Although there are a couple of other books I've read this year that may be technically better, damned if this isn't my favorite. Like a Tchaicovsky movement from The Nutcracker, I have read and reread this sucker so many times that it has become a part of me, incorporated in an organic way in my very thought processes. Passages will enter my mind, like verses of scripture. Few books ... no other books, perhaps ... have so influenced my view of the world.People talk of scripture, how they can turn to any random page, and find comfort therein. This somewhat strange and obscure book is like that for me. The following are various Stegner quotes I've collected. Enjoy.Reading Salt Lake City with Wallace StegnerAt Home in the Fields of the LordA Gentile in New Jerusalem: certainly I was. Salt Lake City is a divided concept, a complexidea. To the devout it is more than a place, it is a way of life, a corner of the materiallyrealizable heaven; its soil is held together by the roots of the family and the cornerstones of thetemple.Salt Lake City is an easy town to know. You can see it all. Lying in a great bowl valley, it can besurmounted and comprehended and possessed wholly as few cities can. … The streetsare marked by a system so logical that you can instantly tell not merely where you are butexactly how far you are from anywhere else … Looking into the blank walls of cities … breedsthings in people that eventually have to be lanced.In Salt Lake I wrote my first short story and my first novel. In Salt Lake I fell in love for the firsttime and was rudely jilted for the first time and recovered for the first time.Because I believe in the influence of places on personalities, I think it somehow important thatcertain songs we sang as high school or college students in the twenties still mean particularand personal things. “I’m Looking over a Four Leaf Clover” is all tied up with the late-dusk smellof October on Second South and Twelfth East. … “Exactly Like You” means the carpet, themezzanine, the very look and texture and smell, of the Temple Square Hotel.RecapitulationProgress had been at work on it. Old buildings had been replaced by newer, taller ones, andsomething drastic had happened to Main Street. Its sidewalks had been widened well outinto the former traffic lanes, and the streets narrowed to half its width. … The effect was like theSoviet exhibit at a World’s Fair, something created by Heroic Workers. Merely human activiteswould be diminished on such a street.It Is the Love of Books I Owe ThemI am coming along Thirteenth East on my way to an eight o’clock class. It is a marvelousmorning – it is always a marvelous morning, whether the air is hazy with autumn and theoakbrush on the Wasatch has gone bronze and gold, or whether the chestnut trees along thestreet are coned with blossoms … I am enveloped in a universal friendliness. I turn at thedrugstore on Second South and start uphill toward the Park Building at the head of the U drive.
I should have liked this book more. I anticipated the sequel to “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” as I so badly wanted to know what happened to Bruce. I could certainly relate to the setting in Salt Lake City- as I could picture most of the landmarks, streets and buildings he described. I was also interested in his frequent references to the “Mormon” church and culture. I also could certainly relate to the theme of returning to where one experienced losing their first love, as I had a similar experience when I returned to the college town where I lost my first love many years after. I was completely stunned with the wash of emotion I experienced just being in that setting. It brought it all back- experiences I hadn’t thought about in years. Stegner captured those emotions and feelings so well. Returning offers a closure that you didn’t even know you needed. Stegner’s writing and turn of a phrase gives me chills. But this book was a bit slow and trudging to me. I think that’s because it was mostly flashback, so the present story was slow and it was easy to lose the story thread as it wasn’t told chronologically. But I guess that’s how memories come- not necessarily in order. Hey, I’m liking the book better as I contemplate and review it. What I think the problem really is: I’m not intelligent enough for this genius of a writer, so he’d lose me- sometimes for pages at a time. I’m sure if I hadn’t had to hurry through to get the book back to the library, and I took time to really think through those difficult passages, I’d find depth and spine-tingling truths therein. I feel certain of that, as that has certainly been the case in every other Stegner book I have read. Overall, at least for this reading, I would rate it 3.5.
What do You think about Recapitulation (1997)?
After reading BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN, I read RECAPITULATION, which is the return of Bruce Mason to Salt Lake City after many years. There is so much history of Mason in BIG ROCK, that I can't say how this book would stand on its own. Having had the fortune of reading BIG ROCK first, RECAPITULATION is so compelling. It is as if the wind turned the pages for me.Stegner reminds us that our lives, nor those of others can be judged in a meeting; rather it takes the understanding of generations to begin to understand where a person is coming from.Our lives are so complex, and Stegner lets us know that we are not alone in all of our thoughts, actions, decisions, and compromises. Even the most confident amongst us most likely has deep conflicts as they move through life. Here we see an outwardly super successful man that entering the later years of his life is still running from the shame of his family. It keeps him an island, which separates him from humanity. Very sad indeed to not feel a part of the whole.Wallace Stegner is a master.
—Joe
I'm honestly not sure what to make of Stegner's sequel to The Big Rock Candy Mountain. It just seems to sit there. Where the first novel was expansive, this one is small. Where Big Rock luxuriated in memory, Recapitulation seems to be choked out by it. The veneer of the novel, that Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City 30 years later to bury his aunt, is just that a veneer - a thin coating that excuses Stegner in exploring things that probably should have been included in The Big Rock Candy Mountain. For instance, Stegner spends a good deal of time covering the teen life and eventual downfall of Chet Mason, but leaves Bruce's formative years alone for the most part. Given that Bruce is Stegner's avatar, this struck me as a significant deficiency in Big Rock. But now that I've read Recapitulation, I can understand why he left it out even if it is interesting. For one, the material was probably too graphic (not graphic by today's standards) for a novel published in the early 40s. Better to wait until the sexual revolution has passed. But more importantly, Bruce Mason's teen life is a separate world from his family life, which means that most of what Bruce goes through doesn't really inform the themes so important to The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Chet's drive for freedom and eventual death at least were a direct result of Bo Mason's chosen bootlegger lifestyle. It's not until near the end of Recapitulation where old Bruce starts to remember the way in which he left Salt Lake and his father for good that the novel tries to live up to it's lofty title. But having just read Big Rock Candy Mountain it felt more like tautology. Recapitulation isn't a bad novel. Taken on it's own as a fictive adolescent memoir, it has it's merits. It also has merit as a meditation on memory, though it's a little more overbearing in that area. I think the best thing I can say about Recapitulation is that it is superfluous; pleasant at times, grinding in others, and wholly unnecessary. If you loved The Big Rock Candy Mountain, as I did, then it's worth reading to have a better concept of Bruce's life. If you didn't love Big Rock, then leave this one alone.
—Nathan Marone
As I watched a biography on Stegner, the commentator mentioned that this book was somewhat of an autobiography of Stegner’s life. I have wanted to read it and overall I enjoyed it and the glimpse into Stegner’s “life”. It is about a man who returns to his Salt Lake City home for the burial of his great aunt and only living relative. As he drives around the city he has flashbacks of his days as a teenager and young adult. He can’t seem to reconcile his current life with his past but is trying to make connections to what he has become. I liked the allusions to Salt Lake City and it felt familiar given his descriptions of the places and people he encountered. It is not a very long book but Stegner can be pretty intense at times. He is a wonderful writer but this is definitely not a beach read. I had a hard time getting into the story but it picked up quickly. I could maybe use some passages in my AP class because I think Stegner is an amazing writer. I would only suggest the book to Stegner fans. I think he is brilliant but his writing can be a bit daunting.
—Julie
