Utah's ignorance of Wallace Stegner is a travesty

[SeattleUte]

Why didn't this happen in Utah?:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/bo...prod=permalink

Before Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy or Norman MacLean there was Wallace Stegner. Before Walace Stegner there was no literary canon of the American West comparable to other regions'. Stegner spent most of his career laboring in obscurity but ultimately won both the National Book Award and The Pulitizer Prize. His novels are now often cited as among the greatest of the Twentieth Century.

Stegner spent his youth in Salt Lake City, was practically raised by several Mormon families, played Church Ball, attended MIA, graduated from the University of Utah, etc. But most Utahns don't know this or even who he is, I venture. He ought to be Utah's Faulkner, but Utah has done nothing for him like Mississipi has to promote Faulkner's reputation.

Why? I venture two reasons: First, he wrote some histories of Mormonism that weren't all that flattering. They most emphatically were not "anti-Mormon," but they took a secular perspective not unlike Bushman's. Second, he was an environmentalist. He decried projects such as Glen Canyon Dam and his fiction was revolutionary in that it demystified the American West, and captured its tragic qualities.

He also decried the sixties free love and drug culture, but I doutbt Utah's citizens would hold that against him.

But in all three of these respects he was a visionary, like all great novelists.

I'm afraid that in his home state his works were like pearls before swine (as the saying goes). So Utah has ceded ownership of this great legacy to California. It's sad, a travesty.

[Mormon Red Death]

Sadly I agree...Plus his books are fantastic

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

Sadly I agree...Plus his books are fantastic

Forgot to add that he graduated from the Universith of Utah, most important part. Fixed it.

[SeattleUte]

This thread should not be upstaged by Maryanne vs. Ginger.

[creekster]

It is in California (and particularly Northern California, the true California, as opposed to that poseur, artificially enhanced, superficial, former orange grove to the south that steals all our water) becasue he taught at Stanford. Plus, those hippy dippies up in Pt. Reyes Station have nothing better to do.

OTOH, as we have discussed here before, it is too bad Stegner isn't more appreciated in Utah.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

This thread should not be upstaged by Maryanne vs. Ginger.

Like you never thought about that before.

[il Padrino Ute]

I like Stegner's work. So I can say that I do my part.

[ERCougar]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Why didn't this happen in Utah?:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/bo...prod=permalink

Before Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy or Norman MacLean there was Wallace Stegner. Before Walace Stegner there was no literary canon of the American West comparable to other regions'. Stegner spent most of his career laboring in obscurity but ultimately won both the National Book Award and The Pulitizer Prize. His novels are now often cited as among the greatest of the Twentieth Century.

Stegner spent his youth in Salt Lake City, was practically raised by several Mormon families, played Church Ball, attended MIA, graduated from the University of Utah, etc. But most Utahns don't know this or even who he is, I venture. He ought to be Utah's Faulkner, but Utah has done nothing for him like Mississipi has to promote Faulkner's reputation.

Why? I venture two reasons: First, he wrote some histories of Mormonism that weren't all that flattering. They most emphatically were not "anti-Mormon," but they took a secular perspective not unlike Bushman's. Second, he was an environmentalist. He decried projects such as Glen Canyon Dam and his fiction was revolutionary in that it demystified the American West, and captured its tragic qualities.

He also decried the sixties free love and drug culture, but I doutbt Utah's citizens would hold that against him.

But in all three of these respects he was a visionary, like all great novelists.

I'm afraid that in his home state his works were like pearls before swine (as the saying goes). So Utah has ceded ownership of this great legacy to California. It's sad, a travesty.

My wife just finished "Angle of Repose" and loved it. I hadn't heard of him before she was reading that. I'll have to read it--he sounds like a really interesting guy.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by ERCougar

My wife just finished "Angle of Repose" and loved it. I hadn't heard of him before she was reading that. I'll have to read it--he sounds like a really interesting guy.

Angle of Repose is particulalrly good for Northern California.

I am also a huge fan of Edward Abbey, and in partcialur his novel Desert Solitarie, which I think gives more insight into the Western mind than anything else I have ever read. I used to keep three or four copies in my office and give it to people that asked me about Utah or western issues. It is a great book and Stegner taught Abbey.

[MikeWaters]

Texas' ignorance of Stegner is commendable.

Take your two-bit McCarthy wannabe back to happy valley, you "freakin'" loser Utahns.