Saturday, July 21, 2012

Stegner's English Professorly Novel

Just finished Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety last week, which struck home for at least three reasons (aside from being very pleasantly written and constructed):

1. It is an English professor's novel: about the challenges, pleasures, and injustices of the academic world (I remember one line to this effect: "Sure, Jesus was a great teacher, but what has he published?"). That said, it made think of what a large percentage of our intelligent contemporary novels are written by professors. Sure, I (an English professor) enjoyed Stegner's subject matter a great deal, but I'm not sure everyone would catch fire with it in the same way.

2. It is a book about getting used to New England yankees, an experience I have also had, as I married a Lexington, Mass. girl. Stegner's depiction of a strong, old-model New England woman is remarkable.

3. It is a book about being married to a strong woman, and this is another way of life about which I know a few things (and to be clear, I wouldn't trade my own strong wife for the world). Again, delicious insights into the way a powerwife operates: Charity Lang, the novel's central strongwoman, will be emblazoned on my memory from hence, a kind of archetype of her kind.

No comments:

Post a Comment