I read this book earlier this year, but since it's at the top of my favorites list, and will likely stay there for some time, it deserves some explanation.
Winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and Stegner's best known work, Angle of Repose is a masterpiece of contemporary American literature. The story is built around a crippled historian telling the sub-story (which actually takes most of the book) of his grandparents in the western U.S of the late 1800's. Admittedly, the novel is long and occasionally even slow, but well worth the effort. At first the story of a couple making a life in the rugged west captured me more than I thought possible. I felt like I was reading about people I knew, and indeed, the power of the book is not in plot twists or action, but in the power of the characters and how much you begin to care about their life together and more especially their relationship. By the end of the book (and don't worry, this isn't a spoiler), the life of the historian narrator becomes the more pressing an relevant of the story lines as the two stories come together with one of the most powerful and profound endings I have ever read.
Even if you're not too keen on "high literature," don't disregard this one. It's more readily applicable to everyday life than your average high school English required reading. "Angle of Repose" explores themes of survival, ambition, love, forgiveness, and perhaps more than anything, marriage. And on that note, readers who are or have been married will generally find deeper insights and meaning in this novel.
Genre: Fiction/Post-modern Lit
5 days ago
2 comments:
Boy o boy, it looks like you never would have liked this book so much without me. Good for me. :)
This shows my ignorance, but I've honestly not heard of Stegner before. The book looks promising, from your review. Thanks for the tip.
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