I found a biography that gives some information on Wallace Stegner with photos. Maybe we can talk about whatever that inspires, on Stegner or some other subject.

Wallace Stegner Biography

I'm trying a colored font and if it's too garish I'll come back and change it. Fair warning.

I'm interested first in the narrator Lyman Ward and his setting. He is a dedicated time-traveler who moves in and out of his grandparents' past so easily and seems to find the present so difficult. Since AoR begins in Grass Valley with Lyman Ward, which was the end of the odyssey for his grandparents, I'd like to offer some links to the area. First is a site from a school in Nevada City with extensive pictures and history of the area. Keep in mind this is from a school. Although I could not get the 'glossary' to work for me everything else worked fine and it is a nice, simple introduction to that part of the country.

Oliver Ward, Lyman's grandfather, was connected to the Zodiac Mine. This is a renaming of the Empire-Star Mine of Grass Valley. (My father worked for the mine and he called it the "Empire" for short.) The North Star Mine was independently owned but was later bought and combined with the Empire. In AoR they became known as the Zodiac. Here are some links to visualize the gold mines of Grass Valley, the first one talks about the Secret Room of the Empire

In many of the above links you can travel the site for futher information.

TRAUDE, I'll need to think about your questions for a bit before I can answer. New Almaden is in Part II of the book. Are we skipping Part I which begins in Grass Valley? Again, welcome back!

I think Susan Burling Ward wanted to be a proper Victorican Romantic Lady and she had the facade of one but in actuality she was a pragmatist and an iron-willed one at that.

What drew her to Oliver? Her best friend Augusta married and Susan was being left behind. To stay within Augusta's social circle Susan knew she had to marry too and Oliver was nice and respected her and I also think she unconsciously felt she could control their life together. She expected to live as a socialite and artist in the sophisticated East Coast but she made the mistake of marrying a Romantic. Even strong-willed Susan could not keep her husband Oliver in the East when the romance of the west was pulling at him. She didn't know that an engineer is also an explorer and adventurer.

Was Susan ahead of her time? I think she was rather like Lyman, being of multiple times. Susan was modern in wanting and having a career; she was Victorian in marrying for respectability and having children. She compromised. She had thought of remaining a spinster and daring career woman, until Augusta's marriage made it clear that she too had to marry. Susan lived in two different times like Lyman. Or should we think of these two as being 'outside of time'?

We have a family home in Nevada City that is up a winding back street. The house is a tiny clapboard with a wobbly white picket fence in front and the woods behind; wooden boardwalks go up the street. The National Hotel is a landmark and operates much as it did in the early days. I swear the Victorian furniture and grand piano are still the same. There is a shrine at the hotel which is dedicated to the prostitutes of the Gold Rush era. Now there is a pool (a swimming pool!) in the back and Hwy 49 goes through town. Of course there is an Assay Office and people still buy gold pans for placer mining on the banks of a river. Grass Valley is a few miles down the road from Nevada City.

Did you notice how Lyman Ward despairs over the changes in the area? It has changed but its still beautiful and retained its character. Lyman does prefer the past but this is a past he never lived. Sometimes I feel like Lyman too and have to pull myself away from that crankiness.

I hope we hear from people living in Grass Valley. I'd like to see the area remarked upon before we leap into New Almaden. Even parts of the Empire Mine, like Cornish miners, are authorily imported by WS into Part II of the book. I'll be back TRAUDE today to post those links you wanted.

Don’t you know how we lose the sense of our own individuality when there is nothing to reflect it back upon us?

Grandmother had her identity back, having had the baron to reflect it for an evening. (page 117)

for the identity that Howie took for granted, and talked to and reflected back to her was not the identity it used to be, not the one who had signed all her past drawings, not the one she knew herself. Then what was it now? She didn’t know.

They are both sensitive to their surroundings. Susan in her descriptions both in writing and in art and her ability to find uniqueness and interest in her physical surroundings. When Shelly first comes to the Zodiac Cottage garden Lyman notes that "she stopped short just at the lower line of the apple trees, and stood for a moment with her face lifted ...I had stopped my chair at that exact place, coming out, because right there the spice of wisteria that hung around the house was invaded by the freshness of apple blossoms in a blend that lifted the top of my head." Lyman approves of Shelly's noticing and appreciating such things

Both Susan and Shelly notice things, they have a curiosity about the world and the people in it, but they can keep secrets. Shelly explains her qualifications as secretary to Lyman: "A good typist is supposed to type without reading.... I'm not a good typist, but I'm not a gossip either." With Susan it is good manners to be discreet and to have a stiff upper lip among strangers or near-strangers.

Another thing I noticed is that both are strong-willed for both Susan and Shelley committed themselves to men despite their parents and friends disapproval. Susan even went against Augusta's disapproval. This brings up other shared qualities as both defended their chosen men against outside criticism and both were adventurous enough to try a different life than they'd been accustomed to and with men outside their familiar social circle.

So far some of the similarities are awareness and appreciation of their world and the people in it; curiosity; discretion; strong-willed; loyal; adventurous.

The idea that a person loses their individuality when there is nothing to reflect it back to them is a strong Western concept. Besides their own people, Native American stories involve the landscape -- trees, mountains, watering holes, a rock and so on -- as repositories of their stories.

The geography, as well as a person, then reflects back the stories and moral and the life of their people. For instance when you meet a familiar person and you are recognized -- you have a history, you exist. Or when you see a particular boulder you remember the event that occurred there and that links you to your people, your culture, your land, your identity. In this way you are never alone.

Susan had a landscape and a people that she left behind so she has no compass by which to steer her life and no identity. Her identity was her family and Augusta and Thomas and the ferryman and the familiar trees and houses of the East Coast. These knew her as a person and an artist. This actually partially answers question 5 but I won't go further into it at this time but I'd like to re-visit the question. Does any of this answer your questions GINNY?

I promised TRAUDE that I'd post two links that'd been sent to her but I'm having problems bringing one of them up. I'll be back as soon as I figure this out.

SARAH T, here's someone I can share my love of Nevada City and the Sierras. Grass Valley has become overcrowded I think while the layout of Nevada City limits expansion within the city proper. Plus Nevada City is designated as historic and much of it is being preserved. Have you gone gold panning, SARAH?

MAL, thanks for the insight into Lyman. Regarding a TRAUDE question -- was Lyman's face grotesque? Lyman writes about his face and people's reactions to him as if it is grotesque. I wonder why that's in the book; there has to be a reason for it.

DECAF sent two links to TRAUDE who asked me to post them here. One I couldn't call up so I am extracting the information in the link. From www.californiabeach.com is this information on San Jose's Almaden Region:

An introduction to New Almaden is found in another link sent by DECAF New Almaden Mine Plaque

I found a link for the mine but it is extensive, with 8 sublinks, containing lots of info and pictures of structures, cemetaries, countryside. I spent hours pouring over this site. I can see Wallace Stegner walking the mining trails looking for the perfect setting for AoR. I've already chosen a possible site for the Ward Cottage. Where do you see it?

Hope these links aren't overwhelming. It helped me situate the story within the real landscape.

"I enjoyed my time there learnt to make do in the very old inconvenient cottage we bought with 17 acres of land and found I liked gardening. I also found I could cope with the primitive conditions including washing on stones in the river when the water ran out at the house! My time in the country made me more self reliant and a better homemaker."

The idea that a person loses their individuality when there is nothing to reflect it back to them is a strong Western concept. Besides their own people, Native American stories involve the landscape -- trees, mountains, watering holes, a rock and so on -- as repositories of their stories.

The geography, as well as a person, then reflects back the stories and moral and the life of their people. For instance when you meet a familiar person and you are recognized -- you have a history, you exist. Or when you see a particular boulder you remember the event that occurred there and that links you to your people, your culture, your land, your identity. In this way you are never alone.

Susan had a landscape and a people that she left behind so she has no compass by which to steer her life and no identity. Her identity was her family and Augusta and Thomas and the ferryman and the familiar trees and houses of the East Coast. These knew her as a person and an artist. This actually partially answers question 5 but I won't go further into it at this time but I'd like to re-visit the question. Does any of this answer your questions GINNY?

Lyman makes up conversations in his book; he makes up scenes that didn't exist -- such as when Susan scolds Oliver for not telling her about the ticket-fiasco. Lyman imagined Susan scolding Oliver. Why is Stegner giving us this?

