Ken Kesey, Robert Stone, Larry McMurtry, Ernest Gaines, Thomas McGuane and Wendell Berry.

Considering how much Stegner loved the West, it was interesting that his ashes were buried in Vermont where he had a summer home. Toward the end of his life he hated what was happening in the West and thought it was being ruined by large scale and rapid development.

I’m not sure I needed to know about the whole Mary Hallock Foote controversy but I’m glad I took the class. Stegner is less perfect than I thought he was five weeks ago but I’m still impressed with the life he made for himself considering the emotional and financial hardships of his early years and I will definitely be reading more of his books.

Wallace Stegner 1909-1993

Hi Pat, sounds like your class was a roaring success. It certainly went out with a bang! I suspect that under close scrutiny many authors (and people in general!) would be less than perfect. I like knowing that people I admire have some flaws; it shows they are part of the human race. ;-)

I'm glad you're feeling better. We've missed you around the LT neighborhood.

What a great class. Thanks so much for sharing it with us, Pat!

This is all very interesting, Pat, especially since my book club chose Angle of Repose for our May reading. This will be my first Stegner. Looking forward to it...
Thanks for your insights and class experiences. :)

I wonder if Walsh got so angry, because women's stories weren't being told/published, so for Stegner to use this female author's words without attribution when women couldn't get their own words published would have felt especially egregious.

Thank you Pat -- a great write-up of a provocative class. The issue of collaboration is huge!

Glad you are getting better.

You're done? Darn that was so interesting Pat. I'm going to miss the updates. However, you've renewed my interest in Stegner so I'm planning on reading both Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety this summer :)

Thank you for sharing your class with us, Pat! What's up next? ;)

Sounds like you and I both caught the crud on the same day last week. I actually took off work on Monday but I still have a head rattling cough. Hope you're feeling better!

Breezing through to check on what we did in our final class. Looks like it was a good one. I know how much you liked your Hemingway teacher but in the end, did you feel your instructor delivered as well?

Eta: omg, pat, I just read on another thread that your husband will be having surgery soon! What's going on with us lter's? Sending prayers and best wishes that your husband will soon be as good as new.

Donna, I must admit I had Stegner on a pedestal before I started this class. At least I'm not as upset as I was when I first read the article that showed how much of MHF's writing he copied.

Laura, glad you enjoyed the class!

Claudia, you have to let me know what your book group thinks of Angle of Repose.

Bonnie, I'm not sure exactly why Walsh was so upset with Stegner. She certainly didn't seem to have any objectivity about the whole thing and never contacted him for his side of the story which seems like a big lapse when writing a scholarly article.

Lucy, my library didn't have a copy of the Linda Karell book (Writing Together/Writing Apart) but Amazon had a copy so I ordered it. The collaboration issue is interesting to me especially after this class.

Bonnie, I'll be interested in your thoughts on Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety. I can't remember, are these rereads for you?

Joanne, there aren't any more literature courses on the horizon but I am eagerly awaiting the course catalogs for the Summer and Fall sessions to see what will be offered. Hope your cough is gone by now.

Lynda, I did end up liking this instructor but must admit I loved the Hemingway teacher. I think I'm getting lazy in my old age and like to have the teacher impart most of the information in an organized way. This class was a free ranging discussion format where I never got to know what the teacher thought most of the time.

Thanks for your good wishes about my husband's knee replacement surgery. I'll be glad to get this surgery over with. It's been looming since October.

Catching up on some reviews.

Book No. 11 Maus II by Art Spiegelman--4 stars (graphic memoir)

This book completes the story of what happened to Spiegelman’s parents during the last two years of the Holocaust which they spent in several concentration camps. It also shows some of the long term consequences of this ordeal--in particular, the strained relationship between Spiegelman and his father which causes Spiegelman to seek help from a shrink. As he tells the shrink, “No matter what I accomplish, it doesn’t seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz.” Spiegelman’s goal was to be fair to his father and still show how angry he was with him. He succeeds in this.

It was harder to read this book than Maus I because of the concentration camp scenes and the accumulated hardships his parents had endured by this point. Their lives had been full of uncertainty, fear and deprivation for almost 10 years by the mid 1940s.

I never expected a comic book format to be able to tell this type of story so effectively. Some of the comments of Spiegelman’s shrink will stay with me. “It wasn’t the BEST people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was RANDOM!” “Look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What’s the point? People haven’t changed . . . Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust.”

Recommended but not an easy read and you definitely need to read Maus I first.

Book No. 12 The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle--4 ½ stars

This was my first book by T.C. Boyle and it won’t be my last. I really like his writing and his darkly humorous portrait of the Mossbachers, the privileged white couple who are two of the main characters in the book. The Tortilla Curtain refers to a common phrase for the Mexican/U.S. border. The battle over illegal immigration is played out between the Mossbachers and the Rincons, illegal Mexican immigrants, who are trying to achieve their version of the American Dream while the Mossbachers are trying to protect theirs. This all takes place in Topanga Canyon, an area of Southern California that was never meant to be developed into suburbs. Not only are the two couples on a collision course with each other, they’re also on one with nature.

The stories of the two couples are told in alternating chapters and it was often painful to make the switch from the lives of the Mossbachers to those of the Rincons. The contrast was realistic but extreme. I could see where some people might find the story too bleak or depressing but I thought it was very well done and it was often a page turner for me. Probably the most sobering thing about it was that the book was published 16 years ago (in 1995) and things have not gotten any better in the intervening years.

Highly recommended.

Book No. 13 Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine--3 stars (graphic novel)

While I thought this book was well done, I didn’t like the characters very much--too many shortcomings. (Another LTer referred to them as “realistic jerks.”) The main character, Ben, is a 30 year old Japanese American whose Japanese American girlfriend is unhappy about his attraction to white women. Unfortunately, this racial element was the only thing that was interesting about their crumbling relationship. I’ll try another one of Tomine’s books but I wouldn’t recommend this one.

So glad you enjoyed Maus and Maus II. Such a searing, compelling story told in such an unforgettable way.

I've had The Tortilla Curtain on my WL for awhile. Hope a copy comes my way soon!

And... thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your Stegner course with us. We are so lucky! I hope to get back to his short stories soon. I started a collection of them last fall, thinking short stories might be a good way to read at a time when I was so busy, but that didn't quite work out...

I have every intention of adding Maus and Maus II to my library cart. It will be interesting to see how such a delicate subject is handled graphically.

Anne, hope you like The Tortilla Curtain when you get to it. I actually saw on Wikipedia that it's been made into a movie that's supposed to be released this year (with Kevin Costner and Meg Ryan). I'll be interested in what you think of Stegner's short stories. I've never read any of those.

Lynda, Maus I & II are definitely worth reading. I had no idea they had been around so long (since 1986 and 1991). I'm so glad I finally tried graphic novels last year.

Really really fine review Pat.

Pat, thanks once again for sharing your course information. It is such good fun learning with you.

I'm adding The Tortilla Curtain to my tbr pile. Thanks for your great review.

Hi Pat - Maus II was a much more difficult read than Maus. I think Spiegelman was able to handle the subject matter so deftly as a graphic because he is primarily an artist. Like David Small and his Stitches, it's the preferred way to tell a story, particularily a difficult one.

Best to your husband (and to you!) with his upcomiing knee surgery. Sounds like you'll have your hands full.

Thanks, Lucy!

Linda, I hope you like The Tortilla Curtain when you get to it.

Joanne, I have Stitches out from the library and am considering starting it next. Thanks for the good wishes about the surgery. I think (hope) the worst part is the anticipation.

Hi Pat, thumbed your review of The Tortilla Curtain. I haven't read anything by TC Boyle but 4.5 stars is pretty hard to resist.

Thanks for the thumb, Bonnie. Donna recently reviewed a book by T.C. Boyle (East is East) and then mentioned she had also liked this one and Drop City. Up until then, he hadn't even been on my radar. I think I'm going to try Drop City next because Mark also recommended that one.

