Very early into this book, I realized that it was a masterpiece I was sitting with. The way it was written and the topics it deals with makes it one of those universal stories that will grip you whether it’s 1987 (back when it was written), 2021 or even 2050.
Sid, Charity, Larry & Sally are people with flaws and characters that will sit with me for a long time to come. Two married couples who - despite their inequality in riches and background - become best friends. This novel is a rendition of their lives together told in a long flashback that leads up to a heart-twisting ending.
I’m so happy this book found its way into my life, and I whole-heartedly recommend it to everyone who loves books about characters, life, marriage and ever-changing relationships.

My review of Stegner's Angle of Repose in which I was fairly critical of the book, several readers objected and insisted I read Crossing to Safety. Well, I listened to the audiobook during a long 7h drive today and found it more interesting than Angle and yet not in my upper echelon of American 20th C novels. Crossing reminded me more of Richard Russo's style that it did of Updike (both of whose writing I prefer). I liked the descriptions very much (as I did in Angle), but had a hard time really liking Larry and Sally. I felt a bit repulsed by Charity and sorry for Sid. And I felt that - like in Angle - when Stegner wants to make a dramatic point, there is never really a fine point to it, it is to me quite heavy handed. Midway, he does a clever fake breaking of the 4th wall and I liked analogies he used (especially "the pilgrim versus the pickpocket"). I found all the name-dropping in Florence a bit tedious even if I did appreciate some of the analysis particularly of Massacio (one of my favoritea there) as well as the playing of Beethoven's 9th over the chilling conflict over dishwashing. Perhaps the best way to express my feeling about this book is conflicted: I know many loved it and while I can see its qualities, I cannot say that I had more than an appreciation for it. Thinking about it more, I fet there was a bit of anti-Semitism in the book - despite the narrator's offhand denial - in that the only Jewish people portrayed are the couple that is rejected by the group, but especially Morris later who has a stutter. Honestly, I didn't see the point of adding that personal defect on that character. Maybe I am too sensitive, but that did bug me a bit.

GR member Joachim pointed out this cool adhoc sountrack for Angles that I should share as well booksounds

Oh, and I did read and review Stegner's Crossing to Safety as well after repeated recommendations in the comments to this review.

The warm shudders I experienced as I sank into each night with this book on my lap, the stunning imagery of diminished time against an unchanging landscape, and the quiet story of academic couples faced with tragedy, makes me certain that Stegner will be an author I grow with this year. This year I made a pact with myself to become more familiar with the works of authors I love. Now here I am, back to visit Stegner, "The Dean of Western Writers," after having admired the program he started at Stanford and after having relished his guidebook, On Teaching and Writing Fiction. I read this simple, yet sweeping Great Depression story of love and friendship, of time and discovery, of pleasure and pain, and it sparked something in me that leaves me a bit in awe, a bit speechless, a bit drained.

"I wonder if I have ever felt more alive, more competent in my mind and more at ease with myself and my world, than I feel for a few minutes on the shoulder of that known hill while I watch the sun climb powerfully and confidently and see below me the unchanged village, the lake like a pool of mercury, the varying greens of hayfields and meadows and sugarbush and black spruce words, of all of it lifting and warming as the stretched shadows shorten."


(When they were younger, sometimes the academic couples camped around a hill like this, enjoying the sunset; sometimes Larry and Sid sat on a bench like this, just above the hill, and they discussed career disappointments).

I hope I will have more to say about this book, or I guess I should be clear that I do have more to say but I hope I'll have the energy to write those thoughts. I just sent off another scholarship recommendation for a former student who I hope will someday conquer scientific research. Afterwards, I almost shut off my laptop. But I feel as if I owe some form of expression to one of the pioneers of Graduate Art Programs who helped developed budding artists like myself who can only wish she gains an ounce of the creative momentum Larry had in this novel. I hope I'll have more to say because while reading this, it underscored for me my uniqueness as the other half of an academic couple. I don't teach currently, but I have taught a few years of undergraduate courses. For the past several years, my husband and I have lived in a few academic communities while he worked in administration and I worked on faculty. Not so much unlike Larry and Sally. And like Larry, I've realized the strains that an environment of conformed thought places upon the creative mind, the lack of knowledge about the field, and the necessity of fellowships like Stegner's. (see my review here ). And Sally, well she is just so nuanced that all I can say briefly is that she's an indomitable warrior and helpmeet who faces illness with steel.

I hoped I would have more to say about this encompassing read, but I have the feeling I've already said enough...