![]() ![]() ![]() As Larry says: "We straggled into Madison, western orphans, and the Langs adopted us into their numerous, rich, powerful, reassuring tribe." In a virtuoso scene – one of many – the Morgans find themselves basking in the Langs' golden light while another, less fortunate couple can only glare in envy from the sidelines. Rich and confident as the Langs are not, she almost literally sweeps them off their feet. Sid and Charity are rich, while Larry and Sally are poor, but this disparity is soon forgotten as the Langs throw a party for all new members, at which performances are. It is Charity who starts the friendship and who then dictates much of what ensues. Crossing to Safety Wallace Stegner tells the story of four friends, Larry and Sally Morgan and Sid and Charity Lang, who meet as new faculty members at Madison, Wisconsin. At its centre are two couples: the Morgans, Larry and his angelic wife Sally and the Langs, the weak but charming Sid, and the vibrant and impossibly bossy Charity. Summary Called a magnificently crafted story. The story, as related by the aged Larry Morgan, is one of marriage and of friendship. Crossing to Safety Wallace Stegner, 1987 Random House 368 pp. A novel based on character that has immense narrative power. It's a miraculous book, written with the wisdom of age but without seeming old. He was 62 when, in 1971, he won the Pulitzer for Angle of Repose: he was 78 when Crossing to Safety, his last novel before his death, came out. Wallace Stegner, who also wrote short stories, essays, biographies and histories, published his first novel in 1937. The characters burrow into your heart, and Stegners prose, as one critic put it, is 'prismatic, lush and painterly.' Dont miss this one. ![]() Not only a book of a lifetime, Crossing to Safety is a book that comes at the end of a long lifetime of writing. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |