Customer Reviews

Crossing to Safety

5 star:		(100)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was about to be captive on a 7 1/2 hour plane trip- I went into Powell's bookstore in the airport, and somehow I was drawn to this book. I had heard about this book from a friend, and as soon as I saw the title I knew this was it! What a wonderful plane trip- I was on the next to last page as we landed and read the last two pages while waiting for my luggage. Whoopee, what a book, what a read, I hated for it to end. It is one of those kinds of books.

"Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stenger is the kind of book that you read once in a life time. The characters become so real and so alive. You like these people; you do not want any of life's mysteries and sadness to befall on any them. Well, maybe that couple that was so nasty, no, no, not even them.

Larry and Sally Morgan move to Madison, Wisconsin in the 1930's to start their life. Sally is pregnant, and Larry is about to start a teaching job at the university. They have little money and his job is a lifesaver. Larry's dream is to be a writer and he has published one article. At a faculty party they meet Charity and Sid Lang. Sid comes from big money and they have all they need besides two children and one on the way. Charity and Sally get along famously, and Sid and Larry develop a bond.

This novel follows these two marriages, the ins and outs and the personal issues they each face. We are rarely allowed into a marriage to see all the warts. Over the next many years we follow both families from Wisconsin to Vermont and Cambridge and Italy. We see the friendships between the couples develop. We learn that Charity must manipulate and control- and that Sid needs the push she gives him. Larry becomes a well read author with several books and articles. Sally is happy to be a wife and mother until tragedy befalls. Sid is a wonderful teacher but really wants to write poetry. How do these couples help each other discover the truth within them? What does each of these people bring to the group? Why are they destined to love each other for their life? What is so special about these 4 people? How do they react when the greatest tragedy of all hits one of them?

Wallace Stenger allows us to see the real people below the exterior trappings. I came to love these people, to really care about what happened to them. I think what if that had not happened, or what if this had happened? This is the way we think in real life with our memories. Wallace Stenger is a literary genius. Highly recommended. prisrob

This is the book my wife and I fell in love with after we fell in love with each other more than 12 years ago. Whenever we talk with friends about favorite books, we INSIST that they read Crossing to Safety. We've had to buy several copies over the years because we keep lending copies out -- and we can't blame any of our friends for not returning this book. It's a keeper. Wallace Stegner said this novel was the closest he came to writing autobiographically, which explains a certain brightness not found in, say, Angle of Repose (although AOR is an equally beautiful story).

This is simply a beautifully told story about how a friendship formed and aged, so powerfully written that you will come to appreciate your own friends -- and how you came to be friends -- all the more for having made the journey with the couples in Crossing to Safety. This is a book you fall in love with and return to. I'm actually online right now to buy another copy.

'Crossing to Safety' is a novel about the intertwined lives of two couples. More generally, it is about the various ways we express the search for meaning, about gradually lost causes, about vulnerability and kindness, about the complicated dependencies of marriage, about coming of age, slowly, over the course of a lifetime. The plot is simple -- two couples meet because the husbands teach for a time at the same campus, and the four become lifelong friends. Although the story spans decades, there are very few dramatic incidents. This lack of external drama may disappoint those who like plots which move steadily forward, driven by significant events and bold action. However that very lack of action and heroism is part of the novel's essence. Our lives are generally prosaic, not epic. Our stories do not end tidily in fifty minute prime-time segments. The narrator speaks to this: "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these? Where is the high life, the conspicuous waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish? [...] Where are speed, noise, ugliness, everything that makes us ... recognize ourselves in fiction?" From these quiet lives, Stegner vividly sketches the emotional landscape in which the characters move, making for all its lack of fireworks a surprisingly compelling story. The book has been praised as a wonderful and uplifting portrayal of friendship developed over many years. That might sound a little maudlin or simplistic on the face of it, but it does not come across that way at all. It is difficult to summarize the philosophical tone of the novel. It is at the same time wry, realistic, and sympathetic, generally optimistic about our native toughness and the possibility of grace, and ambivalent about questions of grand purpose. In fact, the story is marked from the beginning with undertones of retrospective melancholy. "[We meant to] leave a mark on the world. Instead the world has left marks on us." In addition to evoking a finely shaded spectrum of emotions, the book is beautifully written. In grade school writing classes we were told to "show, don't tell", but the author both shows and tells with consummate skill. This book strikes me as being the distillation of a lifetime of experience by an acutely sensitive and intelligent writer and a profoundly decent human being. It feels like Wallace Stegner's carefully considered gift to us, and is well worth giving, in turn.

The premise was wonderful - a subtle, sometimes moving, sometimes disturbing examination of the lifelong friendship of two couples. I didn't have to think twice about buying this one after I read the synopsis. The first several chapters seemed to be living up to its' promise. I was touched by the early scenes where the Morgans and the Langs first met and seemed to know instantly that they had found something special. Charity Lang showed signs of being a wonderfully unforgettable character - sometimes sweet, sometimes manipulative, always fascinating. A little further on, however, something changed. The author seemed to abandon character development and instead concentrate on lavishly detailed descriptions of places and events. He hinted at the passive/dominant relationship between Sid and Charity, but gave us very few first hand glimpses. Instead, we had to take the word of our narrator, Larry, based on his passing mentions of past events and comments to his wife Sally. There was so little actual interaction between the two couples - the one sequence during which they spent a good deal of time together, the hiking trip, was as much about Larry fretting over his career than it was about showing us anything about the relationships - that one wonders how accurate Larry's point of view could be. The hike ends in tragedy, and we jump ahead to more than a decade later in Italy, where the foursome are spending a year together. Much of this sequence, too, involves Larry recalling past events; mentioning in passing, rather than describing, how deeply entwined the two couples lives became as they dealt with Sally's illness and the financial burden it brought upon the Morgans. We see one more example of Charity's controlling personality, before jumping ahead years later to when Charity is on her deathbed. Here, we find the Langs' children and grandchildren, who have apparently grown up with Larry and Sally and consider them family. Again, we must take the author's word for this, as we never see any of these characters develop, and never "meet" them until they've grown up. The Langs' children acknowledge not just the tensions between Sid and Charity, but those between the Morgans and the Langs. They give enticing examples, but never elaborate. On the other hand, the final chapters begin to pick up where the earliest ones left off, showing rather than simply telling what is happening. Sid's anguish is realistically portrayed, as is Larry's helplessness as he witnesses his friend's grief. The conversation between the two men in which Sid admits he was always secretly glad that Larry had been burdened by Sally's disability, because it made them more like equals, was very touching. It was here that Sid really began to come alive for me and made me feel something for him other than contempt for how he let his wife control him. I found myself unable to tear away from the novel during the final scenes. They, along with the earliest chapters, provide an intriguing overview of what could have been an excellent character study. Unfortunately, it was never realized.

"Crossing to Safety" is a novel and a semi-autobiographical piece about Wallace Stegner himself, his wife, and the tribulations and blessings that came with their life-long, complex friendship with another couple.

In the space of one day, narrator Larry Morgan tells the history of two couples: Larry & Sally Morgan and Sid & Charity Lang. As the story opens, Larry and Sally, now in their late 60s, have arrived at the Lang's Vermont retreat from their home in New Mexico. They have come to see their close friends Sid and Charity, because Charity is dying of cancer. As the Morgans settle in for the night in the guest cabin, Larry, as narrator, takes us back to the beginnings of this great friendship: Madison, Wisconsin, during the Depression. From this point the novel moves between the present day to the past in a series of long, heart warming remembrances.

Both Sid and Larry are fiercely ambitious, and each is tied to his wife in complicated ways. Sid is tied to Charity because he needs her domination and over-controlling nature, even though it weakens him. Larry is deeply connected to Sally in part because she has been disabled by polio, creating a bond of dependence that somehow satisfies them both. Throughout the novel, the positives and negatives of the couple's friendship are closely examined, recognizing how they both enrich and in some aspects limit each character.

Much of Wallace Stegner's works contain autobiographical aspects of his early family life and childhood. About his novel Crossing To Safety, he says...

"I wrote it as sort of a memoir more for Mary [Stegner's wife] and myself than for anything else, and I wasn't at all sure I was ever going to publish it. Those people were our very close friends, and at the same time they had some problems which were very personal; and an honest portrait of them as honest as I could make it... But it was, really, in a way that no book of mine has ever been, an attempt to tell the absolute, unvarnished truth about other people and myself. Inevitably I found myself inventing scenes and suppressing things, and bringing things forward in order to make the story work because I guess my habits are incorrigible; but my intention, at least, was the utter, unvarnished truth... And also, I suppose, I had the mule headed notion that it ought to be possible to make books out of something less than loud sensation. I was trying to make very small noises and to make them thoughtful..."
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(Stegner: Conversations on History and Literature by Wallace Stegner and Richard W. Etulain, xi-xii)
Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner

I had not read Stegner before. I will be reading him again! I found the start slow at first and in fact had to pick it up several times. Once I persevered, here's what I found: A beautiful and well written book. What I found was a well made novel--both in narrative structure and figurative language. There were no strained metaphors (so common in most modern fiction) and no lack of insight. I found a story of friends, more than that the most rare of friends; two married couples. I say that couples this close are rare for the very same reason that the Morgans and the Langs eventually fall out of close contact. The people we choose to love, to "fuse" our lives together with are ours because no one else would choose them. As much as Sid could not live without Charity, Larry would never choose to live with her. As a result it becomes difficult for Larry and Sally to watch the various strains of Sid and Charity's relationship. And while it may not strain the couple's friendhsip per se, it stretches it a bit. This story does not fall into the predictable. It moves you to tears and laughter and jealousy. How wonderful to have found besides spouses that you love even in the tough times, friends who are more than willing to help see you through the tough times. Don't be put off by the fact that it moves slowly at first, don't be put off by the lack of glamor, drugs and violence. Hopefully, glamor, drugs and violence are not commonplace events in any of your lives. Read instead this book that talks of quiet lives that recognize the need for both sorrowful and "sunny hours" in order to make them beautiful.

This is a remarkable piece of work, from one of the truly American voices in literature. A story of enduring friendship and loyalty, an intelligent search for the meaning of it all. I suppose one could find it "boring" (see below), in that there is no gratuitous sex, car chases, foul language or scatalogical humor. Just exquisite prose, and a story told with love and grace. I wonder if this book is ever assigned to high school students. It would be a refreshing antidote to the depressing dreck that passes for popular culture these days. Or am I just passing into curmudgeon-hood? A similarly wonderful book by Stegner is "The Spectator Bird".If one is seeking an in-depth historical piece, there is his award-winning "Angle of Repose". I plan on eventually reading every word written by Mr. Stegner. Talent like his is rare.

Warm-hearted book with a devastating ending

"Crossing to Safety" is Stegner's swan song, his last novel. It does have a bittersweet, nostalgic feel to it, written from the perspective of an old writer/professor, much like Stegner, near the end of his life and looking back on what came before. The plot of the book involves the enduring friendship of two young couples, wed in the 1930s. Sid is a likeable fellow who struggles to gain academic acceptance and tenure, married to Charity, a well-to-do extrovert who micromanages his career. Larry, the narrator, is a naturally gifted novelist, married to the sweet-tempered Sally.

The novel follows their lives through small wins (the acceptance of a novel) and near tragedies. This part moves in a smooth, elegiac way-you get the sense of Stegner's genuine affection for these characters-but I did not find the characters exceptional in any way. I confess, for example, to getting a small bee in my bonnet about the complete absence of the couples' children from most of the narrative. Sid and Charity's five kids and Larry and Sally's daughter are generally off-stage, under the care of a nanny.

But then a kind of tidal wave hits, with all the skill Stegner can muster. The impending death of one of the characters brings out the conflicts inherent in even the most enduring of marriages; I know of no place in literature where the joys and sorrows of a marriage are portrayed with such precision and intensity. The way kindness and inadvertent cruelty seem all knotted up together; the way you can't live life apart; the way the intense abiding love of one person also makes you terribly vulnerable. These Stegner gets exactly, truly right.

Read through to this remarkable end; it will be worthwhile.

Crossing to Safety is an incredible novel, one I highly recommend. The story is simple--two young couples meet and become lifelong friends--but the way it is told is not. Stegner does something magical with the English language, his words are so evocative. After reading one scene, which takes place during a summer rainstorm, I was shocked to look outside my own window to see dry ground, barren branches. What I find amazing about this work is that Stegner is able to convey so much without being overly verbose. Sally, Larry, Sid and Charity meet as young professors and their wives in Madison Wisconsin in the late 30s. Sid and Charity are wealthy, Sally and Larry are not. Larry tells us the story many years later, as all have gathered because Charity is gravely ill. They have returned to the New England family "camp" where much of the narrative takes place. Successes, failures, marital problems, children, travels, careers--its all here, told in a marvelous fashion. I think I fell in love with this novel from the first sentence. If you can, pick it up in the early morning, when the rest of your household is sleeping. Spend some time alone with this novel and Stegner will transport you to another time and place. I highly recommend this remarkable novel.

It would be perhaps an overly bold statement to say that this is the best book I have ever read, because I've read a number of great books. But it would not be at all rash to say that I have never in my life so thoroughly loved and enjoyed a book. This is a tender, beautiful tale about vulnerability and the strength that springs from it, about love and acceptance, about needing someone and not minding that you need them, about being needed and not minding that you are needed, about the way that four people and two couples grow and evolve within their relationships even as the relationships grow and evolve around them. This is the only book I have ever read that I would enthusiastically recommend to every single person I know.

Read this book, and never look at humankind the same way again.