Is Lyman Ward the WS device of an "unreliable narrator"? Stegner does not hide the fact that Lyman is making things up. Does Lyman want to publish his book as part-history and part-fiction? Or is he simply projecting himself into the re-imagined past and then returning to the present as his version of time travel? In this novel I don't see any of the other characters thinking about the past. It's as if there is no history for them.

And of course Lyman Ward is not Wallace Stegner even with some shared charcteristics. The created writer/narrator Lyman and the actual living author Stegner are different 'beings'. I did want to bring up the idea of time and history before we go deeper into the novel when the story of Oliver and Susan speeds up and takes center stage.

On a first read, to accept any work of fiction, I feel the reader has to ignore the author -- the one whose name is on the title page -- and relate only to the narrator who in this case is Lyman and not WS. The only life is between the pages of the novel, not what is outside of it (at least on the first reading).

Therefore, the scolding is a fabrication by Lyman which should measure into our judgment of the fictional Susan.

Lyman Ward is inventing scenes and conversations. WS makes sure that we know the narrator is fabricating.

If this is confusing don't worry about it. I only wanted to remark on it and then leave it simmering in the back of my mind while the rest of the story unfolds. In part, I was trying to see what the fabrication says about the story and the narrator Lyman, and the validity of creative history.

Mars could do nothing for them, for they were bred to the plains and pairies as open as the Martian fields......So the second men were Americans also. And they came from the cabbage tenements and subways, and they found much rest and vacation in the company of silent men from the tumbleweed states who knew how to use silences so they filled you up with peace....

GINNY, wow, what a quote: "...silent men from the tumbleweed states who knew how to use silences so they filled you up with peace." As a Westerner I've always been shocked at how fast and often Easterners speak. In the West you words are binding so you take care in what you say. That's still true in the country. The man of silence description fits Oliver who was from the East but quickly became a Westener. It was different for Susan as for most women who followed their men, leaving the known for the vast expanses of the West empty of human company. They didn't have modern communication or quick transport so they were isolated.

Perhaps Oliver and Susan don't fit the stereotype of Western immigrants. Isn't the stereotypical Westerner a lone drifter like many of the John Wayne heroes? -- often violent, without ties or culture. In reality the Anglos and Hispanics who immigrated West were often in family groups with a rich past and culture that they brought with them. Many women brought along with them pianos, books, family heirlooms.

I think of tumbleweeds as Southwestern (an import and not actually indigenous to the U.S.) but I'll check further and see if they could exist in upper California, Idaho, Dakota, Colorado (maybe Colo.).

There are many things I'd like to discuss about Part I and II, particularly the images that WS creates. TRAUDE, what would you next like to address about these first two parts of the book?

My father was a miner too and spent most of his mining career in Crested Butte, Colorado. You will be able to give us a personal perspective on Leadville.

I liked your connecting three seemingly dissimilar items. We're going to have an after-book discussion about the real Susan Burling (Mary Hallock Foote) and also WS and his creation of the book and I can add information then about the genesis of Lyman Ward.

Glad you joined the discussion.

BETTY, I was hit by a car in March and have been on Seniornet sporadically while recovering. Still walking with a cane but I have improved mobility in hands. Missed "talking" to people about books and look forward to your comments on AoR. What do you think about Traude's Question #5? Are Susan and Oliver different from the typical Western hero? Or is there anything else that interests you that you'd like to comment on?

This is the beginning of Lyman's interest, almost obsession, with his family's history. I was curious about the contour bird -- since there is no physical bird of that name, just as there is no burden bird -- and I did some research. The contour bird is a scientific expression which describes the psychological state of mind of Lyman Ward in extraordinary depth.

MmeW, I tried to answer your post and made such a muddle that I deleted it. I'll try a shorter response.

Contour feathers give a bird its shape and protect it from the elements. But it is a shell and not the real bodied bird, just the outer form. Lyman Ward uses his attitude as his contour feathers when he feels vulnerable. He pretends a robustness and independence that he cannot live up to and is gruff with others -- these are his contour feathers; his protection. It is how this particular individual, Lyman Ward, reacts to his new condition.

This can also apply to seniors -- as I've aged, I feel a certain freedom and I can do as I please if I don't intentionally hurt anyone else. There isn't much more to lose by grasping onto freedom as I slide down life's hill. Rather a liberting feeling. Lyman is extreme in that he has Rodman Paul to contend with, or he thinks he has to contend, and his feathers are doubly needed.

Some quotes from the link that I feel are pertinent to understanding the contour bird and Lyman:

"Feathers protect a bird in a variety of ways ... (contour feathers) not only give the bird its beauty but protect the bird from the elements of nature."

"Contour feathers are the outer most colorful layer that most people are used to seeing."

"Feathers -- are the first indications of the overall health of a bird."

"(Contour feathers) form the wings, the tail and body."

This is the best I can do with the contour bird -- basically attitude as protection and cover.

Hummingbirds fly backwards, up and down, and fly without moving (staying in one spot). They are quite territorial and if they notice humans watching them will go toe-to-toe so to speak with the person -- in stationary flight, wings beating furiously, and eyeing the human fearlessly.

I found some fun info about the Zodiac Cottage. I knew the name was inspired by the North Star Cottage, the real residence of the mining engineer in Grass Valley. WS was referring to a retreat and the zodiac with his recreation of North Star Cottage into the Zodiac Cottage. I am not familiar with astrology so didn't delve deep into signs or any of that. What I found was a link regarding the zodiac (apparently the stars are read in terms of 'houses' and 'rooms').

Tojung (To=earth + jung=cottage) was a reluctant civil servant in Korea who was disenchanted by the conflicts and politics of government life and left. In the late 1500's Tojung retired to a small cottage to study the Book of Changes and, using astrology, foretold the future to visitors. (Perhaps Lyman retreated to his grandparents cottage to find peace like Tojung. Lyman's academic life would probably have been similar to the civil service in terms of political intrigues and stress.)

For more information on the zodiac and Tojung, or just for fun click here

The ethnic division is extreme and would be less likely to occur today although it does occur to a lesser degree. English Camp, Mexican Camp, Chinese Camp,the Wards, and the Supervisor. So many different divisions! Not a pleasant life for most miners.

I really disliked Susan when she wouldn't deign to step down from her porch to be on the same level as the Mexican she drew. Instead she had an intermediary help her and didn't she allow the drawing to float in the air while the Mexican had to catch it? Am I remembering this scene correctly? And the man seemed thrilled to be made famous by a drawing from her.

Now that is writing that makes me feel I'm there

I'm thinking (now here is my leap)...I'm thinking of the Woman's Movement officially begun in 1848 by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Susan B. Anthony was a prohibitionist and came late to the woman's movement.

Stanton was a spoiled child, a spoiled woman, a spoiled wife -- a true snob. Yet she went from demanding equality for herself; to the right for women (middle-class) to own property; and finally to a near-socialist stance on college education, sex education, racial equality, and equal pay.

Stanton started as a snob and ended a radical, promoting the causes of the disenfranchised -- women, the poor, African Americans. Anthony never budged from her one-note demand of women's vote (an idea first promoted by Stanton). Anthony saw only her own restrictions of not being allowed to vote. I admire someone like Stanton, still a bit of a snob (she and Frederick Douglas used to lunch together and dish people), yet she changed gradually but radically. It rarely happens overnight.

I believe Susan is changing from the woman who wouldn't let a handkerchief pass from her hand to the hand of a Mexican worker.

When Susan emerges from the mine she has changed and become aware of the people around her. Now that she's had to recognize the harsh reality of a mining life, she decides to include it into her New Almaden sketch. She realizes where she'd seen the picturesque with the miners' wives she should have also seen human beings in poverty and their personal tragedies, like miscarriages.

Susan will not lose her attitude completely or quickly but the West is working a change in her. I wonder if later in the book Susan questions women's roles, like Stanton? I don't see her as making that great a leap beyond her current role of cajoling Oliver to think her way.

I noticed the moment when Kendall may have decided that it was Tregoning who would be punished as substitute for Oliver. The first part of New Almaden, Chapter 6 as the 'bigwigs' assembled outside the shaft house and

MAL, I am not sure about "self-proclaimed". Augusta WAS the elite, period. Susan basked in that reflection, endeavored to blend in, and - if one were to put it crudely (which is not my style) - was a hanger-on in modern parlance, possibly sycophantic = a deplorable trait IMHO; it comes right after name dropping and boasting.

One of our unanticipated surprises when we first came to this country was the discovery that there ARE distinctions in class and race. It DOES make a difference whether one graduates from an ivy league college or a community college.

When we went to our first ever cocktail party in an old brownstone in Washington, D.C. decades ago, the best and the brightest were assembled there.We had never been to a cocktail party, never experienced standing up the whole time and - above all - CIRCULATING, while white-gloved black waiters hovered nearby and fans cooled to the extent possible at that time in a humid Washignton summer.

Perhaps the immigrants, starting with Columbus, don't have a local history to lean on? So the material possessions, the degrees, the address give weight to a person's status? In Europe, does a name signify a good deal without anything having to be said? Would this mean that people don't have to prove themselves (their worth)?

I'm asking without having the answers.

I can see good and bad sides to the different scenarios I've described. If people rely on their names as indication of their value, then they wouldn't need to progress as individuals. Some might choose to but others would not.

In the other example -- if the indicator of people's worth is what they have or what they do, they could be quite desperate to prove themselves and to impress others which shows a lack of confidence. Not an ideal life in either case.

Santa Cruz Promontory Today

Natural Bridges House

Natural Bridges History

Old Santa Cruz Photos

I did research to locate the Santa Cruz beach featured in AoR and found that the locale was the Natural Bridges Beach. People still go to Natural Bridges to view shore birds, butterflies, migrating whales, and the seals and otters playing offshore.

Stegner is writing AoR but he gives to Lyman Ward views that he doesn't necessarily share and the bitterness of Lyman over his divorce shows when he imagines scenes between Susan and Oliver. To be fair to the man, Lyman is constantly warning the reader, saying 'now I don't know what happened but I imagine it could of/would of/might of happened like this...' and then he orchestrates a scene.

Between the traditional gender roles and Lyman's destructive imagination, do Susan and Oliver stand a chance?

MAL, I don't recall ever calling Susan a victim and have said at many points that I liked/disliked her as a complex human being. I've also said she is undergoing some changes. I don't believe Oliver is a victim either. Both S & O are strong-willed people and sometimes one person has their way and sometimes the other does. The relative isolation of the West encouraged independence in people.

I have to laugh at Susan's encounters with Mrs. Elliott, another strong-willed person whose husband washes dishes in the kitchen while Susan clucks her disapproval. Then Susan steams with indignation as an over-eager Mrs. Elliott lectures her on the proper way to care for a husband. They both see faults in the other. Mrs. Elliot is an older version of Susan.

After the seriousness of the first part of the book, it's fun to see Susan1 and Susan2 politely clashing over men.

I can like someone and not expect perfection from them, such as Oliver, Susan and Mrs. Elliott. Laughter at one's foibles and those of friends, as I like to think of these characters, is healthy so long as its not negative, demeaning or cruel. One can't laugh at someone; only with someone.

As I realize I'm not perfect -- and no one is -- I can relax and accept the imperfections of these fictional others.

Isn't the Santa Cruz episode a joy? I love the interaction between the well-intentioned Mrs. Elliott and the socially-formal Susan amid Oliver's response to it all. What fun!

And there is a change happening with Susan from her -- hilarious to us, maddening to her -- interaction with doppleganger Mrs. Elliott.

I am back after almost two anxious days and happy to report that my Greyhound is recovering- thanks to exceptional emergency care, which came none too soon and was provided by a different vet.

There was reason to be contemplative on the anniversary of 9/11, even as I can sense a demonstrable impatience here to get on with our book.

MAL, the posted schedule for this week covers Parts III and IV = up to and including pg. 310.

Surely, there's no need for a signal from me to go on to discuss any and all points in the respective chapters that are deemed worthy of discussion.

I agree that LEADVILLE is important, not only because it enlightens us about the further wanderings of Oliver and Susan (and their intractable differences), but because it gets us closer to Lyman's gradually changing situation.

Consider the character of Shelly and her interaction with Lymam.

Comment, if you would, on the ethical aspects of the early promoters of mining, the surveyors, the get-rich schemers, the 'affidavits', the claim jumpers, not to forget the vigilantes (see chapter 5).

What role did the government play in those early days ?

Who profited ?

How do you see Mrs. Jackson ?

Did Stegner assign a special role to her in the story - as a voice of conscience perhaps ? A voice of reason ? A WOMAN, for heaven's sake ?

Did she make a difference ?

This first website is an overview of Leadville's past with historic photos and is beautifully organized. Permission granted for this one-time nonprofit use by Mark L. Evans.

For further information on Horace Tabor and his mine click here . Permission granted for this one-time nonprofit use by Dave Kanzeg.

TRAUDE, although it is pretty much 'business as usual' with Susan I feel she is happier in Leadville than the previous locales despite the rough living conditions. The fine Victorian homes were not yet built; the majority had to wait until 1890-1910s. Only saloons and the hotel were decked out in polished woods and chandeliers.

To Susan the rugged life is not such a detriment, but lack of a social life is. Susan has a salon of sorts with Pricey and Frank etc -- and only a salon at this point -- and she receives literary guests as well as influential guests. Oliver is making money which is a blessing to him for his ego and concern for his wife's comfort and thus a blessing for her. For dinner Susan can dine at the popular Clarendon Hotel. Leadville, despite its rough edges, is a hopping town.

I don't want to keep extending this post so will come back later to answer some of TRAUDE's questions. There is a lot for us to consider in this interesting section of AoR.

In Chapter 5 there are many more probing questions offered up by Mrs. Jackson. And many more in her books about Native Americans and the misuse of the land. For more on Helen Hunt Jackson click here

While Susan wrote as a tourist rather than a social critic and while Shelly could find no direction in life of her own choosing and while Mrs. Elliott reigned in her tiny social world, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote and spoke to improve conditions for others and to save the land and its natural resources. Jackson did make a difference.

I think Stegner added Jackson to the novel to show first that he was not anti-female --for he has been hard on Susan, Shelly and Mrs. Elliott -- and second, to highlight the differences between the women, and third, to show that even in the 1800s women could act, no matter how restricted their lives were compared to men. Jackson also brings out the ethical problem of 'what is the right way to behave' versus 'I'll do whatever it takes to get rich' or 'greed is good.'

Stegner is illustrating Jackson as a role model not just to women but the men as well. A voice of conscience and reason? Yes, most definitely. Later I'll try to add more about the difference she made unless someone else can add that to the discussion.

I was surprised to find out that HH Jackson was a schoolmate, former neighbor, and lifelong friend of Emily Dickinson. Because I think of ED as existing somehow outside of time or before time?

Jackson was an active reformer. When she wrote about the corrupt government Indian policies and broken treaties in "A Century of Dishonor," she sent a copy to each member of the U.S. Congress with a note printed in red on the cover "Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relatives."

Jackson circulated petitions, raised money for lawsuits, wrote letters to newspapers, and used her writings in an attempt to arouse the public all on behalf of Native Americans. THese are just some of her reform methods. Quite a woman.

Another reason why Stegner introduced Jackson into the novel would be a subtle reminder that those hills and gulches of $$$valuable ore were quite recently Native American lands. Stegner, for all his historical references, never does address the issue of Native American history directly and I wish he had done so.

A good nonfiction book on Native American maps and mapmaking is Keith H. Basso's "Wisdom Sits in Places." I read every Hillerman book that comes out and am eager to see his map-driven mystery on PBS that Traude mentioned.

It's late and tomorrow is going to be a busy one at work so I'm calling it a night. Until tomorrow.

There are a couple of biographies on HH Jackson, one fairly current one listed on B&N. I too intend to read her bio.

Here are some links that I believe tell 'how we got here from there'. It is the basis for the immigration of the engineers like Oliver and wives like Susan and miners and surveyers and boomtowns like Leadville.

This first link is wordy but gives a lot of official information --

This next link is a view from the other side with graphics and few words; information, simple and fun --

Another fun and interesting site (be sure to click open all the little instruction boxes on the bottom of each page, outstanding info) --

The next is a PBS site with fine scholarship that's easy to read (click on the highlighted items of 1864, John Chivington, Black Kettle and the additional highlighted items within the Black Kettle section) --

And this last link is a short one with a nice graphic --

These different sites give an overview of Colorado history that mirrors the history of the other states. The past teaches us how to live in the here and now; we cannot, for the well being of the world, turn a blind eye to our past.

I think Stegner's limited Western chronology is a cop-out, an avoidance of guilt. With his self-enforced time limit Stegner basically ignores past and present Native Americans and makes them at best a footnote in history books. It's as if Native Americans barely existed in history and have ceased to exist in the present which isn't true.

Yes, he has a chapter with HH Jackson and she does say the dreaded word 'Indian' but it isn't enough when coming from a historian-novelist like Stegner.

