Rating: 
Summary: A differing opinion
Review: I did not find this book to be the masterwork that so many others do.There is much to recommend it: both stories are balanced and beautifully written, the depiction of the West is real and not romanticized, and the lives of the characters are rich and complex. The characters, though, are not complex enough. Except for the narrator they do not change. Even he only says he might change because of dream he has in the last few pages. The rest of the characters are drawn so reductively that they're almost stereotypes. The portrayal of the married couple is imbalanced to an exaggerated degree. Oliver is a kind, industrious man who it's hard not to sympathize with. Susan is so unappreciative of him that it's easy to blame her for the tragedy that occurs. The disturbing conclusion this suggests is that an educated talented women should be a good wife and mother or horrible things will happen. I clearly have a different view than most others on this book. Two flaws keep it from greatness: the lack of dynamic, complex characters and the unnecessarily negative portrayal of an educated, artistic female character.
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Summary: Different than I thought, in a good way
Review: Wallace Stegner began his book Angle of Repose very slowly. At first I was disgusted by, and sorry for, the old historian. But then I was enthralled by his family's history. As I grew to enjoy that part of the story, I also expanded to enjoy the old, handicapped man's version of life. Angle of Repose was different than I had originally imagined, but it was different in a 'better than I expected' kind of way. I chose this novel for a book report book from a list of Chronicle recommendations, and I think I will go back to the list. This occupied their number one spot, hopefully others will live up to the standard this book set.
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Summary: tough look at real issues
Review: The life of Lyman Ward is not pretty. He has bone cancer, may not live long and his wife left him when he needed her most. However, his love for his long deceased grandparents and his background as a historian leads him to write a book about them by sorting through the work and articles they left behind. As he learns about them, he learns how to live with himself.
Only read if you're tough enough to see ALL the facts of life and death. If you can stomach the pity Lyman has for himself, and love the west, you'll love this book as I did. This is truly one of the top 10 books I've read in my life.
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Summary: wow did someone ever pay money to be thsi bored?
Review: Only if you think life is boring drudgery would you ever like this hellish book. IT follows 2 characters who seem to ove pain. This book is designed for people who feel sorry for themselves or are wallowing in thier own narcoleptic rigidity. As said by the reviewer below they basically move from place to place in the greatest country ever, the usa, and are pissey and depressed almost all the time. Astounding that thsi drivel is considered literature.
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Summary: A Vacation Read
Review: Stegner's Angle of Repose is a perfect Christmas holiday read. Its slow, rich, weighty style and content are so enjoyable that you'll want to curl up and live with this landscape and these characters for a while. However, it's not a book to be read on your lunch break. The book's slowness and richness don't allow for a skimming read. To fully appreciate this book, you'll need a cup of tea, a wool blanket, and hours to be absorbed into Stegner's fictional world. The retired historian, who narrates the book, tells us a story of his grandparents' role in developing the Western frontier, but as he tells this story his own story (perhaps even more intricate and engaging) emerges. The title comes from a geological/engineering term which means: "the steepest angle at which loose material remains intact without sliding downslope." This is very fitting, since the reader gets the feeling that the narrator is at his angle of repose, and he may at any moment be pushed by life that extra bit that causes him to fall into separate avalanching pieces. "Read this book, but give it the room it requires," is my advice. Otherwise you may find yourself thinking of it as too slow instead of perfectly paced.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: Others have already reviewed this better than I can. I just want to register my five-star vote. It is a great story.
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Summary: One of the best books of the 20th century
Review: This novel was a wonderful two-part story; a beautifully woven piece depicting the past and present, and how they truly do interact with each other throughout one's lifetime. Lyman Ward, as an historian turned genealogist, unveils the truth about his grandmother's past while at the same time facing his own reality for, perhaps, the first time in his life. For me, as a genealogist, it had so much meaning in both aspects of the story: the love story, turned to an "angle of repose," between his grandparents, and the fascination of discovering one's past. This is a book that everyone should read at some point in life.
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Summary: Funny how you find a book ....
Review: How often the brightest gems show up in the darkest places.
I'll leave the fine details of this excellent book to those much more qualified than me - trust me, they do the book justice in the posts that follow.
I came across this book in the 'used book dustbin' at a local library. Never, in a hundred years, would I have purchased it based on the description on the book cover. But a funny thing happened as I reached down to lift Angle of Repose - a flash back to another book, whose title I can't recall, that I read in two afternoons a year ago on the beach. This book, written by a female Philadelphia lawyer turned writer, was a contemporary fiction account of a plane crashing into a roller coaster (Dorney Park near Allentown, PA perhaps), her daughter and husband's involvement and her role as a highpowered barrister. In the book she makes references to the 'Angle of Repose' and, click, !lightbulb!, I made a mental connection.
Truth be told, I started Angle of Repose six months ago, read ten pages and turned it aside. Too slow, confusing and much ado about nothing it seemed to me.
I tried again as the December days grew short and, withing fifty pages, was hooked. For all the reasons others have written I too found it to be a delight.
I have a little problem with the length and the filler letters from Susan to Augusta (though they do set the scene), agree the dream sequence did seem unnecessary and that Susan needed a good talking to (re: Frank and her tough stance with Oliver), and, yes, it did smack of shallow racism and misogony. I balance that against the writing that's far too beautiful for my words, the unparalled descriptions of Leadville, New Almaden, Mexico and Idaho and insight into real life in the growing years of our country.
Give the book a chance, or a second chance as in my case, and I believe you will be rewarded much as I was.
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Summary: Masterfully written...and I am not a fan of fiction/novels
Review: What a beautiful book. A must read...2 major storylines going on at once in two different time periods. A book to read if you have ever been wronged, down on your luck, confused, in love, and on and on and on! Masterfully written, after the first few chapeters I was hooked. I could hardly put it down. Totally engulfed. I expected to HATE the book when I began but now want to read all of his books! A LONG book, though. Give yourself some time to savor what you are reading. Chances are high, you will want to read this again.
Rating:
Summary: Not reposed
Review: I suppose I should not undertake reviewing a book within half an hour of finishing it, so overlook the turmoil in which the book has left me. Stegner has been a discovery, but a tumultuous discovery. The tormented lives--separate lives--of Susan and Oliver hardly make for tranquil reading, but we should not read to achieve tranquility. Stegner evokes several eras or social movements at once: the sedate life of well-to-do East Coast culture in the age of Henry James; the raw boisterousness, beauty, and wasteful cruelty of the Western settlement and development; and the instable, conflict-ridden culture of California in the 60's. His characters exhibit an authenticity that makes their ambitions, values, and weaknesses possess a shattering immediacy for us, or ought to possess it. Before you complain of the length of the novel, understand that it is long because what it has to say could not be said more briefly I will assent to ranking Angle of Repose among the 100 most significant novels of the twentieth century.
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