by Wallace Stegner, 1943. 563 pages. Published by Penguin.
Up to page 83; reviewed 29 December
I brought this book with me to a Thanksgiving party when I first started reading it. My friend Cody Jane asked me what it was about. I read her the first line of the back-cover blurb: “Bo Mason, his wife, Elsa, and their two boys live a transient life of poverty and despair.” Ah, the sweet escape that fiction affords us all!
The novel starts out as Elsa, a young and intelligent woman, travels by train to a frontier town in North Dakota. It’s about the turn of the century. Elsa has left her home out of a sense of betrayal and disgust after her widower father married her best friend. The image that we get of the American frontier is free of lyrical hyperbole. Elsa feels out of place here. There’s nothing to read, there are few people her age to speak with, and she’s aware that there are some dark goings on at the periphery of her attention, illegal gambling and liquor consumption, a world so foreign to her sheltered sensibilities that she basically chooses to ignore it until Bo Mason, who runs the local saloon (which is disguised as a pool hall) begins to fall in love with her.
The section of the story that tells about Bo Mason’s early life is one of my favorite parts of the book so far, because it gives an idea of the sort of raw intelligence that the developing American West attracted but did not necessarily nurture. As a child, Bo is a prodigious reader, but that doesn’t endear him to his scowling schoolteacher, nor to his father, a burned out Civil War veteran living off a pension. After running away from home, Bo drifts through a variety of jobs, often coming into conflict with the pettiness of his foremen. I like Bo because he’s quick to protest injustice, but usually only when he’s the victim of it—much more believable than old Tom Joad with his too-sweeping vow to serve the underdog, no matter how, no matter where.
Once Bo’s character is established, we see him put to the test as he becomes Elsa’s suitor. Stegner’s account of their relationship is complex and sophisticated. Elsa appeals to Bo largely because she’s someone who sees through his rough exterior and recognizes all his greatness: his ability to learn quickly, his overriding competitive drive, and the ability he has to open up new frontiers for her in life. But Elsa’s family puts up a strong resistance, and confronted with the unfairness of their rejection, Bo’s mood grows dark and brooding, and he takes out his anger in a violent outburst against a vagrant who tries to cheat him. Elsa sees the outburst and it sours her on him. Eventually they do find their way back into each others arms, and on the day they finalize their plans for marriage a tremendous ice storm hits and it’s Bo that ventures out into the blinding snow in order to rescue Elsa’s uncle, Karl, partly out of concern for him, but also in order to protect Elsa from the rumors that are bound to spring up if the young, still unmarried couple spends a night alone together in a fire-lit cabin.
When we next catch up with Elsa, more than seven years have passed. She’s tending a farm household, doing all her chores with one good arm because the other’s been wounded. The wounded arm seems to be a symbol for the hardships of the early years of Elsa’s marriage—confounding, but not debilitating, and not enough to shake her youthful inclination to enjoying life.
Although in general Stegner doesn’t romanticize the frontier life, he wisely includes the romanticism innate in the experience of young people venturing into new realms of experience. Although we sense that Elsa’s been programmed by her stern Norwegian upbringing to be hard on herself and easily victimized, we also have the feeling that she’s just a little too smart to fall completely into the traps of her upbringing. Elsa has traveled West without any big dreams other than simply finding a little bit of contentment with her life; but the man she falls in love with is the personification of impetuous youthful ambition.
Back cover blurb notwithstanding, this has not yet proved to be a depressing book. We have certainly been warned that bad times are ahead for Elsa and Bo, but the concise and well-told romance story at the outset of the book makes us certain that they have something worth pursuing and fighting for.
23 February 2008, p 83 to end
I can pinpoint the moment that I fell in love with this book. It was in a scene in the third section of the book, where the increasingly violent Bo has abandoned Elsa and their two boys, Chet and Bruce, after a fit of abusive rage. Now Chet and Bruce are living in a large and shabby boarding house. The scene starts with Chet in his high bunk, inspecting the treacherous network of roof beams that span the gulf between the boys’ and girls’ sleeping areas. He ponders, wipes some dust from the top of the beam, and then climbs up onto the beam and begins to walk across. He pretends he’s piloting an airplane. He imagines that the fate of the world depends on his making a safe landing.
And when he reaches the girls’ bunks, he encounters a set of blue eyes that are sharp and alive as a rabbit’s. The eyes belong to Helen Murphy, a character so fascinating and well drawn out that I was convinced Stegner planned to use her as an important figure throughout the book. Not so. Helen teases Chet into a game of “I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours,” the kids get caught, and Chet’s mother is called to the carpet by the severe hag of a schoolmarm, Mrs. Mangin.
