Angle of Repose

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, relevant and fast-paced
Review: Wallace Stegner does a remarkable job bringing the reader into the lives of his characters. He places these characters in probable yet revealing situations and provides them with realistic personalities. At the same time, Stegner provides an excellent commentary on the affect of technology on the lives of the American people. I learned quite a bit from the narrator about the frustrations and challenges faced by disabled Americans; although I worked in a home health agency for over ten years! The character of Susan exposed many of the challenges that my own grandmother faced in her lifetime. While Oliver taught me about my husband's desires and fears. The relationship between Oliver and Susan was one of the most realistic portrayls I have ever read. Their experiences of hurt / forgiveness / non-forgiveness and the affect of these experiences on their relationship and on their personalities gave me much to ponder in my own relationships. The time-span of the novel allowed a pertinent and insightful discussion of the affects of technology on the American people and culture. Some of these affects had never occured to me before. More food for thought. I recommend this novel to virtually anyone interested in American history or extended family relations.

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Summary: What a pleasure to read a book with so much substance!
Review: I got so into this book, into the characters and their lives. For the first time ever, history fascinated me. I thought the author's description was beautifully written. I can shut my eyes and be at the Zodiac Cottage and smell and visualize the roses Oliver Ward grew for Agnes. The ending, however, left me sad and wanting. I miss the characters. I want to know more. What happened during the Zodiac years? How did Ollie feel around his grandmother after 10 years of silence? How did the two grandparents feel in the last fifty years of their lives? Did they punish each other or themselves? Did they every forgive? I loved the book and have not been able to forget the characters or the places or the feel of the story. If you love reading a book of thought, imagination, history, relationships, a book of substance, I highly recommend the pleasure of reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Well written with poor characterization
Review: Tho the book is well written I found it very hard to like a book with such an unlikeable, whining main character. I did not, as a whole, buy the relationship between Susan and her husband, nor did I fully understand why she married him in the first place. Certainly I cannot fault the writing style or his descriptive powers, but because they are so well done they show up the lack of characterization and character development.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: This is the best book I've ever read.
The characters and the story have all the depth, strangeness, and familiarity of real life. You won't want the story to end; and you'll feel like your life has changed when it does.
This book was written late in Stegner's life. For contrast, read "Big Rock Candy Mountain", his first (?) book. This was also wonderfully written, but obviously by a younger writer. By the time he wrote "Angle of Repose", he'd perfected his craft.

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Summary: A Book to Savor (but is it a "guy's book?")
Review: Our reading group read this book, the men liked the Western adventures, the geology, the history and the curmudgeon and his railing at the hippie era. There are veins of ironic humor and persistent poking of holes into the popular myths of how the West was won. (Was it hard work and cowboys or sharp dealing and pirates?) The women found many of the descriptions poetic, vivid and fascinating, but some were disappointed that the relationships were more flat and 1-dimensional than they might have liked. Some felt it was obviously written by a man. Perhaps its a "guys book" but I savored it. Knowing that it is based on the actual letters of a real woman (Mary Halleck Foote) adds greatly to the appreciation for the author's creativity in weaving his story around the points of fact that were established by Ms. Foote's real life. Highly recommended.

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Summary: A True Confession
Review: How is it that a person can go his or her whole life (however short or long that may be) and be completely oblivious to the surrounding world and all that is in it? That is how I felt after reading Angle of Repose. Until that fateful day, during a casual browse at my favorite bookstore, I had never even heard of Wallace Stegner (and me, with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature...humph!). I am guilty of not fully and consciously acknowledging that with every moment that goes by, I am losing valuable time from reading beautiful, magnificently written books. And if, until recently, I had never heard of Wallace Stegner, who else haven't I heard of? This is a troubling question indeed........ I will not say that Angle of Repose is the best book I have ever read (I am not sure I believe in such a concept), nor will I go into a boring and subjective analysis of Stegner's work, but I just want to say that months after reading this book my heart is still racing with the excitement of having discovered an author whose writing is still new and refreshing years after it was penned