I'm interested in the native and European-American history of Colorado and the seizure of lands as it pertains to the current chapter in AoR we're discussing. That's why in post 235 I posted links regarding that history. It gives us as readers a clearer insight to the mood of the times and what Stegner seemed to imply about the engineers and capitalists throughout his book.

I feel we must understand and accept that history which was opened the land for the capitalist developers. Stegner implied that in his work but he never directly addressed it; instead he gave a passing nod to Helen Hunt Jackson and her activist beliefs. Only a passing nod.

Stegner did not record the history of Native Americans in Colorado or any other state. I feel that is a serious error for a historian-novelist. Just as he said in an interview that he knew only the history of his people, so will many readers only know the history that Stegner tells.

Valid questions and said with a good deal of balance and maturity and I'll try to answer as such. Stegner proclaimed himself to be a historian-novelist, not 'just' a novelist. He only alluded briefly to a major reason why white settlers came to Colorado, how that occurred. At the time AoR was published in 1971 there'd already been 10 years of a resurgence of Native Americans in the public eye with books and protests over injustices. Ten years. Stegner -- the self described historian-novelist -- cannot claim ignorance. AoR was criticized in 1971 for this very issue; this isn't a new criticism. I haven't read the works of critics as others have here but I've read Stegner's interviews and he is continually is asked about that issue.

Why just Stegner? My reply, not just Stegner but any Western writer of the 1960s and later who know better but prefer to tap into the odious (to Indians) myth of 'how the West was won'.

Why Stegner? also for those reasons stated above and also for the fact that he can so effortlessly evoke history to make it come alive. As a historian-novelist of 1971 Stegner could have done better. My Native American grandmother and all NA deserved that much by 1971.

My viewpoint is valid just as opposing viewpoints are valid but I dislike bickering. There has been too much time spent over trying to shut off my views and its diverted precious time away from AoR proper. I hope this has ceased.

The avoidance of NA history in AoR except for brief throwaway lines is only one aspect of his writing, one deliberate denial of history.

We can also look at the positive aspects of his writings and the beauty of his descriptive passages are breathtaking. Leadville came alive in his book and I can still see the total life of the town. Susan certainly didn't mind roughing it which surprised me. I think it is the lack of society that most bothered her but we are seeing, page by page, changes in Susan and Oliver.

Now I hope I've answered fully here so I don't have to justify expressing my opinion again.

One of the misunderstandings I noticed in the posts is about casinos. They are owned and run by Native Americans on reservations, not outside the reservation.

Patzcuaro was the capital city of the state of Michoacan before it moved to Morelia. Interesting to see that Bishop Vasco de Quiroga was so forward thinking in his administration of the populace. I believe that was one reason Stegner included Morelia in his book as a compare/contrast if he assumed that people studied history (even without the aid of computers). You see, I am saying Stegner included some NA history or at least hinted at it.

I have other links of the area if I can dig them up.

There are five mining cities spread out around Morelia: Guaajuato, Zacatecas, San Miguel de Allende, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi. I don't believe that Stegner had in mind any particular city of these five but I found a nice link to one of them (I'm sure there are more) so I'm including it here as representative of the mining area:

I need to either check the links first by emailing them to myself as I normally do or else figure out how to do cut and paste on my webtv.

MARVELLE, thank you for the wonderful links to Susan's "Paris and Rome" !

I have an AARP book from the year 1989, titled Travel and Retirement Edens Abroad, Expanded and Updated Edition by Peter A. Dickinson. Several towns in Mexico are recommended in it as - and have since become, only more so - havens for U.S. retirees, Morelia prominent among them. A former friend of my daughter's had a home in San Miguel de Allende which she rented out part of the year, and I had hopes to go there some time; my husband would have loved it. It was never to be.

CAROLYN, forgot to thank you for TANATAWHENUA (is that the correct spelling?) What a superb idea, what a model to follow ! Have noted the pronunciation too and will be sure to cite it whenever I can !

I wanted to reply to a post from MAL about Lyman and Shelly conversing (and no, it wasn't # 261), but I can't find it now, encumbered as I am with poor Zola. You have to forgive me and point me to it.

Meanwhile let me answer this way : I tend to believe that Stegner has positioned Rodman and Shelly off to one side - sociologist Rodman and Berkely dropout Shelly have turned their backs on the past in the (probably mistaken) belief that the present and future can be readily made over into something different and far better. But while Rodman favors the notion of a scientifically organized Utopia, Shelly envisions a future society that is anarchistic and effortlessly just. She is, as we can see, outpoken, inquisitive and (distressingly) provocative.

Like Carolyn I neither like nor dislike Rodman and Shelly but I'm also ambivalent about Lyman. Lyman as you put it is looking toward the past not realizing yet "that the past will lead him back to himself." That would be a nightmare to Lyman because the one thing he's trying to escape is his present self in mind, body, spirit. I admire Lyman because, unlike Rodman and Shelly, he is undertaking the most demanding task of all -- to know himself. What I don't admire is his rather automatic hostility towards people. So ... ambivalence.

TRAUDE, you asked some questions previously but I'll have to go back and read them again before I answer.

I was going to quote from my favorite passage in the Michoacan section but found I was typing out all of Chapter 2 "Enrique, mi alma! Enrique, mi alma!"

When I lived in San Diego one of my favorite places was Bazaar del Mundo, a center of Mexican crafts and foods with earth-hugging adobe shops encircling a white bandstand and grass; and where huge cages of colorful parrots lined the circled walk.

Now I live in New Mexico in which the population is one third each Native American, Anglo and Hispanic and we are within arms reach of Mexico. Yet "Enrique, mi alma!" reminds me of that tiny paradise in San Diego.

Images abound in the Michoacan section. Since its foolish to quote the entirety of chapter 2, I'll content myself with Chapter 6 and the departure of the Wards from Michocan and of Susan on the "rosillo, a strawberry roan with a light mane and tail .... [wearing] the black silk face mask that Emelita had given her as protection against the muy fuerte Mesican sun...." Wonderful imagery throughout this section of AoR!

I received an OK for these links beforehand since they are about the real-life Augusta and family.

With the last link just scroll down the page to the name of Helena's husband. It interested me to see how influential -- in a genteel way -- the actual 'Thomas and Augusta' were in forming and/or organizing important local and national organizations.
___________________

I'm re-posting TRAUDE's questions so we can refer to them. (I kept forgetting the questions and decided to move them up the line of posts since I wanted to respond) TRAUDE's questions:

"Susan went back to Milton carrying a child Oliver knew nothing about.

.
Lyman describes Ellen (whom we've never met) as a 'still' woman.

End of questions.

Will be back later. I have to start dinner.

About the question of why Susan didn't tell Oliver she was pregnant when she traveled to Milton ... I'd like to expand that to include

Both S&O keep secrets, but why?

They both say they are concerned about their spouse and don't want to worry them or make them change plans and I believe that is part of the reason. Another reason is that they are doing what they want to do.

Susan is comfy in Milton with her made-up family of Augusta and Thomas and her own child. She relishes the flattery of Thomas, the companionship of Augusta, the joy of a new child, and the feeling of settling into a home at last. It is of course a dream.

Oliver is a romantic and he too follows his dreams. I see in Oliver a desire to learn, to explore and to experiment or invent. He already knows about gold mines so now he must try the impossible (or so its thought to be) -- to bring water to the desert.

I feel that S&O keep secrets so they wont be dissuaded by the other in their plans; so their dream balloons won't be pricked by the reality of a spouse. These two are still young and have a way to go before they are comfortable in sharing a life together!

I think TRAUDE for one might have another and totally different perspective? Any other perspectives?

I checked AoR and the first reference that I could find where Lyman describes Ellen as a still woman is in The Canyon. It was good to refresh my memory and I noticed that very very little was directly said about Ellen until The Canyon. This is the first section where I began to feel that Time merged within Lyman.

In the earlier section titled "on the bough," what do those words mean or imply?

Except for private conversations with our nearest and dearest, don't we reveal the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems? One reason for all of us to be considerate of others; none of us can know what the other is going through.

MAL, it is sometimes difficult to judge what's suitable for this discussion. I ran the last links by TRAUDE in case they were too telling and not acceptable. I posted them when she said it was alright to do so. I did that before with another link and it wasn't okayed, so I didn't post it. I don't intend to bother a book discussion leader unnecessarily but when in doubt I ask. I figure that I can always post the too-revealing links when we get into the post-book discussion so I don't mind any limits placed on links in the here and now.