The scene where Chet crossed the roof beam made me fall in love with Stegner’s writing; the scene where Elsa confronts Mrs. Mangin made me impressed by the character of Elsa, because she holds her ground and refuses to accept the idea that a child should be made to feel ashamed for simply engaging in childish behavior. From this point onward, it’s clear that Elsa’s principal characteristic is her resolve. She refuses to give up her vision of what’s right and wrong: she believes her children deserve a home, that they be protected from abuse and that they be given every opportunity to thrive. At the same time, she believes her husband, Bo, is a man worthy of her love and devotion. And her transition from immaturity to adulthood comes when she realizes that these twin ideals can never be realized together, but chooses to commit herself to them anyway. She resigns herself to the flaws of the world she lives in, and through her resignation she becomes the strongest character in the book.
In the meantime, Bo refuses to resign himself to anything. He’s always dreaming about some breakthrough, a scheme that will not only make him rich but, most importantly, prove that the rest of humanity is made up of fools. For this reason, he’s always drawn to schemes that are ill advised and usually illicit. A lot of the action of the book stems from this fact. Bo’s bootlegging activities, the main source of his income, result in a plethora of car chases, crashes and police raids that make the book a surprising page-turner.
But the real fuel of the book is in the way the characters develop. Elsa becomes more and more silent and stoical, standing by her man in even his most maddeningly foolish schemes, but also lending her children a foundation of sanity they’ll remain grateful for their whole lives long. Chet develops into a charismatic high school hero, winning everyone’s approval but unable to hold himself together when faced with the slightest of failures. And Bruce develops a into a reader and deep thinker. In the last sections of the book his perspective draws on a variety of metaphoric comparisons and analyses ranging from Greek Tragedy to Sigmund Freud. This is especially interesting because Bruce represents the culmination of the Mason family’s aspirations, and also represents an encapsulation of the phenomenon of Wallace Stegner’s subject matter; this is a book written for an educated audience, but it touches only tangentially on the concerns of educated elites. The real root of the book is in the struggle of a family that was never offered privilege but always stayed focused on the promise of a sweet deal, a big break, an assortment of dreams whose value lay in the fact that they were all too good to be true.
While the book shifts from the perspective of one character to another, there’s always a sense that the characters own internal development is tightly lashed to the fortunes of the family as a whole. The only exception comes in the last days of Bo Mason, who seems only concerned with his own vain pursuits. An aging widower now, heavily in debt, abandoned by his fair-weather friends, estranged from his son and unable to let go of his old dreams. In fact, by this time Bo can’t even be seen as a dreamer; what he’s holding onto is the tarnished identity of a misbehaving youth, impertinent and cocksure even as a part of it knows that hope is lost. It’s fascinating to see the way Bo’s psyche begins to percolate with self-hatred. It would be easy to damn this character were his stubborn and juvenile ambitions not so hopelessly entangled with so many desires and comforts crucial to the human development of any family, and were his quest for success not so bejeweled with sweet glimpses of hard-won freedom.
The Anchorage International Film Festival 2007
Reviewed 12 December 2007
Last weekend I watched eight films at two venues in the Anchorage International Film Festival. Overall, it was a good experience. I toyed with the idea of reviewing all the films I saw, but instead decided just to focus on the three I liked best. The other films I saw (and enjoyed) were Unraveling the Wind, Nailed, Your Beautiful Cul-de-Sac Home, Body/Antibody, and Donovan Slacks.
REVIEW #1 – PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND: CLIFF HUDSON
This is a documentary about an Alaskan bush pilot who lived most of his life in Talkeetna and holds the records for the most airplane landings on Mt Denali, the highest peak in North America. In its opening moments, the film’s narrator describes Hudson as a quiet, unsung hero. So it seems fitting that through much of the film, Hudson himself seems upstaged by the incredible rural Alaska scenery and by the assembly of typically eccentric Alaska characters who’ve come together to discuss the details of this man’s life.
I must disclose that this movie was made by a friend of mine, Tom Stagg. And I also must say that I envy him the experience of making the movie, of traveling around the area around Talkeetna junction, of traveling the aerial mail route Hudson passed on to his son, and sitting in the living rooms and kitchens of Alaska old-timers, soliciting their stories and reflections.
There’s a strong undercurrent in the movie about the way Alaska’s quirks are sold to tourists. We come out with an impression that Hudson is a man who sold his services as a pilot, but never sold himself, and we get a glimpse of a certain Southcentral Alaska way of life that was once authentic and is now in the process of being turned into a product of great value to the tourist industry.