>168 phebj:: It looks like another T.C. Boyle fan is in the making. I'm glad you liked The Tortilla Curtain, Pat. He has a new book out...about rats. I'm less than thrilled with the topic, but I'll probably read it at some point.

I'll add my good wishes for your husband's upcoming surgery. I hope he is a good patient.

Definitely another T.C. Boyle fan in the making thanks to you Donna. A book about rats. . . hmm. Will have to check it out.

In some ways my husband is a good patient--he does what he's supposed to do--but he's also a very impatient patient and he's already chafing at the thought of having to spend three nights in the hospital. I'm counting on the pain meds to mellow him out. Thanks for the good wishes.

Drop City is one of the best books about the era and the commune thing, it's my 'favorite' of all of them, but what I admire the most about Boyle is that he tackles these amazingly different eras and types of people -- the cereal/health industry at the turn of the century, artist colony shenanigans, oh dear -- brain fuzz -- the 50's sex guy, then Frank Lloyd Wright and his shenanigans...... he researches each thing meticulously and gets it right, which I appreciate. It's always a good story and real information.

Re East is East I used to go to 'writer's colonies' now and then - in the late 80's early 90's and while they aren't quite like that, there is something 'detached from reality (aka adult life)' that creates a peculiar atmosphere. One bad apple too, can ruin your whole stay. Which is why I stopped going.

Thanks for that information about Boyle's books, Lucy. Now I'm really eager to read more of them. Might be good hospital reading. :)

#158, 171: I'm putting Tortilla Curtain on my list for this year. My denomination has made immigration a study issue for the next four years, and I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for fiction set in the US/Mexican border and/or dealing with immigration. Pat, your review and Lucy's comments mean it goes on the must read list (as opposed to the TBR pile).

Wow, lots to catch up with over! I loved the reviews. Actually, I thought Maus II was even stronger than the 1st but yes, it was not always easy. Maybe, I'll make Tortilla Curtain my next Boyle. I have so many of his to catch up with. Drop City is incredible!

Ardene, The Tortilla Curtain certainly raises alot of hot button issues. It sounds perfect for your study. Hope you like it.

Mark, I should get to Drop City next week. I'm picking up a copy at the library tomorrow.

My husband and I saw the movie Cedar Rapids today with Ed Helms (formerly of The Daily Show). I never laugh while watching a movie but I actually smiled and chuckled through this one and the rest of the audience was in hysterics. Recommended for the March doldrums it's an affectionate look at small town insurance agents attending a convention in Cedar Rapids.

Book No. 14 The Girls by Lori Lansens--4 stars

This was a book I don’t think I’d ever have considered reading if not for Bonnie’s (brenzi’s) recent review. It’s a novel told in the form of an “autobiography” of two girls joined side by side at the head (craniopagus twins). The girls, Rose and Ruby, are approaching their 30th birthday, a milestone that will make them the oldest surviving craniopagus twins on record which you realize means they’re nearing the end of their lives. Rose is the literary twin who wants to write the autobiography. (“I want this collection of words to transform themselves into visions of Ruby and me. I want to be remembered like long-ago friends.”) Ruby has to be pressured to write her sections and is often pretty blunt in her observations. (“Not everyone can relate to being joined at the head, but anyone can relate to dying.”)

Lansens writing is lyrical and this book grabbed me right away. My favorite thing about it was how the twins’ extraordinary situation made ordinary things seem special and how Lansens’ depiction of the twins made them seem just like everyone else. “The strangest thing about strange things is that they’re only strange when you hear about them or imagine them or think about them later, but never when you’re living them.”

Rose and Ruby are very different people but the fact that they’re conjoined forces them to work together and they generally succeed in living in harmony. Their different personalities reminded me of the yin and yang symbol. Rose often reflects on the flow of life--“We drove the road along the river, the one that curves and loops and seems to flow back into itself, the way I do my sister, and life does death.”

The only thing that didn’t ring true to me was the chapter on the sisters’ trip to Slovakia, the home of their adoptive father. This trip didn’t seem like it would have been physically possible for them and the events that took place there took me out of the story. Otherwise, this was a fantastic read and one I’d highly recommend. I’ll definitely be looking for more of Lori Lansens’ books.

I loved The Girls as well and was surprised by how real their voices were, most of the time.

There are conjoined twins, joined exactly like Rose and Ruby, who live in a nearby city to me, and I used to see them all the time when I went shopping. I think knowing of them helped me to visualize Rose and Ruby's story in a fuller way.

I'm so glad you liked it Pat. You're right, that Slovakia chapter was the weakest for me too but the rest of the book was just so good I let that pass. I have her book Rush Home Road to get to too.

Glad you loved The Girls too, Angela, and that's interesting that you had that personal experience of knowing similar conjoined twins. Most of the time when I was reading the book I wasn't picturing the twins but how they saw the world which is something I loved about the book.

Bonnie, I don't know if you've been over to Amy's thread recently (Porch_Reader). She also just finished and loved The Girls based on your recommendation and Linda (Whisper1) highly recommended Rush Home Road to both of us. I love discovering new authors (to me anyway)!

I loved The Tortilla Curtain too. Such a contrast between families!

I liked your review of The Girls, Pat but I wonder if this is something I will enjoy reading. I'm in a bit of a weird mood, so I think I'll add this to my obese wish list anyway ... and maybe my interest in reading it will take a turn for more enthusiasm when this funk lifts.

Hey Pat, Hoping all's gone well with the hubsters surgery.

Hi Lynda! We were doing pretty well (he came home last night) until this morning when my husband slipped and fell on our wood floor at 5:30 in the morning. He couldn't get up so we had to call 911 and take a trip to the emergency room. His xray was fine but the wound did separate so he had to get more staples and will have to keep the leg straight for the rest of the weekend and we need to watch for signs of infection. The biggest problem we're having is that he thinks he's able to do more things than he really is at this point. Very hard to slow him down so I have my fingers crossed there won't be any more falls! I'm looking forward to getting back to my reading.

Oh ow ow ow. I so sympathize with both of you!

Pat- Nice to hear from you stranger! Sorry to hear about your husband and his fall. Hope everything is okay with him.

The 5:30am ordeal sounds pretty awful. Poor guy (and poor you, too, Pat!) I can imagine how hard it would be to slow down.

Goodness, Pat! I'm happy that your husband is home and sorry about his fall. You said, "The biggest problem we're having is that he thinks he's able to do more things than he really is at this point." uh---- That is a pretty clear indication that he's thoroughly male, I think.
I read your comments about T.C. Boyle, and I have considered myself a fan. Now I can't remember reading anything of his except Water Music. I'm off to check, but I think I need to revisit him sometime this year.

I can empathize with your husband and his wanting to do more than he should Pat. That just means he feels pretty good and that's a good sign. Your job is to hold on to the reins haha.

Yikes Pat! So sorry to hear about over achieving hubby and his accident. I hope the rest of your weekend is calm.

Oh dear. Hope he got the message... you might need to take those reins and tie him down. Good luck in the recovery period... it's hard to slow down. :}

Oh, no! Best wishes to you both. I'll be thinking healing, restful thoughts.

Oh Jeeze, so sorry. My DH doesn't do well when sidelined either. He gets very impatient. On the whole, I find that's usually a good sign, but sometimes there are setbacks. Best wishes for a smooth recovery from this point.

Ouch. I cringed in "pain" just hearing about your husband's fall. I hope that this is only a temporary setback.

Pat, I also cringe at the thought of wounds seperating. Men can be the worse patients, always the invincible, I'm tougher than this mentality. Hope your husband curbs his enthusiastic return to his everyday routines and takes it slow. It helps you in the longrun too. All the best to both of you.

Well we made it without any mishaps last night or this morning and I just checked his wound and it looks much better than yesterday. The swelling isn't gone but it's diminished and the bleeding has stopped.

I must say this whole experience of being home with him has been harder than I thought. When someone's on narcotic pain medication they aren't always thinking clearly and don't seem to realize that. My husband is so used to relying on himself it takes awhile for him to even consider (let alone accept) I might know better than he does!

Thanks for all the good wishes. I relayed them to Mike. He knows all of you because I talk about my LT friends so much. Occassionally when we're with friends the subject of LT will come up and I'm amazed at how much he's absorbed about all of you.

>196 phebj:: it takes awhile for him to even consider (let alone accept) I might know better than he does! Well for what it's worth, that happens to me all the time, even without narcotics! :)

Yikes, I hope everything is alright tonight, Pat! Take it easy - both of you!

Same around here, how everyone in the house knows who various LT people are! Tell him hi from Hepzibah!

Hi Pat - I hope today finds your husband feeling better. I know when mine had knee tendon surgery the first time he wouldn't stay off his feet the first day ("this isn't bad at all!"). All my please sit down nagging was ignored. Of course the next day, when all pain med wore off he was in great pain - so much so we had to go in for an mri in case there was a blood clot. He learned though and when he had to have his second knee repaired, he stayed off it.

A tranquilizer dart would have worked well.

Take it easy!

Today has been a great day. It seems like each day, Mike gets much stronger and can do alot more on his own.

Unfortunately, his fall on Friday really kicked my anxiety into high gear so I'm having trouble letting go of my super vigilance which is starting to drive him nuts. We see the doctor tomorrow again and hopefully they'll tell him how well he's doing and I'll calm down.

I have been reading and recently finished The Country of the Pointed Firs, Gone to New York: Adventures in the City and 101 Great American Poems all of which I enjoyed and hope to write something about soon.

I'm currently reading The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn which was just released as a movie called Limitless. It's a thriller about a writer who discovers a wonder drug that helps him focus and gets tons of work done.

I also started The Master by Colm Toibin, a novel about the life of Henry James, which I'm enjoying but have put aside to read The Dark Fields.

Good luck tomorrow! It's so hard to let go and stop worrying. Best wishes to you both.

Hey Pat, Hoping all goes well for Mike and you tomorrow at the doctor's office.

>201 phebj:: oh, I really enjoyed The Master, Pat. It was what inspired me to read more James (something I'm only just getting around to now with The Portrait of a a Lady, but it was worth the wait).

I can understand your anxiety with your "Mighty Mike" chomping at the bit to get moving again. Maybe you need the tranquilizer dart! That was a good idea Joanne had. I'm filing it away for future reference.

I'm glad you are getting lots of reading done despite being chief nurse and bottle washer! Crossing my fingers for a good report tomorrow.

My fingers are crossed too!

The doctor's appointment went well today. They thought the incision looked good and there are no signs of infection so Mike's cleared to start PT. It looks like we dodged a bullet with the fall--no permanent damage! Tomorrow I have a massage scheduled which I can't wait for. :) Thanks again for all the good wishes. When you're basically trapped at home it really helps to have a connection to other people.

On the reading front, I really wish I could have participated in the group read of The Portrait of a Lady. I keep seeing people rave about how much they're enjoying it. I'll probably try to get to it after I finish The Master which I'm still neglecting as I read The Dark Fields. The Dark Fields is good, not great, entertainment but I'm not as excited about it as I was in the beginning. I almost have the feeling it was written to be a movie more than a book. But I'm almost half way through so I plan on finishing it.

Glad to hear that Mike is progressing well and that you will be getting out. A massage sounds like a wonderful way to escape. Enjoy!

>207 phebj:: Pat, you can always "star" or "favorite" the group read threads so you can stop by at a later time. It would be fun to revive the discussion later!

Happy to hear your good news, Pat! Hope the PT goes well.

Enjoy your massage! Ahhhh....

>209 lauralkeet: I am planning to star the Portrait of a Lady thread so I can review it when I eventually get to the book. I hate missing out on a good group read, but living vicariously after the fact is the next best thing.

