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41st out of 265 books
—
86 voters
All the Little Live Things
Joe Allston, the retired literary agent of Stegner's National Book Award-winning novel, The Spectator Bird, returns in this disquieting and keenly observed novel. Scarred by the senseless death of their son and baffled by the engulfing chaos of the 1960s, Allston and his wife, Ruth, have left the coast for a California retreat. And although their new home looks like Eden,...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
December 1st 1991
by Penguin Books
(first published 1967)
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Some stories are pure entertainment. Some are built for other purposes, as with Wallace Stegnar’s, All The Live Little Things. There was not much that I found entertaining, but if I measure the story by it’s impact on me, by it’s provocative nature and wide open doorway to self-reflection, then it was a fabulous piece of writing.
My feelings about the book were hard won. I found the beginning slow going, the writing a bit dated and the whole experience laborious. I had trouble relating to the cha...more
My feelings about the book were hard won. I found the beginning slow going, the writing a bit dated and the whole experience laborious. I had trouble relating to the cha...more
Wallace Stegner was a very meditative writer. This, I think, is why some people have a hard time getting through his books. There's a lot of rumination on the part of the characters, while the plot sits on the back burner. With some authors this drives me crazy, but with Stegner I somehow have the patience to stay with the writing and savor it. I think it's because he articulated so many truths and feelings I've personally experienced. He handled difficult themes in such a soft way, with the per...more
Another of my favorites, i try to reread once a year, about hope and despair, about strength, about love. I recently re-read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and this book. They seem like they belong together, Pilgrim about learning to see all that is around you, from insects to trees to skies; and Little Live Things about people who are seeing and loving the natural world around them, but have tragedy and loss overwhelming them. A baby I know was recently in a car accident with brain damage and I am so...more
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I just finished the book 30 minutes ago and it ends up as quite a beating. I would call it overwrought and too sentimental in tone, and unconvincing in the pace of the development of Marian and Joe’s relationship. The underlying philosophies at work I won't attempt to unpack at the moment but I don’t see much hope in any of it. Probably not by coincidence, the author somewhat successfully creates in the reader what Allston experienced himself – the anticipation of pain and the experience of it a...more
Stegner is a master craftsman. I have read Crossing to Safety and Angel of Repose and fell in love with his prose. This particular book came as a recommendation from a friend who lived during the turbulent era of the late 60s as a new professor on college campus in the Midwest The book captures in the dialogue of the main characters the ideological tensions of that era. However, this is also a powerful book about human connection, sacrifice, self absorption, and significant loss as it explores t...more
All the Live Little Things is a thoughtful, somewhat pessimistic book that covers a lot of ground in its 300+ pages. It is told from the perspective of Joe Allston, a curmudgeonly elderly man who has retired with his wife Ruth to rural northernish California in the 1960s. There, they encounter Jim Peck, a college-aged man who creates a flower-child enclave on some nearby land, and Marian Catlin, and idealistic woman dying of cancer.
Marian and Jim each stand for different sides and manifestations...more
Marian and Jim each stand for different sides and manifestations...more
One of my favorite books of all time is Stegner's CROSSING TO SAFETY--it was a very profound story of the transformational potential of friendship. This book also explored that theme, but from such a painful perspective that I suffered as I read.
Stegner's writing is beautiful, but the anger and social prejudice expressed in this novel did not appeal to me. I believe that he was an English professor at Stanford in the late 60's when this book was written. I can only imagine that as he anticipated...more
Stegner's writing is beautiful, but the anger and social prejudice expressed in this novel did not appeal to me. I believe that he was an English professor at Stanford in the late 60's when this book was written. I can only imagine that as he anticipated...more
This is rather a dated, and almost nostalgic look at the Cultural Divide which existed in the America of the late 1960's. Written in 1967, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Wallace Stegner, relates the story of a retired, conservative couple living in rural California who must learn to deal with a hippie commune on their property, and also to emotionally support a young married couple tragically affected by pregnancy and cancer. The novel is well written, and examines some of the cultural issues, s...more
I agree with a member of my Book Club who says this novel seems a tad dated, with its
conflict between Joe Allston, an establishment figure--a retired literary agent-- and Jim Peck, a back to nature guy with a promiscuous entourage. But, Stegner's novel is for me an example of literary critic Northrop Frye's theory of the green world, the place to which Shakespeare's characters and Stegner's retreat: their experience in "the woods--the forest" changes them in a significant way. Indeed, early in t...more
conflict between Joe Allston, an establishment figure--a retired literary agent-- and Jim Peck, a back to nature guy with a promiscuous entourage. But, Stegner's novel is for me an example of literary critic Northrop Frye's theory of the green world, the place to which Shakespeare's characters and Stegner's retreat: their experience in "the woods--the forest" changes them in a significant way. Indeed, early in t...more
"I am concerned with gloomier matters: the condition of being flesh, susceptible to pain, infected with consciousness and the consciousness of consciousness, doomed to death and the awareness of death" (4).
"In Jackson Hole there is a Catholic church, named Our Lady of the Grand Tetons by somebody who didn't know what tetons are" (53).
"...in the pasture, thirty acres of wild mustard so bright it yellowed the air. A cowslip under the chin of the sky: you like butter" (56).
"...he tells me that a ba...more
"In Jackson Hole there is a Catholic church, named Our Lady of the Grand Tetons by somebody who didn't know what tetons are" (53).
"...in the pasture, thirty acres of wild mustard so bright it yellowed the air. A cowslip under the chin of the sky: you like butter" (56).
"...he tells me that a ba...more
If I complained that my last read lacked character development ("Foundation"), this book is the antidote. It is nearly ALL character development - peering inside the head of curmudgeonly old Joe Allston. He's not always likeable, but he's always entertaining in his crotchety, clever honesty.
It's a beautifully written, vividly descriptive tale - so much so that I can smell and taste and feel that summer in California in the 60s. I'm always amazed when authors can use words to paint a tangible pic...more
It's a beautifully written, vividly descriptive tale - so much so that I can smell and taste and feel that summer in California in the 60s. I'm always amazed when authors can use words to paint a tangible pic...more
One of the best insider-views of marriage I've read, from the point of view of a husband who is aware, awake, and lives with a strong connection to the values he has chosen to govern his life. What really strikes me is the authenticity of his relationship with his wife- sometimes he feels distant, sometimes close, but almost always she evokes a response or feeling in him with her commentary and observations. For me, it captures the wonderfully weird experience of being connected to another human...more
Because its issues mix the deeply (at times awkwardly) personal into a broader generational view, All the Little Live Things is a novel that has revealed to this reader widely different messages at different times. In my twenties I enjoyed the anger toward the rootless hippy culture of the 1960's: Alston's rage against Peck, who stood as a symbol to his failed relationship with his own son, the dangerously untethered Curtis. In my thirties, I was drawn to Marian Catlin's thirst for feeling -- an...more
Oh Mr. Stegner, you've gone and stolen my heart and my mind again.
With breathtaking ease, Stegner mixes natural world metaphors to explain the complexity of life, death, friendship, love and loss. The fact that his setting this time is in a natural landscape that I trod upon and across daily just makes it even more tangible for this reader. He once again graces the reader with strong female characters that he loves fiercely for their strength and their foolishness.
It's a great novel when you f...more
With breathtaking ease, Stegner mixes natural world metaphors to explain the complexity of life, death, friendship, love and loss. The fact that his setting this time is in a natural landscape that I trod upon and across daily just makes it even more tangible for this reader. He once again graces the reader with strong female characters that he loves fiercely for their strength and their foolishness.
It's a great novel when you f...more
While I have loved all of Stegner's novels I've read so far (Angle of Repose, Crossing to Safety, Spectator Bird), this one seems a little bit dated. In this companion to Spectator Bird, almost 70 Joe Allston rants and raves about the hippie barbarians doing their thing on a bit of his property in 1967 Los Altos Hills/Woodside. I kind of wish I had read this in 1967 when it was published, and I was still at Stanford, and Stegner was still in the nearby hills. I have no idea how autobiographical...more
Another journey with Wallace Stegner deep into the human heart. Stegner takes me all the places I don't really want to go and makes it beautiful and (mostly) true. Set in Los Altos Hills during the late 60s or early 70s, it's a story about life and death and how we get to experience them all in our own way and screw them up in our own way and how there is still a grace to it all at the end. This author is one of the prose stylists I admire the most, and his descriptions of the Bay coastal range...more
Wallace Stegner's novels pack a solid punch of emotion, observation, and self-reflection. 'All the Little Live Things' is a very good book, full of real human feeling and Stegner's quintessential observations of the natural world; and it's also something of a historical novel, an exploration of generations clashing during the turbulence of nineteen-sixties America. Like other stories he tells, Stegner manages to relate true human hurt without being too sentimental; he contemplates sorrow and hea...more
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Stegner is such a master, I find it hard to comment here except to say "read everything he's written".
This one, for me, bordered on unbearably painful in certain parts--his descriptions of some unfortunate events were so brutally realistic that they are still affecting me. I silently cursed him for being sadistic towards his own characters, but then the author's willingness to put carefully and lovingly created characters into peril is something that often seems to create a dividing line between...more
This one, for me, bordered on unbearably painful in certain parts--his descriptions of some unfortunate events were so brutally realistic that they are still affecting me. I silently cursed him for being sadistic towards his own characters, but then the author's willingness to put carefully and lovingly created characters into peril is something that often seems to create a dividing line between...more
It's been several year's since I read Stegner's award-winning Crossing to Safety, yet I immediately recognized his voice in this novel. He is such an amazing writer, and this book gave him the platform to wade in profound issues - life, death, pain, accountability, search for meaning, choice... I have a category here on Goodreads I call "book club-esque," and this novel should be the poster child for my bookshelf. I had countless discussions in my head as I was reading; I'm not even going to try...more
This is, I think, my third book by Stegner. I always find that it takes me a while to get into his books, but I end up loving them. I didn't like this one quite as much as Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose, but it was still a great book.