REVIEW #2 – FAT STUPID RABBIT
In today’s culture of Second Life and Reality TV, it’s useful to remember that Shakespeare himself posed the metaphor of life as a stage. As with all Shakespeare’s metaphors, this one maintains its potency in spite of massive and flagrant misuse, abuse and overuse. This Russian romantic comedy is proof.
The hero, Arcady, is an aging Russian actor stuck in a rut. He’s performed 300 times as a rabbit in an inane children’s play about woodland animals in which. Lately, he’s been drawing ridicule for breaking into Shakespearean soliloquies in the middle of performances.
To me, this film captured more of the true spirit of Shakespeare than many of the direct adaptations of Shakespearean work that have come out on the screen in my lifetime. Arcady is cast as a King Lear figure, and his character is built up with all the highlights and shadows of the original Lear. The symbolism is obvious but not overdone. The rabbit costume Arcady wears onstage is ridiculous, but as the plot goes on we have a stepwise chain of associations reminding us of the associations of the rabbit with Easter, childhood, springtime and renewal and the Christ story, but because of the initial silliness these parallels never outweigh the story itself. There are obvious parallels and allegories: the theater company is taken over by a merchant who wants use it as a vehicle to promote sausage sales; the lecherous producer tries to seduce the beautiful young girl Arcady is in love with. It’s a story about the way art is corrupted by money and cronyism, and the way that idealism in general is corrupted by cynical calculations. But the story is so full of magnificent specifics and authentic bits of comedy stolen from everyday life that it can’t possibly be reduced to mere symbolism.
REVIEW #3 – CTHULHU
Illustrators have long since discovered the graphic possibilities in Lovecraft’s stories of monsters and monstrous deities intent of preying on the world. There are lots of wonderful images of Cthulhu, the octopus headed giant asleep in his palace beneath the sea, or Azathoth and Shoggoths, Lloigers and the Old Ones. Someday soon there will be some large budget movie that attempts to capture the whole vision in lavish computer generated animation. Sadly, it’s only a matter of time.
I sensed that this movie was something better than that when I saw how the director used images of the ocean, casting it as a vast but none-to-comforting alternative to the complicated and frustrating world on the land. Most importantly there’s the conflict of Russ, a college professor whose open homosexuality has brought him into conflict with his family’s constricting religious beliefs.
This conflict itself is a worthy basis for a wholly “serious” film, and would benefit from all the clichés that would place it firmly in the Drama section of your local Video Bargainville. But inevitably there would be a lot that’s lost.
Along with being a good writer of scary fiction, HP Lovecraft was able to root out and exploit the sensation of feeling like a stranger in your own flesh in a way no other writer could, not even Edgar Allen Poe. The creative team of Dan Gildark and Grant Cogswell are absolutely right in approaching Lovecraft’s work from this angle, of using Lovecraft’s storytelling with all it’s grim suggestiveness and slow emergence of unearthly details to explore the way the judgments of modern conservatism can suffocate the sense of individuality in anyone who is different.
Images of the ocean are used brilliantly in this film. As the inevitable apocalypse draws near, two mysterious barges dominate the seascape. The plot is driven forward by a white-bearded old sailor who admits to going out on the sea for five days tripping on acid when he netted a creature that was “like a gigantic baby.” Russ’s early memories of his first romance, simultaneously sublime and profane, play out on the planks and struts of an old pier. And a scene of predatory seduction is carried out in front of an aquarium tank where two massive polar bears swim and gobble fish.
With all its quiet, slow moving scenes this movie is exactly the sort of guilty pleasure I love best in movies. Its quality is likely to go unrecognized for some time by people who need everything to fit into their perfect pigeonholes. Don’t believe such critics. If you’re looking for inspiration and new ways to make storytelling fresh, this is a great place to go.
Last weekend I watched eight films at two venues in the Anchorage International Film Festival. Overall, it was a good experience. I toyed with the idea of reviewing all the films I saw, but instead decided just to focus on the three I liked best. The other films I saw (and enjoyed) were Unraveling the Wind, Nailed, Your Beautiful Cul-de-Sac Home, Body/Antibody, and Donovan Slacks.
REVIEW #1 – PORTRAIT OF A LEGEND: CLIFF HUDSON
This is a documentary about an Alaskan bush pilot who lived most of his life in Talkeetna and holds the records for the most airplane landings on Mt Denali, the highest peak in North America. In its opening moments, the film’s narrator describes Hudson as a quiet, unsung hero. So it seems fitting that through much of the film, Hudson himself seems upstaged by the incredible rural Alaska scenery and by the assembly of typically eccentric Alaska characters who’ve come together to discuss the details of this man’s life.