Ooh, a massage! Enjoy! Sounds perfect for celebrating good news.

Hi Pat, I have not been very good at keeping up with threads lately but I'm glad to see that your hubby is on the mend. He needs to do what the therapist says. That's the key to these replacements.

Hey Pat, Hope the massage loosened up all your tense, strained muscles. Amazing what one hour of pampering can do for the soul.

My massage yesterday was wonderful--just what I needed. And my husband's first PT appointment went well today. I just came back from a nice walk with my dog and feel relaxed again.

I starred The Portrait of a Lady thread and will definitely refer back to it when I get time to read the book.

I picked up The Lover's Dictionary from the library today which I first heard about on Joanne's thread. It tells a couple's love story through selected dictionary entries. While I was waiting for my husband at his PT appointment, I started it and it's just what I need right now. Sweet and light (at least so far).

So glad the massage was helpful and that things are settling down now.

Pat - I so glad to hear that PT went well. And it sounds like the massage was just what you needed!

Glad to hear things are going well now with Mike's recovery. As someone already stated above, it's important that he keep doing those exercises!

Ah, a massage, . . . bliss.

I join the chorus of gladness that life is lightening up a little for you. Enjoy!

Thanks, Lucy, Amy, Ardene and Peggy. He's doing PT three times a week so I feel like he's in good hands now and it's not all up to me to be on top of everything. The other thing that came as a surprise was how many things he used to do around the house that I now need to do--at least for awhile. I know when I go to Tucson to see my Mom, he's always surprised that no one has cleaned the kitchen, done the laundry or made the bed. :)

Just stopping by to say hurray for things looking up for you and Mike. My, a massage sounds perfectly dreamy...

Read all the Stegner controversy. Sad, because I thought that was a bang-up book, except for the end.

Isn't it amazing how life goes on normally and it always takes a bump in the road to make us appreciate things? Sheesh.

Hi Gail. Thanks for stopping by. It's hard not to take things for granted. As I get older I feel like I'm doing better appreciating the simpler things in life and I'm happy about that. I assume Spring has sprung down by you. I'm still eagerly awaiting the blooming of the daffodils and tulips we planted last fall. :)

Book No. 15 The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett--4 stars

The impact of this book sneaks up on you. Despite being a short book (141 pages) it took me almost two weeks to finish it. The writing is beautiful but not much happens. An unnamed woman arrives in Dunnet Landing, a maritime village along the coast of Maine, in the late 1800s. Her intent is to spend the summer writing but she is frequently distracted as she gets drawn into the lives of the village’s residents. When the summer comes to an end, so does the book.

What I loved about the book were the descriptions of the coast of Maine and the people, and I was sorry to see them go as the narrator’s boat sails out of sight heading back to Boston at the end. I found this quote on the Internet and it applies to how I felt about getting to know coastal Maine and the people of Dunnet Landing while reading The Country of the Pointed Firs:

In a letter to thirteen-year-old Mary E. Mulholland dated December 19, 1897, Sarah Orne Jewett wrote: “you will always have the happiness of finding friendships in books, and it grows pleasanter and pleasanter as one grows older. And then the people in books are apt to make us understand ‘real’ people better, and to know why they do things, and so we learn sympathy and patience and enthusiasm for those we live with, and can try to help them in what they are doing, instead of being half suspicious and finding fault. It is just the same way that a beautiful picture makes us quicker to see the same things in a landscape, to look for rich clouds and trees, and see their beauty”. (from Sarah Orne Jewett’s Letters, ed. Richard Cary, 1967).

Thanks to Donna and Anne for recommending this book and to Becky who’s 5 star review also persuaded me to read the book. The only thing that would have enhanced my reading experience would to have been able to read it on the coast of Maine on a summer vacation.

Some favorite quotes:

We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by a great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark.

About Mrs. Blackett, the mother of the narrator’s landlady--Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest’s pleasure.

About Elijah Tilley, an old fisherman--At first he had seemed to be one of those evasive and uncomfortable persons who are so suspicious of you that they make you almost suspicious of yourself.

