Crossing to Safety (Modern Library Classics)

“Talent lies around in us like kindling waiting for a match, but some people, just as gifted as others, are less lucky. Fate never drops a match on them.” What a joy it was to read Wallace Stegner who chronicles two couples and reveals each in his/her strengths and weakness. Magically, he does so with glorious sentences and the one above. His poetic, thoughtful prose compliments his readers’ intelligence and joy of reading.The Langs and Morgans were an unlikely pairing. Opposites and contrast abound throughout the novel. The Langs, wealthy privileged easterners, products and producers of large extended families, seemingly have it all. They are adventurous, intelligent, and healthy. In contrast, the Morgans come out of the west from nothing—no money nor families, prone to difficult childbearing and diseases. Yet, these two couples form life-long bonds that survive (although not always so strongly) for their entire adult lives. In some ways, it would seem that the Langs gave more to the Morgans than visa versa. Charity’s exuberance to Sally’s gentle ways; Sid’s worldliness to Larry’s naive world view. But this is a story of the strength of a fired professor and his polio-ravished wife and their ability to overcome.Stegner could have devoted much more time to the “others” in the story: professors and wives, children and other relatives, but the essence of his novel was the Langs and the Morgans. As the novel opens, we know that Charity is dying and doing so in her own way. “Isn’t it typical? At death’s door and she wants it like old times, and orders everybody to make it that way. And worries about us being tired. Ah, she’s going to leave a hole.” And perhaps the “meta-essence” is Charity. Her personality drives those around her, and in that drive we see both the positive and negative effects. She decides that they will be friends; she decides that the Morgans will be assisted when times are tough. She wills the polio stricken Sally to live.Sally: “Except for Charity, I wouldn’t be alive. I wouldn’t have wanted to be.”Larry: “I know.”Sally and Charity bond immediately. Yet, Larry is not so enchanted with Charity. The two often spar, much to Sally dismay. Sally often defends Charity. Likewise, Larry bonds with Sid, becoming his champion. It seems to me that Larry understands the price that Sid pays to his determined wife. Sid never measured up to Charity’s father; couple that with never measuring up to his own father: “My most vivid memory of my father is the total incomprehension—the contempt—in his face when I told him I wanted to major in English literature at Yale.”In the story as Larry interprets it, we see Charity becoming more dogmatic from the “compass” for their camping adventure to Sid’s career. “Charity’s family are all professors. She likes being part of a university. She wants us to get promoted, and stay.”Her vision of how things should be (and how Sid should be) grows more rigid over the years. There is no room for personality, desire, or hope different from Charity’s vision. As ulta-generous and loving as she is to the Morgans, especially to Sally, her charity does not extend to Sid. To Charity (and probably to his father), Sid is a disappointment, too emotionally driven like the poet he wants to be.For me, the ultimate cruelty was Charity’s exclusion of Sid in her dying “plans.” As the widow of a cancer victim, I do not believe I could have recovered if my husband had banned me from his side. We nearly made it to 25 years, not quite. Langs more than likely were 40 or more. The role of spouse/care giver is difficult. Often, I felt I could never say the “right” thing: if I tried to be cheerful, I was told that I didn’t understand the fatality of the situation. If I was down, I was told that I wasn’t helping to be positive. Do I blame him? Absolutely, not. His burden was far heavier than mine. It was merely difficult to provide the comfort needed at the moment. In the end, we understood that our love, as human as it may have been, was true and strong. To have been excluded from his bedside would have been emotionally and spiritually fatal to me. I was often the emotional one to his reserve as Sid was to Charity. I call that balance.Charity’s expectations and determination were not totally unexpected. Stegner masterfully developed each character making their flaws and strengths human and real. I may have been disappointed in a character’s choice, but each time those choices stayed real. Crossing to Safety was a joy to read.