I must disclose that this movie was made by a friend of mine, Tom Stagg. And I also must say that I envy him the experience of making the movie, of traveling around the area around Talkeetna junction, of traveling the aerial mail route Hudson passed on to his son, and sitting in the living rooms and kitchens of Alaska old-timers, soliciting their stories and reflections.
There’s a strong undercurrent in the movie about the way Alaska’s quirks are sold to tourists. We come out with an impression that Hudson is a man who sold his services as a pilot, but never sold himself, and we get a glimpse of a certain Southcentral Alaska way of life that was once authentic and is now in the process of being turned into a product of great value to the tourist industry.
REVIEW #2 – FAT STUPID RABBIT
In today’s culture of Second Life and Reality TV, it’s useful to remember that Shakespeare himself posed the metaphor of life as a stage. As with all Shakespeare’s metaphors, this one maintains its potency in spite of massive and flagrant misuse, abuse and overuse. This Russian romantic comedy is proof.
The hero, Arcady, is an aging Russian actor stuck in a rut. He’s performed 300 times as a rabbit in an inane children’s play about woodland animals in which. Lately, he’s been drawing ridicule for breaking into Shakespearean soliloquies in the middle of performances.
To me, this film captured more of the true spirit of Shakespeare than many of the direct adaptations of Shakespearean work that have come out on the screen in my lifetime. Arcady is cast as a King Lear figure, and his character is built up with all the highlights and shadows of the original Lear. The symbolism is obvious but not overdone. The rabbit costume Arcady wears onstage is ridiculous, but as the plot goes on we have a stepwise chain of associations reminding us of the associations of the rabbit with Easter, childhood, springtime and renewal and the Christ story, but because of the initial silliness these parallels never outweigh the story itself. There are obvious parallels and allegories: the theater company is taken over by a merchant who wants use it as a vehicle to promote sausage sales; the lecherous producer tries to seduce the beautiful young girl Arcady is in love with. It’s a story about the way art is corrupted by money and cronyism, and the way that idealism in general is corrupted by cynical calculations. But the story is so full of magnificent specifics and authentic bits of comedy stolen from everyday life that it can’t possibly be reduced to mere symbolism.
REVIEW #3 – CTHULHU
Illustrators have long since discovered the graphic possibilities in Lovecraft’s stories of monsters and monstrous deities intent of preying on the world. There are lots of wonderful images of Cthulhu, the octopus headed giant asleep in his palace beneath the sea, or Azathoth and Shoggoths, Lloigers and the Old Ones. Someday soon there will be some large budget movie that attempts to capture the whole vision in lavish computer generated animation. Sadly, it’s only a matter of time.
I sensed that this movie was something better than that when I saw how the director used images of the ocean, casting it as a vast but none-to-comforting alternative to the complicated and frustrating world on the land. Most importantly there’s the conflict of Russ, a college professor whose open homosexuality has brought him into conflict with his family’s constricting religious beliefs.
This conflict itself is a worthy basis for a wholly “serious” film, and would benefit from all the clichés that would place it firmly in the Drama section of your local Video Bargainville. But inevitably there would be a lot that’s lost.
Along with being a good writer of scary fiction, HP Lovecraft was able to root out and exploit the sensation of feeling like a stranger in your own flesh in a way no other writer could, not even Edgar Allen Poe. The creative team of Dan Gildark and Grant Cogswell are absolutely right in approaching Lovecraft’s work from this angle, of using Lovecraft’s storytelling with all it’s grim suggestiveness and slow emergence of unearthly details to explore the way the judgments of modern conservatism can suffocate the sense of individuality in anyone who is different.
Images of the ocean are used brilliantly in this film. As the inevitable apocalypse draws near, two mysterious barges dominate the seascape. The plot is driven forward by a white-bearded old sailor who admits to going out on the sea for five days tripping on acid when he netted a creature that was “like a gigantic baby.” Russ’s early memories of his first romance, simultaneously sublime and profane, play out on the planks and struts of an old pier. And a scene of predatory seduction is carried out in front of an aquarium tank where two massive polar bears swim and gobble fish.
With all its quiet, slow moving scenes this movie is exactly the sort of guilty pleasure I love best in movies. Its quality is likely to go unrecognized for some time by people who need everything to fit into their perfect pigeonholes. Don’t believe such critics. If you’re looking for inspiration and new ways to make storytelling fresh, this is a great place to go.
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