Angle of Repose (Audible Audio Edition) Wallace Stegner Mark Bramhall Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : Angle of Repose (Audible Audio Edition) Wallace Stegner Mark Bramhall Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1971, Angle of Repose has also been selected by the editorial board of the Modern Library as one of the hundred best novels of the 20th century.
Wallace Stegner's uniquely American classic centers on Lyman Ward, a noted historian who relates a fictionalized biography of his pioneer grandparents at a time when he has become estranged from his own family. Through a combination of research, memory, and exaggeration, Ward voices ideas concerning the relationship between history and the present, art and life, parents and children, and husbands and wives. Like other great quests in literature, Lyman Ward's investigation leads him deep into the dark shadows of his own life. The result is a deeply moving novel that, through the prism of one family, illuminates the American present against the fascinating background of its past.
Set in many parts of the West, Angle of Repose is a story of discovery - personal, historical, and geographical - that endures as Wallace Stegner's masterwork an illumination of yesterday's reality that speaks to today's.
Angle of Repose (Audible Audio Edition) Wallace Stegner Mark Bramhall Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Several years ago I set out to read the 100 best novels ever written. Using a series of lists available on the internet I have now woven my way through 102 great novels. The "Angle of Repose" was on most of these lists and in my opinion it should be on all of them. Before I begin my review, let me state my bias. There is a huge difference between a book and a novel. A book is (generally) a fast paced and entertaining story. It may deal with geopolitics, romance, horror, murder, or any other topic you can think of. It's primary purpose, though, is to entertain. A novel on the other hand is written with a purpose beyond story telling. It exists to reveal something about the world, the heart, or the human condition. A truly great novel takes this a step further and allows the reader's heart to experience vicariously the heart condition or lesson it is written to convey. In short, it opens the window on the human soul and allows the reader to see in.In this sense, "Angle of Repose" is truly a great novel. It is not a great book in the sense that the reader will rapidly turn the page to find out what happens next. It is not intended to dazzle the reader and carry them rapidly from one entertaining experience to the next. Instead, it seeks to immerse the reader in small slices of the characters routine existence until the reader fully grasps the nature of the characters and the challenges they face. Using a style that is unique the author poses as an author reconstructing his grandmother's life from her collected letters and articles. Thus, both the author and the reader know that her fate is already set even though as the protagonist, she does not know it. This gives the entire book a kind of sad and nostalgic feel as she lives out a predetermined existence that she is not privy to. It is like someone reflecting back over their life even before they have lived it. It is a very powerful literary effect. I often found myself wanting to cry as I turned the pages because I could see where things were heading even when the characters could not. I wanted things to be different than they were, but knew they would not, could not be.
This is not only one of the finest historical novels ever written concerning real life in the old west, it is also one of the most soul stirring books I have ever picked up. It deals with some of the deepest issues faced by frail humanity including hardship, failure, unforgiveness, and the fragile nature of the human soul. If you want an entertaining page turning story, this is probably not the book for you. If you want a glimpse into the human soul, this is it. One of the finest novels I have read, and I've read some good ones.
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Angle of Repose (Audible Audio Edition) Wallace Stegner Mark Bramhall Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
A very long epic of the "frontier" west and a family of real, complex people. The overtones of "nice guy always finishes last" are bleak and sad. "Fate can be cruel" weeps from every page, lengthening the book. The author seems a bitter, self pitying soul. The writing is crisp, descriptive and evocative but oh, so sad. Of course there is an underlying hope, suggesting a wisdom from study, acceptance and objective, less judgmental, contemplation. The writing and insight of humanity made it a very worthy read, even though sadness pervades.
An old crippled man builds a highly speculative biography of his amazing grandmother. A grandmother who was born into a Quaker family. Suddenly around chapter 5, she starts saying "thee" for no apparent reason and most often reverts to plain ol' "you". Ok. But what really irks me is that she (Stegner) doesn't know the difference between "thee" "thou" and "thine." She even say THEE'S at one point. THEE'S??? Anybody who ever glanced at the Bible or read a single Shakespeare play would know the possessive of thee is thine. Jeez. Who was his editor? I get furious about stupid stuff but who am I to argue with a Pulitzer winner.