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Summary: The great unread American novel
Review: Stegner's probably the most under-appreciated American writer of this century, and this book is a perfect illustration of why that's a darn shame. The story within a story technique is executed beautifully... so beautifully, in fact, it's difficult to say who the protagonist in this book is. It's a can't miss for anyone interested in genealogy, the West--or in reading about trying to make marriages work

Rating:
Summary: Angle of Repose as the underrated "Great" American Novel
Review: Angle of Repose, although known and respected, is rarely afforded the central place it should have as a candidate for The Great American Novel, whatever that might be. (The use of this trite notion should be forgiven; it is used to get attention and to make a statement in the way a heartfelt romantic, when not a maniacal prophet, willing to suffer embarrassment in the expression of truth, uses overly effusive praise automatically, but sincerely). Popular supposition usually suggests the centrality of The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn and the Great Gatsby. There is also a strong case to be made for Updike's Rabbit tetralogy and even for Lolita. It is after reading Angle of Repose without any expectation or duty to rate or judge it in this kind of pantheon, and recognizing immediately the compelling magic presence of greatness, that it naturally submits itself for this kind of consideration and appreciation. // In Angle of Repose, the chill of recognition of brilliant style and skillful artistic construction fit naturally with frankly American concerns and an American story set in American history. Stegner presents the West (but not just the West, although the book suggests that locale as literally the heart of the country) and characters whose stories gracefully track the development of their family. This is accomplished without burdening the reader with the distraction of overtly ponderous broader reflection, while effortlessly portraying the growth of American principles and maturing (or, at least aging) American history. // Commentators tend to ruin such a compelling work for readers with comparisons to much different works which do not necessarily resemble the subject of their discussion, except in reputation or scope. Some Tolstoy, maybe a similar scope and majesty to Buddenbrooks, would be serious points to make here after reflection. But, in fairness, such flights should not be inflicted on a reader --at least not in advance -- because they could mislead, or worse, dissuade, some reader who would then be denied the downright treat of Wallace Stegner's achievement. The pure and simple recommendation of the book is initially that it is a compelling, unavoidable pleasure as a pure, as well as sophisticated, read. // Angle of Repose was on my personal list of books I always meant to get to, and finally it was just picked up off a library shelf about 12 years ago. It instantly administered that chill in the spine as any observer recognizes immediately before a great work of art. That judgment must be accepted as an unfiltered view, and should not set any person who has not yet experienced the treat from approaching this novel. I still remember the greatness on the first reading and the awe the novel invoked, like the remembered flash of the exposure of any greatness in any person's life, when any human has felt the communication of a great work and instantly knows that what has just happened is a special mark which automatically recalls that chill at moments of recognition for the rest of a lifetime.// Angle of Repose should doubtless be, and probably is, a standard book for humanities students and a core book of college curricula. That awfully dry and fearful judgment being made, it is only a reflection of the status the book has, and should not dissuade any reader from this great book, this once in a half century masterwork

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Summary: Women's perspective of the early days of the West.
Review: The view of the settling of the West was fascinating. But what I enjoyed the most was the relationship between a husband and wife who were very different. They stayed together but how they existed together made me examine my own relationships. I felt the theme was forgiveness, or lact of forgiveness and what it can do to a relationship

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Summary: The past in the present.
Review: Certainly the most famous and best received novel of Wallace Stegner's lengthy career, the 1971 Pulitzer Prize winning "Angle of Repose" is a novel about the importance and pertinance of familial ancestry. The cranky narrator blurts out at one point, "If you want to be a literary critic, you have to read what's there." This advice is exactly what he endeavors to do throughout the novel, and exactly what close readers can do as they explore the intricacies of this well written and carefully constructed text. The novel's settings are both beautiful and realistic depictions of the American west: including the development of its frontier and the sweat, hardship, and love that went into creating it. Though taught at the Graduate level of many colleges and universities, "Angle of Repose" is accessable to readers at many levels and teaches by example how the past can indirectly influence the present, and in the case of our narrator, influence the future as well