This is as much as I care to discuss in public regarding these situations.

TRAUDE, the book discussion is fascinating and I'm learning a lot. Your questions make me stop and re-evaluate my responses to certain parts of the book and to consider things that I would have missed on my own. Stegner has set up the conflict and we start seeing the unraveling now of people. Will be back soon.

Reading your interpretation of "on the bough" fits in with the only thing I remembered about it. Until then I'd been at a loss to fit the pieces together. The chapter heading reminded me of a lullabye that, despite its lovely rhythm and soothing sound, had some frightening (to me as a child) images. This is a lullabye that many of us grew up with:

Neither Susan or Oliver have adjusted to living with another person. Both are strong-willed, both keep secrets. Susan is spoiled and Oliver lets her act out -- not a good idea for either person and it doesn't bode well for their marriage.

BETTY, I get jealous thinking of Susan's nanny but Susan does earn money to support them and they aren't living in a luxurious lifestyle despite the nanny. I keep thinking that in those days the life S&O had together, formerly middle class, would have caused resentment in any partners. It's difficult for me to conceive since my grandparents and parents were working class (how I dislike these terms!) The gender roles of husband and wife were more structured then with understood rules.

Susan's frustrations: she works to support the family, her husband runs around the country following his dreams, they have no home and there is no stability, her husband keeps secrets; he lets her act out which builds up lack of respect towards him from Susan. they live hand to mouth with lack of genteel surroundings fit for Susan-on-a-pedastal.

Oliver's frustrations: she works to support the family, she puts limits on his running around following his dreams, she keeps wanting to set roots down wherever they go, his wife keeps secrets; he lets her act out which builds up lack of respect towards him from Susan, they live hand to mouth with lack of genteel surroundings fit for his wife-on-a-pedastal.

I think of the "on the bough" as a period of indecision and I agree with TRAUDE's take on that section of AoR. The strife is accelerating and both S&O need to change because their marriage is heading towards danger.

Susan is on a pedastal and pedastals are not a safe place to be standing on for long periods of time.

I feel that he is not blameless although he is much easier to take as a person and quite considerate except ... he wanders from job to job rather than looking for something steady if perhaps boring even though he has a wife and child (now 2 children). That isn't considerate. And he has secrets. I can understand his behavior but it would put a strain on any marriage.

There is still time until the 22nd and The Canyon to comment about other things in AoR. I don't have the book with me right now to bring up other things which will have to wait until tonight. Really like this conversation.

I wonder about careers and supporting families in Victorian times. Susan gave up a lot, as any writer and artist knows, by moving away from the center of the creative art world of the time which was New York. This 'center' holds true even today although in a diminished form. Susan's opportunities were greatly reduced when she moved away which she knew would happen. It was her choice

And Oliver has choices too. He must weigh his family responsibilities against his ambition to learn all he can and to follow the jobs that provide him with a learning experience -- Oliver's dream is to build since he is after all an engineer. In poorer families a man is judged according to how well he provides for his family. A man will do whatever it takes, go outside his training, do anything however unpleasant to take care of his family. I can't know what the requirements were for a man of Oliver's background in the Victorian era but I suspect that middle-class women were not expected to help support the family financially.

Both Susan and Oliver are faced with career choices among other things. While I see the unbearable stress that is placed on Susan by her husband's choices, overall my sympathy goes to Oliver since I root for dreamers and idealists and the socially unpretentious.

They were hopelessly ill-matched from the very beginning. It might have worked if Susan had not been such a perfectionist, if she had let up on Oliver a little, stopped her criticism and wordless disapproving glances, curbed her anger. Instead, her resentment of Oliver as just a dreamer, an inadequate provider, increased and made her dangerously vulnerable to the adoration of Frank Sargent.

Re secrets : Early on, Susan had deliberately kept Oliver and his epistolary courtship a secret from Augusta --- until he proposed. THEN she did some fancy footwork -- but it was no good. Oliver was, in Augusta's eyes, merely an appendage to Susan, superficially acknowledged when absolutely necessary, but mostly ignored and, of course, never ever accepted 'in her circles'. Susan in turn never stopped being ashamed for having married "down".

MAL says "In an ideal relationship the goals of each and their goals together and what each partner thinks he or she needs are discussed openly, and compromises are made. If compromises can't be made, the marriage will not last. But, but, but ... Susan and Oliver stayed married for fifty years. How can this be explained?"

BETTY says that perhaps Oliver's "greatest failing may be his silence....[and] both Susan and Oliver were dealing with how little real life matched their views of how things 'should be.'"

TRAUDE replies that "nothing could be done -- it was circulus vitiosus. They became more entrenched in their respective positions .... They rubbed each other to the point of alienation. They were hopelessly ill-matched from the very beginning."

And then I go back to MAL's "but, but, but .. they stayed married for fifty years."

They were doomed and yet they survived somehow. I can't wait to continue this discussion!

TRAUDE, I have my own ideas about Lyman and Ellen and may not get any agreement on them but that's alright. I'll wait until we get into that section.

In engineering, there are various angles that can be achieved depending on the type of material. This certainly applies to humans and our relationships with each other. It is hard to accept other people's angles, as BETTY says.

There has been compromise between Susan and Oliver but rather grudgingly given as when Susan left the Eastern society and art world for the West of her husband's choosing. And Oliver's enjoyed finding out how to make cement but he grudgingly tried to sell his cement process to financial backers. These are still two examples of many. I don't see much grace in their relationship and certainly very little repose.

According to the link, the early Boise buildings were mainly 2-story brick with stone trim, so they were substantial and meant to last even in the early boomdays. Even in the city they had irrigation canals.

Idaho was made a U.S. Territory in 1863 upon the discovery of gold (familiar theme). In 1864 the territory's headquarters was moved from Lewiston to Boise. The city was, therefore, only about 20-25 years old when the Wards arrived. Idaho became a state in 1890. Here is a penny postcard depicting Susan's transport into Idaho

More.....

Apparently the main difference between the Eastern and Western lark is the throat coloration. Has a sweet song.

These are parts of the country that Susan found herself in exile. While beautiful it's very different from her Eastern home. Her feeling of exile must have come with her choice to return with her husband; it was a final step westward and a turning point in their lives.

Chief Joseph and his father, Old Joseph, were among those who refused to sign. But the U.S. wanted to officially open the country to European-American miners and settlers who were pouring into the territory.

Thus, it was gold that started the U.S. War against the resisting Nez Perce.

Click Here for more on the U.S. War.

Other links about the Nez Perce:

Check out the history button on the last link.

One of my teachers was Nez Perce and he, and the tribe itself, were part of a lawsuit regarding Chief Joseph's father. One of the links describes how Old Joseph's grave was ransacked shortly after his burial in 1871 and his head taken. The skull showed up later on display in a local dentist's office. The dentist and later owners claimed to have a right to the skull and this was what the lawsuit was about. The skull was used in modern times as an ashtray. The tribe won the lawsuit a few years ago and the bones of Old Joseph have been restored to his grave.

About 10 years following the Nez Perce 'war' ended, Susan and Olver came to Idaho. Considering this history I'm rather glad that Susan did not find the U.S. Army wives congenial. I hope this may be of use in placing Susan and Oliver in their time and place in AoR.

Augusta as Susan's lifeline? Yes, I can see that. Susan was able to remind herself that she did have a history before Idaho and all the other places she lived. But she did feel she was going into exile ... so the lifeline is weakened by the last parting.

I asked her about scanning from copyrighted books. There was a book published in 1971 with old graphics which I asked for but, so far, had not received permission to use. MARCIE expanded my question about scanning the book pages with her answer:

"...(H)ow beautiful it is! For the first time I understood Oliver's enthusiasm. We went softly up that sandy trail among the sage, and that dry magical wind from the west blew across us, until at last we came out on a long bench above a river valley, with mountains close behind patched with snow and forest. To our right, the stream broke out of a canyon cut through the sagebrush foothills. To the left, across a bridge, was Boise City climbing up its stepped benches. Below town the crooked line of cottonwoods marking Boise Creek groped across the plain until in the distance trees and river sank below the benches, and the plains healed over."

TRAUDE, Susan did enjoy good health but not only physical health. She finds emotional, material, and artistic comfort wherever she is at the moment. (I still envy her the nanny and househelp.) In Susan's descriptions of all the other places she'd been she does seek out enjoyment and appreciates the uniqueness of the areas. Despite her many faults, that is a plus on her side. She isn't a brooder, is she? But what's your feeling on her as a mother? I'm undecided about that.