Wallace Stegner, one of the greatest writers of our generation, creates in The Angle of Repose a timeless saga of promise, the endless repercussions of our choices, grand adventure, the many kinds of love, the nature and complexities of the human heart, and the whole process of BECOMING who we ultimately end up being. Set against the enormous landscapes of the American West, the land itself a character, the tale chronicles the lives of a beautiful and enormously talented woman who marries a man of genius and purpose. Their love, their enormous differences, their compromises, the man who comes between them--and the ending which will crush your heart and shatter your senses, surely is a book that gets right at the center of what it means to be a human being, the choices we make, and the lives we live after.
Set up as a frame story, the novel is also about the man who chronicles this history of his forebearers--and the ultimate healing that his research allows him to find. A GREAT read, compelling, irresistible, The Angle of Repose explores our drive to discover and create, as it refuses to divide its characters from their greatness OR their flaws. The deeply layered novel catches my breath; a novel to treasure, to read again and again. Of all Stegner's of Stegner's novels, each a powerful masterpiece, this is the one you do not want to miss!
I read Angle of Repose shortly after it was published and it remains one of my favorite books of all time; not only for the richness of the tale and Stegner's brilliant writing, but for its lucid analysis of two failed marriages separated by two generations - the narrator's own and that of his grandparents in the Gold Rush era.
The novel opens as retired historian, Larry Ward, is setting about writing an account of his grandparents' lives and failed marriage. Acrimoniously divorced himself from his own wife, he learns in the process of writing that, in fact, he is really writing about marriage and marital infidelities.
"What really interests me," he tells his son, "is how two such unlike particles clung together, and under what strains, rolling downhill into their future until they reached the angle of repose where I knew them."
The story of Ward's grandparents in the Western frontier is both richly romantic and heartbreakingly tragic. In short, Angle of Repose is an elegantly delivered, old-fashioned page turner. The novel's take-away -- that forgiveness and unconditional love are essential for a marriage to work -- is one we all can benefit from.
Several years ago I set out to read the 100 best novels ever written. Using a series of lists available on the internet I have now woven my way through 102 great novels. The "Angle of Repose" was on most of these lists and in my opinion it should be on all of them. Before I begin my review, let me state my bias. There is a huge difference between a book and a novel. A book is (generally) a fast paced and entertaining story. It may deal with geopolitics, romance, horror, murder, or any other topic you can think of. It's primary purpose, though, is to entertain. A novel on the other hand is written with a purpose beyond story telling. It exists to reveal something about the world, the heart, or the human condition. A truly great novel takes this a step further and allows the reader's heart to experience vicariously the heart condition or lesson it is written to convey. In short, it opens the window on the human soul and allows the reader to see in.
In this sense, "Angle of Repose" is truly a great novel. It is not a great book in the sense that the reader will rapidly turn the page to find out what happens next. It is not intended to dazzle the reader and carry them rapidly from one entertaining experience to the next. Instead, it seeks to immerse the reader in small slices of the characters routine existence until the reader fully grasps the nature of the characters and the challenges they face. Using a style that is unique the author poses as an author reconstructing his grandmother's life from her collected letters and articles. Thus, both the author and the reader know that her fate is already set even though as the protagonist, she does not know it. This gives the entire book a kind of sad and nostalgic feel as she lives out a predetermined existence that she is not privy to. It is like someone reflecting back over their life even before they have lived it. It is a very powerful literary effect. I often found myself wanting to cry as I turned the pages because I could see where things were heading even when the characters could not. I wanted things to be different than they were, but knew they would not, could not be.
This is not only one of the finest historical novels ever written concerning real life in the old west, it is also one of the most soul stirring books I have ever picked up. It deals with some of the deepest issues faced by frail humanity including hardship, failure, unforgiveness, and the fragile nature of the human soul. If you want an entertaining page turning story, this is probably not the book for you. If you want a glimpse into the human soul, this is it. One of the finest novels I have read, and I've read some good ones.
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