He's known for his dedication in writing about the preservation of the West of the United States, but my introduction to him came from reading his novel, Crossing to Safety. I've already ordered his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Angle of Repose because I'm enamored of this gentle man's prose and honesty in the telling of a compelling story. Isn't that the standard to which all authors should aspire? I know it's what I wish for myself.From the very beginning, he drew me into his story as the narrator, Larry, and his wife, Sally awaken in a cabin in the woods of Vermont in 1972. There's to be a meeting of some significance between their old friends, Sid and Charity, who own the property where they now find themselves.From there, Stegner takes the reader on a journey back to the 1930s during the dark days of Depression when the two couples meet in Madison, both as young and eager professors and their wives, at the University of Wisconsin. The plot may not be filled with dark twists and turns. It doesn't matter. The characters come alive under the lively pen of the author. Charity in particular fills the pages and overflows onto the margins and binding of the book. Her speech and her actions show us in absolute clarity that she is the queen--sometimes overbearing, but always with a heart firmly in front--of this foursome. Here's Stegner first description of Charity when he steps into his small basement apartment:"In the dim apartment she blazed. Her hair was drawn back in a bun, as if to clear her face for expression, and everything in the face smiled--lips, teeth, cheeks, eyes."Charity lives beyond this first impression. Sid, her husband, pales in comparison, except when Stegner describes his physicality, which resembles that of an ancient Greek god. Larry, the narrator, provides us the view of everyone else, although he remains an enigma through most of the novel. However, it is always clear his opinion of his best friend, Sid, and his controlling, yet caring, wife Charity. Perhaps it is Larry's love of his wife Sally that tells the reader the most of his character. Sally, a victim of the vicious polio, remains the stalwart and force behind Larry despite her challenges. She's my hero of the novel much more so than the dominant Charity.Characterization stands as one of the most important aspects of literary fiction because without it the reader has no reason to continue reading, no glue to keep them stuck to the plot. However, the descriptive prose of Stegner kept me attached to the story as much as the compelling characters. His love of nature shines through the story. At times, I stopped reading just to absorb the beauty and clarity of his descriptions, as shown in this description of the Vermont woods, as Larry, Sid, and their pack-horse Wizard make their way to a camp on their first day of a week-long hike."Dust has whitened the ferns along the roadside, gypsy moths have built their tents in the chokecherry bushes, the meadow on the left is yellow with goldenrod, ice-blue with asters, stalky with mullein, rough with young spruce. Everything taller than the grass is snagged with the white fluff of milkweed. On the other side is a level hayfield, green from a second cutting. The woods at the far edge rise in a solid wall. In the yard of an empty farmhouse we sample apples off a gnarled tree. Worms in every one. But Wizard finds them refreshing, and blubbers cider as he walks."This example shows that descriptive prose need be neither showy or pushy to paint a portrait for the reader. In its simplicity, I floated above the scene taking in every detail, including the foam sputtering from the mouth of Wizard.I am a fan left wondering how I missed reading Wallace Stegner before now. In his sixty-year career, he wrote thirty books, both fiction and nonfiction. Edward Abbey claimed, before Stegner's death in 1993, that he was "the only living American writer worthy of the Nobel." He never received the honor, but he does receive my highest praise for achieving what I only aspire to do as an environmental author of outstanding fiction.

This book is about the lifelong friendship between, and the constrasting fortunes of, two men: one, unable to achieve his full potential because of blind devotion; the other, successful despite the weight of tragedies. The book is all about characters, the story only serving to open them up to us.It took me more than two months to read this book, not because it is boring, but because it has to be savoured. This is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. It is beautifully written.

I started reading this book yesterday morning very early on a bus journey I was dreading; from a few pages in, it completely changed my view of my surroundings and of the trip I was undertaking. The words in the book are so beautiful, the descriptions so vivid that from the start I read slowly, savouring each page. I took the time to look out of the window and to appreciate how the morning sun was illuminating the green fields around me, the mist handing on church spires in the distance. As I got deeper into the book, I got attached to Sally and Larry, and Sid and Charity, the four main protagonists, whose friendship is the underlying theme. Stegner tells of their lives, of the wonderful fun they have, in snow, on boats, in the outside; of the parties they organise, of the adventures they go on, but also of the sorrows they face. The focus is on the relationship between Sid and Charity, who have very opposing characterics. The dilemmas they face seem real, and I often paused to ask myself what I would do in a given situation. On several occasions, it also became a page-turner, making me speed up to find out the outcome of certain predicaments.Like other wonderful books such as Siri Hudvest's What I love, it talks beautifully of art. It made me what to go to museums, to listen to music properly, to create, to develop my life. I really can't recommend this book enough; I will definitely reread it, and then make my way through all of Stegner's other writings.

My sister recommended this but unfortunately she had already lent it to someone in her book club., so I ordered it.I couldn’t put it down, wonderful depiction of class, academic life and relationships in America.I passed it onto my husband and he couldn’t put it down either.Beautifully written, great characters.Highly recommended

This novel started off full of promise and I loved the story of two married academic couples bound in friendship and their early married life. But then, three quarters of the way through, the story loses its way as if Stegner had no idea how to finish it. Was there something symbolic about the two wives becoming neutralised, physically damaged, while their husbands stagger on and survive, fully armed? Perhaps the answer is there somewhere but I raced through the endless boring detail and description in the latter part of the novel, detail that left ragged ends and seemed to go nowhere. Final analysis, disappointing.(Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa)

This was our book club choice and not one I would have chosen for myself for all sorts of reasons, but then that's why I belong to a book club. It was an easy read, not at all challenging. Until you start to think it over.It is an in-depth study of relationships and the many things that drive people's behaviour and relationships. In the end it was challenging, as it makes you re-think your own relationships, and the relationships of people you know. Our book club discussion drew out further aspects that I hadn't seen, but had been discovered by others. Great book that creeps up on you.