Here are two more links that may help picture the area and Oliver's irrigation scheme:

The last link is my favorite of the ones I've found for here I can see the canal being built and get an idea of the wide scope of Oliver's dream.

I have less sympathy with Oliver and Susan than I do with their children whose lives are in their hands. I especially feel for Ollie who is half grown and overly-sensitive. Ollie is such a "little Western man" and is well adapted to Idaho. Brave and resourceful too and yet ... like his father, whom he takes after, he feels unworthy of Susan. Part of this attitude is very Victorian where women were special creatures and far above the mundane world. Some of this has to do with Susan's book reading and the attitude that one must read to be anything in life.

The rest comes from all the other aspects of the Wards' life: Susan's unrealistic expectations, her belief in a superior Eastern lifestyle, her supporting the family through her talent, Oliver's sense of inferiority and failure, his silent acceptances, Ollie being shunted to various caregivers while his mother works. Susan thinks of Ollie as she does Oliver and here she is mistaken. As Lyman writes:

"It was his capacity for feeling that she should have attended to: by failing to comprehend it, she probably contributed to his silence."

Lyman is writing about Susan and Ollie but it could just as well have been Oliver. By failing to comprehend his deep feelings, she doesn't understand and is horrified that Oliver tries to find release in a bottle which is a poor escape route for emotions.

All these tensions are visited on the children.

TRAUDE, re your answer to PAT about the difference in the words fertile and arid you said that the bridge between them was irrigation and that "The drive to conquer the West depended on water."

This is true up to a point although I argue that land/nature cannot be conquered. The U.S. government once thought that, with effort, nature could be conquered but experience has proven otherwise to the majority of farmers and government officials. Just ask a gardener if they've conquered their weeds -- it never happens for long.

The country is undergoing a drought now and Idaho is one of those states hit hard by the drought. We have learned more about land management since the Dust Bowl of the 1920's and 1930's but must balance land conservation with crop, livestock and human needs.

The irrigation of Idaho was done during one the most beneficial climatic cycles in decades and was a boon to farmers and ranchers. Now, even the irrigation has limits since rivers may lower or dry up during droughts and dams and canals fail.

The most pertinent section of the last link can be found by scrolling to the subheading 'Since the Dust Bowl'. Oliver was a visionary and his irrigation scheme was eventually implemented and benefited many people. However, nature is finicky and weather can change. Add that change to overgrazing and overuse of sagebrush plains adapted to the grazing of wild animals (not domestic) and there can be problems. Hopefully, conservation efforts will limit the damage.

The Victorian attitude is harmful in many ways, mostly by limiting the opportunity of both men and women to grow as individuals. Susan and Oliver were trapped by the idealized gender roles of their time. Similar roles still exist and it diminishes both men and women with the unrealistic expectations and behavior-defining names (delicate, demure etc etc).

What happens though is that Lyman briefly begins an episode by saying 'I imagine...' and follows with such a lengthy section that we forget he's imagined the entire section.

Stegner is the black-cloaked puppet master in the Japanese theatre, manipulating the characters but meant to be unseen; he steps aside as narrator and gives us Lyman instead. We are supposed to accept, as good fiction readers, that it is Lyman who is writing the story. We know he is imagining certain things. He isn't even sure that there was an outside romance.

This is where I think Lyman takes the events of his relationship with Ellen and places those events over the figures of Susan and Oliver. I believe that all along Lyman has been trying to understand his broken marriage and his frustrations, anger, resentment of Ellen and the surgeon spilled onto the page as if depicting Susan and Oliver. Ellen who seemed to care and cried into her pillow and then walked out on Lyman, is much like Susan who supported her family and followed her husband into Idaho then lashed out 'Why can't you be more like Frank?' Both women betrayed their husbands with a trusted male.

We don't really know if Susan said 'why can't you' to Oliver or that she had an outside romance. We know they had troubles and that could be anything -- finances and traditional gender expectations could have been enough trouble. Who knows what the trouble was? Lyman doesn't know but makes a guess based, I believe, on his own history.

The biography of his grandparents, the wearing of someone else's clothes for the moment, the imagined scenes, are Lyman's way of trying to make sense of his life and perhaps even re-create himself. That's how I see Lyman's writing as a catharsis and an attempt to understand what's happened and to learn about himself.

The controversy surrounding Stegner's work has to do with a totally different issue.

Building with stone is an ancient skill of course but I wanted to show what an older structure in North America was like. Joseph Campbell, well known for his writings on mythology and religion, called Canyon de Chelly the most sacred place on earth; and the psychologist Carl Jung agreed.

It wasn't an easy task building both the stone house and the suspension bridge in the canyons of Idaho. I once lived in a house that could only be reached by a footbridge suspended over a shallow river. How I hated it when the wind was gusting and I had to walk across. If you fell you'd be injured and the footbridge in AoR is over rocky ground!

Ellen bursts out in the later pages of AoR as if she'd been in the back of Lyman's mind all along. Things begin to come to a head in one way or another. Lyman is still groping for why Ellen was unfaithful and why she left him so nothing's decided yet.

TRAUDE, sorry you've had such problems with your access to SN. Has to be terribly frustrating.

TRAUDE, I was replying to your reference only after I let a previous disquieting reference go by. I agree that such things are better left in the post-book discussion. Please everyone can't we let it rest until then?

I'm enjoying the book and this discussion so much. Seems like yesterday that we started. I don't have TRAUDE's questions in front of me as a guide and I'll have to search for them and this time I'll print them out. I'm still up on the swing bridge, figuratively of course, and don't know what direction to turn. Will have to check the questions.

The strongest remembrance I have of stone buildings is in the East -- Maine and Vermont -- the Helen and Scott Nearing structures. MAL, did you see those? I couldn't find a picture of them.

The Wards had as much work in putting up their stone house as the Nearings did for neither used machinery to lift or haul the stones or mix cement. Quite an undertaking for the Wards with the stone house and the swing bridge.

TRAUDE, I double checked the links on other computers so I don't think there was a bug. Hope everything works now. So glad we're not going to bring into this book discussion any outside, controversial material about Stegner. That'll make talking about the book more enjoyable and the follow-up discussion too.

I'll provide a short explanation of the links for CAROLYN who no longer has the book AoR. At the start of this section, Susan writes to Augusta from Victoria, perhaps from the

Oliver sold the canyon house and surprises Susan upon her return from Victoria (from an emotional estrangement or financial? We don't know for sure) with a home on a mesa outside Boise.

A mesa according to my Webster's Dictionary is: "a land formation having a flat top and steep rock walls; common in arid and semiarid parts of the U.S. and Mexico."

Geographic definitions for mesa, plateau, tableland, and bench are similar for the purposes of AoR. Southwest Idaho is part of the Columbia Plateau and to the southeast is the Snake River Basin. Further southwest in New Mexico and Arizona, due in part to the extremely arid climate, the mesas stand out in higher relief.

On this last link, scroll down to the bottom picture which shows the mesa and canyon in New Mexico and the differences between the two that are more pronounced than in Idaho.

This is the geographic background to The Mesa in AoR. TRAUDE has some interesting questions about this section; and Lyman and Shelly discuss the ideal and reality of Utopia and Thoreau!

I feel we definitely, definitely need to have that post-book discussion we'd mentioned earlier. The controversy is about appropriation of a woman's work.

The post-book discussion can be limited, as TRAUDE says 'to the origin of the book and legitimate authorship and by inference the integrity of the author. I have specific sources of course.

I will keep checking today for any futher posts.

Gary Snyder did live pretty much as he predicted in his quote although it was an individual life and not terribly communal. People would come to visit him and help him (say help build his house) but he remained essentially an individual. In later years, he even taught at UC which is a commute from Grass Valley.

As for Susan's career -- I can't say whether Susan would have had a better career if she'd stayed in the East. It would have been different without that Western experience and she would have other experiences on which to build her work; maybe fuller experiences or less. She would have had more opportunities. Who knows? What happened is that she went West, and gradually, gradually, she became a Westerner.

I see a progression of thought in the last pages; first Lyman talks of the necessity of the marriage bond, the philosophy of humankind and utopias and communes with Shelly; and then he reflects on the last years of his grandparents' lives together with a surprising judgment at the end.

In the discussion with Shelly, Lyman says of the historical idealistic/idealized societies "One aspect of the precedents is that the natural tribal societies are so commonly superstition-ridden, ritual-bound, and warlike, and the utopias ones always fail."