You know, Pat, I loved the Jewett book. It's such a peaceful read...of course it helped that I'm extremely familiar with the territory she's talking about, but even so, her writing is soothing without being snore-inducing.

A soothing and peaceful read--I agree, Gail. I may have been in Maine as a child but obviously not long enough to remember it well. Jewett's writing was so wonderfully descriptive though that I could easily picture it plus the edition I got out of the library had some great black and white photographs in the front. I'm now on the lookout for a copy to buy. :)

I thought Pointed Firs was on my wishlist due to Donna's review, but AcK!, it was not, so thanks for the reminder, Pat, it is now on the list.

Hope you like it, Lynda! It's a good book for a lazy summer day when you have time to savor the simpler things in life.

>223 phebj:: The only thing that would have enhanced my reading experience would to have been able to read it on the coast of Maine on a summer vacation.

Wouldn't that have been great? I'm so glad you liked the book, Pat. A thumb from me. Thank you for including that wonderful quotation; she stated my feelings in a beautiful way.

I have seen so many positive reviews of The Country of Pointed Firs that I recently downloaded it to my Kindle. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Pat, what a wonderful review! I'm so glad you enjoyed the book.

Well Pat, if both you and Donna enjoyed The Country of Pointed Firs I guess there's no point in resisting any longer. Onto the teetering tower it goes.

>223 phebj:: That's a great review, Pat. It made me want to grab the book right away. Certainly it goes on the TBR list.

I'll also point it out to my sister who spends her summers in Maine.

Donna and Anne--thanks for recommending The Country of the Pointed Firs. I don't think I ever would have read it otherwise.

Donna, one thing I saw mentioned about the book when I was looking at reviews on the internet was that one of the themes was the dying way of life of making a living from the sea. Did your class discuss this at all? I know I didn't pay much attention to this when I was reading it and was surprised to see it mentioned as a theme.

Lori, Bonnie and Tad--I hope you all enjoy it when and if you get to it. Tad, your sister sounds like the perfect reader for it!

Pat- Big wave! I'll be anxious to hear your thoughts on Hemingway: The Paris Years. I just finished A Moveable Feast and really enjoyed it. It also sparked my interest in this period. Hope you are having a nice weekend.

Speaking of A Moveable Feast I was paging thru it the other day and was pleasantly surprised to find old snapshots of Hemingway throughout the book. Now, I'm really anxious to get started on it.

Mark, I started Hemingway: The Paris Years and then put it aside not because it wasn't good but because I was in a book funk. I want to get back to it but of course there are at least 10 other books I want to start right away so we'll see.

I've been stalling about getting to A Moveable Feast because I can't decide if I should buy the latest edition or not. I'm not sure what the difference is. Lynda, which version do you have? Maybe we can read it together.

I have the Country of the Pointed Firs on my Kindle already...but you make me even more excited to read it, thanks! :)

Pat, my version was purchased used thru Alibris or some similar bookseller. It's hardcover, no slipcover, copyright is 1964 and the publisher is Charles Scribner's Sons. It looks old and I have no idea why I even purchased it, but I seem to remember that someone must have read and reviewed it on LT.

Hey, Pat, throwing out a thought here. Before I commit to way too many TIOLI's, why don't we do April in Paris and read it sometime in April? Would that work for you?

ETA: I can even make April in Paris a TIOLI Challenge! ooo, I think I'll do that :) You TIOLI, don't you, Pat?

Angela, I hope you like The Country of the Pointed Firs.

Lynda, I love that idea for a TIOLI challenge. I didn't post any books in TIOLI for March but I have done it in the past. Maybe it'll get some more people to read The Paris Wife and besides A Moveable Feast I might even try to squeeze in George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London which I've been meaning to read.

Yeah! Just saw your name on the TIOLI challenge, Pat!
glitter-graphics.com

233: Pat, I do remember that aspect of The Pointed Firs. We spent time discussing the land vs. the sea way of life. This was a book of nostalgia for the old way of life. According to Professor Matt, the land represented the encroaching new way of life and the sea stood for the imperiled old ways.