In arguing about Thoreau's idea of self-sufficiency and independence from society, Lyman is actually arguing about himself "...(T)he civilization he was contemptuous of -- that civilization of men who lived lives of quiet desperation -- was stronger than he was, and maybe righter.... (I)t was bigger than he was. Civiizations grow by agreements and accomodations and accretions, not by repudiations. The rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies .... they're a side issue. Quiet desperation is another name for the human condition .... Civilizations grow and change and decline -- they aren't remade." Lyman had set up his utopia, his Walden at Zodiac Cottage and he was beginning to realize that it couldn't last.

In reflecting on his grandparents' last years, Lyman reads Susan's letter where she talks of death where she'll meet the ones she loves and their voices "will be saying softly, like a blessing, We love you, we forgive you." While Susan accepts the blame and Oliver's judgment against her, Lyman says he has difficulty "justifying [Oliver's] bleak and wordless break; and the ripping-up of the rose garden, that was vindictive and pitiless. I wish he had not done that. I think he never got over being ashamed, and never found the words to say so." Susan wanted the words in death which an ashamed Oliver could not give her in life. Lyman sees, I believe, that being uncompromising, vindictive and pitiless is unacceptable.

Lyman learns two things:

The last section of the Zodiac Cottage is Lyman's nightmare. When I first read it, I thought it was actually happening but it kept getting stranger and stranger, spinning out of control.

In his nightmare Lyman imagines his support system, his personal commune -- Ada, Shelly, Ed, Al Sutton -- dissipate upon the arrival of Ellen. (an imagined event). The nightmare is the culmination of research into his grandparents' past which has moved to meet the present of Lyman and Ellen. Marriage/committed life partnership is a force of civilization as Lyman sees it which outlasts temporary alliances. He also sees the fault in not forgiving.

Lyman wakes from his nightmare sweat-drenched and thinks: Wisdom..is knowing what you have to accept.... I lie wondering if I am man enough to be a bigger man than my grandfather."

To me its ambiguous. Lyman has confronted his fears and the reality of his situation but...

With ambiquity you, as the reader, may turn the story over and over in your mind and remember the story and the issues it presented, the human condition. You can imagine your own happy ending which I prefer to do or your own unhappy ending. If the author had done this, it could seem contrite and unrealistic and the book an overwrapped package.

I'm satisfied with the ambiguous ending of AoR and imagine the story continued with Lyman less bitter and more forgiving and Ellen back in his life, the two of them at their angle of repose.

The dream sequence was an accident of sorts according to Stegner who said in an interview that his publisher wanted the manuscript immediately. It was missing an ending so the final section was written in a rush and was disjointed and 'nightmarish'. Having run out of time to expand or refine the section, Stegner decided that the nightmare without resolution would do.

Clearly WS was having trouble finishing AoR and meeting his publisher's deadline. Perhaps he wouldn't have had to write another story centered around Ellen, but he needed something to end with and he was groping for that ending.

Since Lyman throughout the book was imagining and connecting the dots of his grandparents story, I thought it fitting that the ambiquous close to the novel left us, the readers to imagine our own ending. Lyman's imagination taught us well.

I didn't mention it before before it wasn't appropriate to talk about until now.

I love Stegner's writing as a whole. I've read his short stories which are wonderful and hope to get to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" but there is the issue of appropriation of a woman's work in AoR.

Here is what a very pro-Stegner biographer Jackson J. Benson says in "Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work" (Viking 1998):

"How much of the novel was 'taken' from the [Mary Hallock Foote] papers? None of the modern material, almost none of the conversations, many, but certainly not all, of the historical descriptions of place, some of the characters and characterizations in the historical sections, and almost all of the overall movement and locations. The Foote family reactions to the novel...has seemed to express the view that Mary's letters composed a major portion of it. Stegner does quote (with some changes) from many of the letters (roughly thirty-five out of a total of five hundred). There are thirty-eight instances of letter quotation for a total of 61 pages in a book with 555 pages of text -- that is, roughly ten percent of the whole."

This quote is just the tip of the iceberg for Stegner took more than the letters which composed 10 percent of the book. Here are some links to start. The first link is the webpage of Sands Hall -- writer, teacher, director, actress -- and the daughter of the historical novelist Oakley Hall who was a friend of Wallace Stegner. Take particular note of the sublinks, her essays esp. on autobiography and the play "Fair Use" which is about the use of MHF's writings in AoR.

"If I had written a biography of Mary Hallock Foote I would have put her in the book by name and made acknowledgments to her papers. But it is a novel, not a biography. It has nothing to do with the actual life of Mary Hallock Foote except that I borrowed a lot of her experiences. So I don't, I guess, feel very guilty about that. It is a method that I've used...to mix history and fiction. And whenever fact will serve fiction -- and I am writing fiction -- I am perfectly willing to use it that way. No, I'm a little irritated at that particular holier-than-thou attack [against the use of MHF writings and papers]. And I don't feel that I did Mary Hallock Foote any damage at all because, left alone, the papers would have been simply the raw material out of which a novel might be made .... As far as I am concerned the Mary Hollock Foote stuff had the same function as raw material, broken rocks out of which I could make any kind of wall I wanted to -- as poor Norman Foerster's ailments, which I borrowed for that wheelchair point of view." (p86-7)

Next I'll list some of the uses he made of the MHF papers which included her letters, reminisces, letters from friends and family etc. More...

Quote "I admire [Stegner] and his writing deeply, and therefore find his lack of acknowledgement of his source, when he used so much of her life and above all of her writings, more than usually deplorable.

"Any time that your edition of his novel indents and uses a slightly smaller font size? That is either a letter written by MHF, or from her Reminiscences. (When AOR came out in 71 they were unpublished; by the time he won the Pulitzer for the book, in 72, The Huntington Library had brought them out -- I understand this was coincidence). In addition, he uses endless scenes described in her letters and in her reminiscences and dramatizes them -- usually very effectively, of course; he's Stegner -- often keeping in many phrases and colorful images taken directly from her own words.

"The most deplorable thing, and the thing that in the end I find hardest to stomach, is that he used 9/10 of the Footes' lives to create the Wards' lives. Then he has Susan have an affair, which Mary did not have, or would ever thought of having: as a result of this affair the Wards' youngest daughter, Agnes, dies (Stegner did not even change the name of this youngest daughter; the real Agnes (Foote) died at the age of 17 of appendicitis, a sorrow from which MHF never fully recovered). As a result of this affair and this death, the Wards live in an icy silence to the ends of their lives; the real Footes were engaged in their lives and happy and very much in love to the ends of their days.

"(Stegner's very peculiar interpretation of the phrase "angle of repose," a phrase by the way, he found in her reminiscences, where she uses it as a life metaphor, is this: "horizontal, permanently." In fact it is the angle at which dirt and rocks will no longer slide -- an important aspect of the work that Arthur Foote/Oliver Ward were doing out there in Idaho with the walls of the canal.) In the novel, Stegner paints Oliver's great plan of a canal, which would bring much needed water to lands and people, as a failure; in fact, the effort that Arthur Foote spearheaded came to fruition in the 30's, and he is a celebrated man in the Bosie Valley.

"It's appalling for a writer to "borrow" words written by another with the intention to pass them off as his own. It's appalling that Stegner borrowed a woman's words. And it is appalling that he borrowed another writers' words: MHF published the same number of novels as Stegner in her own lifetime (13, all well-reviewed), also three collections of short stories (as did Stegner), as well as essays, etc. -- and she was a celebrated illustrator.... This is a writer blatantly taking thousands of words written by someone else and passing them off as his own. The reviews of the novel all praise the "voice" of Susan Ward -- how was it possible for a man to capture that voice so beautifully, they ask, and swoon over the "verisimilitude." It is a terrible thing. And the novel won a Pulitzer.

"Many readers believe that anything's "game" on the way to creating a great work of fiction. And Stegner was not only a terrific writer, he was a champion of the environment -- which makes all of this even harder, I think, for people to want to face this large wart on the nose of a hero. I admire and deeply appreciate what he did for our Western parks, especially. But Stegner borrowed a real set of lives, and, in the historical sections of the book, the friends, the places, the landscapes, the very JOURNEY OF A LIFE; above all the perceptions of all these things, to create this "great" work. An acknowledgement was -- IS -- certainly in order. As is an Afterword to discuss what precisely is and what is not the actual LIFE of Mary Hallock Foote." End Quote

These papers consist of correspondence, literary manuscriptions and artwork. There are 613 letters to Helena Gilder, 65 letters to Richard Gilder, 300 pages of the typescript for Foote's reminisces, 446 graphic arts, 137 letters from Foote, her family and friends to business associates and each other, 90 letters from Betty Foote Swift to her mother Mary Hallock Foote.

Stegner is a fine writer but so is Mary Hallock Foote and I am concerned that her reputation is discounted because of Stegner's borrowings. I'd like to see her a little more at peace.

Here is one story of how Stegner got the papers according to Jackson J. Benson in his authorized biography "Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work"

"Stegner first came across Mary Hallock Foote in 1946 when he came to Stanford and was doing research.... He read several of her novels and story collections, as well s uncolletected stories in their original magazine publication. He judged her 'one of the best, actually; she was good and hadn't been noticed.' He took notes on her work and put one of her stories in his anthology Selected American Prose: The Realistic Movement, 1841-1900, and included one of her short novels on his reading list for his Americal literature class. George McMurray, A GI student in the class [knew of further MHF writings from the Foote family in Grass Valley, California]. He [had] the idea of possibly using them as the basis for a doctoral dissertation.

"The Foote family gave McMurray the papers on the understanding that he was going to publish from them and that he would supply typed transcriptions of the letters to the family. McMurray planned to do the dissertation under Stegner's direction, but a decade went by with no progress and he finally gave up. During the mid-1960s Stegner borrowed the transcriptions from the Stanford library and took them with him to Vermont one summer to read." (p351-2)

From James R. Hepworth's authorized book, "Stealing Glances: Three Interviews with Wallace Stegner" (UNM Press 1998)

Interviewer: "Wasn't Rodman Paul, the editor of Molly Foote's autobiography, working on his edition at the same time you were turning Foote into the character of Susan Burling Ward?" (p68)

Stegner: "Rodman Paul is the grandnephew of Mary Hallock Foote. He was mad at me ...he got upset at something. Between us, we've more or less revived Molly Foote, though. She was dead as a doornail before we began working on those papers." (p68)

Stegner: "Let me tell you something about stealing. You can't steal anything that isn't already yours -- in a literary way. If you can surround it, understand it, comprehend it, it's yours, unless you steal word for word -- which is another matter. If the material is yours and it fits your concepts and the growing pattern in a novel, then it's already yours." (p88)

I'm trying to give Stegner's reasons here and will follow up with opposite views. It's always good to look at both sides.

More about using materials from MHF...

CAROLYN, I didn't say that there should be an afterword in AoR concerning the use of MHF's life or letters. That was a quote from Sands Hall. But I agree with you that she has a good idea.

TRAUDE, in the 4 books of interviews and biography I read on Stegner when they brought up the death of Agnes -- and these were authorized books -- they all said she was 17 years old. Stegner in interviews said she was 17 but he could have been wrong. Also, the word "acquired" isn't a synonym for "bought." To acquire something means 'to come into possession of; to get' according to my Webster's Dictionary. So it doesn't automatically you've bought something if you've acquired it. You can see in the Stanford Collections link I posted earlier that they listed the Foote family as donating the papers with some papers paid for by Stanford in 1971. The Benson (authorized) biography says, which I cited earlier, that Stegner borrowed the papers from Stanford and that is what the other sources said.

Can anything be altered after the fact? What purpose would be served? My question is: what about Mary Hallock Foote? I think that is the purpose there -- her right to a solid reputation on her own. Wouldn't it enhance her reputation to be known as the writer of such beautiful prose? As the originator of the extended idea of 'angle of repose'?

I asked Sands Hall if she knew if Stegner paid for the letters. While conducting research she visited the Foote family and here is her response to my question about how the papers left their hands:

Quote

"Did he pay for the letters?

"I think the story goes something like this (this is only one version, and I'm not positive that the family, from whom I got most of these details, has it completely correct): Stegner had a graduate student. McMurray, who was interested in doing a thesis on MHF. McMurray introduced Stegner to the Foote descendants in Grass Valley and they drove away from that meeting with boxes of Foote family documents, including the letters. McMurray's thesis on MHF got bogged down and he loaned her letters and the documents to Stegner.

"Stegner wrote the family asking if he could use them as a basis for a novel -- saying he would not use quotes. He also asked where the reminiscences were. He wrote the novel. (I believe he had the letters transcribed -- from the almost illegible handwriting to typescripts -- a wonderful thing to do; it's made it much easier for the rest of us studying them.) I believe that the letters went back to McMurray, however, and when he died, they were donated, AS PART OF HIS ESTATE!, to the Stanford library.

"A few years later I believe someone doing some research contacted the Footes in Grass Valley -- and that's when the family realized where the original documents were. (This does speak to a certain disorganization on the part of the Footes.)

"I believe at that time the Footes were given a tax write-off, or some money, for the documents that then became part of Stanford's Special Collections. But I do not believe Stegner paid for the letters -- if they were paid for, Stanford supplied the monies -- and in any case ... would that ... have given him the right to claim them as his own?

Why have reveiwers and editors not touched it? Search me. Because... in America we don't know how to have heroes with flaws?

"I have been agitating to have a story done about the controversy -- and sent my play to numerous Bay Area theatres. I think the play is good [but] theatres get hundreds of plays all the time that they don't produce -- so it's not necessarily a boycott of any kind. Still, one artistic director of a prestigious company told me that he was a grateful student of Stegner's and no matter what his sins were, he wouldn't have a hand in tarnishing his name... So it's like that.

"Stegner's reputation will endure, even if this story comes out (which I have faith it will, especially with all the renewed interest in MHF). And I...am anguished that such a fine writer felt he had to stoop to such means: it was a Faustian bargain!"

End Quote

I apologize if I sound abrupt in my posts. I hope I'm not being abrupt but I've had to post early in the morning before work, during coffee breaks, and at lunch so my time is limited and I can't spend much time editing. This is my break and I need to end this post for now so I can find details of some of MHF writings before I have to go back to work.

About the term 'angle of repose.' One of the books I read refers to a letter where MHF says upon the family's move to Grass Valley that "we have reached our angle of repose ...our security".

In MHF reminisces "A Victorian Gentlewoman..." she writes as they wait in the Canyon to hear if the Canal will be a go:

"Sitting beside my own smokers [husband and other engineers] in the restful silence of the Juniors' room, often I thought of one of their phrases, 'the angle of respose,' which was too good to waste on rockslides or heaps of sand. Each one of us in the Canon was slipping and crawling and ginding along seekng what to us was that angle, but we were not any of us ready for repose. Signs were not wanting that our little world that had looked on at our years of futile waiting thought that the end of the New York Ditch was near. We went on unconscious, each with his or her own job, each seeking his own angle of repose." (p306) End Quote

News that the Canal would not be financed caused the breakup of the Canyon camp and MHF went to Victoria while her husband took an exploration job with the Geological Survey. MHF writes

"It shows on the map how temptingly the island of Vancouver lies where Canada trails the fringes of her garment in the Pacific by a network of waterways. Victoria, at the southern end, looks across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to our own Olympians, blue on the horizon, with their heads always topped with snow. I knew the northern twilights would be long and the summer short and cool, and I thought it probable the Victorians would be cool to a stray American woman without letters, and with no money to spend. All of which would tend towards that angle of repose which one finds and loses from time to time but is always seeking in one way or another." (p309)End Quote

These are some of the borrowings from the reminisces of MHF.

I side with Stegner's belief that you have to know the past to understand the present and the future. And literature and a writer of literature, no matter how far in the past, are never a dead horse.

On the positive side, I'm glad we had the book discussion. I still think Stegner is a beautiful writer and I hope to get to "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" soon. I've read his short stories and liked them immensely. It's true that if I'd known about the controversy before the book discussion started, I would not have joined. It's just as well then that I didn't know so that I could read Stegner for the first time and in the process learn about the work of Mary Hallock Foote.

I enjoyed the book discussion and learned a lot. I hope everyone else did too.

Six years! This is our birthday week ~Book Club Online is our flagship discussion...beginning in 1996 with Snow Falling on Cedars. Our goal was then and still is now to receive every poster's opinion,with respect, whether or not we agree personally. This is what makes our book discussions different from so many on the Internet. Fairness is a very precious ingredient of what we do here every day in every discussion.

Some of you have been with us for a very long time and and have come to expect such respect in every discussion here. Upon learning that some of you have still not had a chance to be heard, Ginny and I have extended this discussion. Whatever misunderstandings have arisen, please keep in mind our overall goals of fairness and respect in all of our Senior Net discussions. We wish to celebrate many more happy birthdays here in Book Club Online.