I may have written this before, but in my notes I was so impressed that one of my fellow learners came up wtih the theory that the further the action got away from Dunnett's Landing (when they visited the islands), the more the story became about the past and the seafaring ways of making a living.

>240 phebj:, 241: I'd love to join you in reading A Moveable Feast in April. I'll add it to the TIOLI as soon as things settle down over there. It's quite the busy place today! This will be my first Hemingway since I read The Old Man and the Sea in high school. I also have the 1964 version, Lynda, with pictures. Looks like I bought it in Joplin last fall at the LT meet-up at the Changing Hands Book Shoppe.

I've got The Pointed Firs on my Nook. With both you and Donna singing its praises, how can I resist?!

Donna, thanks so much for that additional information about The Country of the Pointed Firs. I'm impressed with the comment of your fellow learner. Another thing I saw mentioned somewhere was that all the fisherman the narrator meets were older and near the end of their lives.

I'm happy that you'll be joining Lynda and me in reading The Moveable Feast. I don't have a copy and I'm thinking of ordering the new edition but will check it out some more before deciding.

Joanne, I hope you like The Country of the Pointed Firs. I took it out of the library and my copy was older with great photographs of Maine in the late 1800s. Hope you've got some of those photos in the Nook version.

Sigh. I lost your thread and got very busy and missed the entire Stegner class. And there I was in the front row in January.

I have really enjoyed reading all the summaries of class discussions and all the discussion here. I am nearly finished with Crossing to Safety and although it is a very quiet book, I think I have to say that it is my favorite of his books so far. Since it is only my fourth, perhaps it is early to say.
I believe Stegner was a man of his times. He had deep respect for women that comes through in his writing, but he likes them to stay at home. He seems more comfortable with his female characters in Crossing to Safety than in Angle of Repose. I always felt like he didn't like Susan Burling Ward very much. He is also very critical of Charity's treatment of her husband, but then again, so am I.

May I crash the party for A Moveable Feast? I've had it in my TBR pile forever. When does it start?

Jenn, there are five of us (me, Lynda, Donna, Ilana and Luci) reading A Moveable Feast for Lynda's April in Paris TIOLI challenge. She set up a thread for the challenge and we'll be discussing the book there (http://www.librarything.com/topic/113031#2605902). We'd love for you to join us. I'm not sure when everyone is starting; I don't see anyone reading it yet. I'm still waiting to get my copy which should be Monday.

Crossing to Safety is my favorite Stegner too and I agree with your comment that he was a man of his times. I almost wish I hadn't taken the class because I'm not sure I was happy being all stirred up about his supposed plagiarism/sexism.

Pat- I recently listened to A Moveable Feast and really enjoyed it. If I would have known about the Challenge, I would have waited and joined you. It's very short. I starred the thread, so I can stop by and view the comments.

I forgot that, Mark. I'm glad you enjoyed it and that it's short! Definitely join in the comments--the more the merrier.

I just went and added myself to the wiki. Now I need to go find my copy... and star the thread.

thanks! I really enjoyed the last group read with you. I'm looking forward to this one.

I am not going to pretend to read through every post here, Pat, just catch up from here on out. *wave*

Pat- We talked about reading Atwood a few months ago. I'm picking up a copy of The Handmaid's Tale. Would you like to read it later this month? Just a thought!

>251 msf59:: Mark, I can't resist telling you that the handmaid doesn't have a tail. It is, however, her tale.

:)

>252 lauralkeet: **Snort.**

Laura- Thanks! I am red-faced on that one! See what happens when I post so early?
It's fixed.

Mark, I'll have to let you know about reading Atwood later this month. I've signed up for 5 books so far on TIOLI and based on past experience will probably "rebel" at committing to a sixth this month. But you never know. Let me know when you're getting ready to read The Handmaid's Tale and I'll see if I can join you.

My new thread is over here. Hope to see you there!