In this book, his narrator, Joe Allston, is a retired literary agent who has moved to the countryside of California (what was countryside in the 60s, and is probably completely built-up today, though I never figured out exactly where it was set...but not fa...more
In this book, his narrator, Joe Allston, is a retired literary agent who has moved to the countryside of California (what was countryside in the 60s, and is probably completely built-up today, though I never figured out exactly where it was set...but not fa...more
I liked it all right. I didn't enjoy the writing (i.e. how pretty the prose was) as much as I thought I would after having read and really enjoyed Stegner's collected letters. But I do enjoy the precision with which he writes. And the romance of this story was unconventional and moving. "Finally," it's a nice time capsule of competing ideologies from the decade in which is was written (the 60s, California).
"As for the bomb, I'm sick of the thing, hanging up there on its thread. It's no differen...more
"As for the bomb, I'm sick of the thing, hanging up there on its thread. It's no differen...more
I.adore Wallace Stegner and always save his work for "special" reading days like blizzards and sick days! You can't go wrong with Stegner - his beautiful prose transports you to Vermont or Iowa, Chicago or California.
His characters also stay with the reader long after the journeys' end. Yet I did not enjoy Joe Allston. His hubris could have used a break and I was shockingly apathetic about Marian!
If you want to fall in love with Wallace Stegner, I recommend starting with Crossing to Safety or,...more
His characters also stay with the reader long after the journeys' end. Yet I did not enjoy Joe Allston. His hubris could have used a break and I was shockingly apathetic about Marian!
If you want to fall in love with Wallace Stegner, I recommend starting with Crossing to Safety or,...more
Both my husband and I are both recently retired (about 2 years) and I can really relate to the lifestyle and frustrations of the main character, Joe. How often Bill and I say to each other, "We just want to be left alone." (I'm writing this as we sit in our travel trailer early in the morning in an empty campground.) But despite our protestations life has a way of ignoring our request.
Yes, this is a book of ruminations. I probably wouldn't have read it when it was published (I was 16 yrs. old)...more
Yes, this is a book of ruminations. I probably wouldn't have read it when it was published (I was 16 yrs. old)...more
"All the Little Live Things" is the second Stegner novel that I have read, and it is just as beautifully written and poignantly thought provoking as the last. I love how Stegner’s style and his characters make me think about my own life and point of view. For me this book was a real enjoyment. The story centers on Joe Allston and his wife Ruth who have recently retired to a country house in Northern California. Their retirement, however, is not just meant to be an escape from their careers but a...more
"Life is One New Position After Another."
Reading this novel was often like looking at an impressionist's painting. It's incredibly rich in scenic description, character nuances and, most importantly, mood setting tone. Wallace Stegner lives on through his writing and we shall all be richer for this reading experience. This novel, while focused on a socially turbulent era (late 1960s), is timeless. Generational and political conflict, as well as the matters of preservation and development, life a...more
Reading this novel was often like looking at an impressionist's painting. It's incredibly rich in scenic description, character nuances and, most importantly, mood setting tone. Wallace Stegner lives on through his writing and we shall all be richer for this reading experience. This novel, while focused on a socially turbulent era (late 1960s), is timeless. Generational and political conflict, as well as the matters of preservation and development, life a...more
Oct 12, 2008
Carole
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Everyone
Shelves:
thumpinggoodreads,
cantputitdown
Another of Stegner's great reads. This one is a little darker and a lot more thought-provoking.
The story is set in the '60s, and the main characters are a man and his wife in their 60s. They are trying to come to grips with the baffling and, to them, frequently thoughtless and disgusting behavior of that era's young people. They are battling to maintain their standards in a world that seemingly rejects everything they hold dear.
Then a young woman and her husband and daughter move in and become,...more
The story is set in the '60s, and the main characters are a man and his wife in their 60s. They are trying to come to grips with the baffling and, to them, frequently thoughtless and disgusting behavior of that era's young people. They are battling to maintain their standards in a world that seemingly rejects everything they hold dear.
Then a young woman and her husband and daughter move in and become,...more
Wallace Stegner is a brilliant author; his work is a joy to read for the language, the allusion, the philosophy, and wonderful characterization. I don't know why I didn't give this book 5 stars, aside from the fact that I only finished it late last night and the ending was emotionally devastating and has left me feeling unsettled; pondering and questioning why, and wondering what conclusions Stegner meant for the reader to reach. I guess I shouldn't save 5 stars only for books that leave me feel...more
Wow. What a great book. This one ranks up there with Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety as one of Wallace Stegner's masterpieces. Set in the 1960's we find Joe Allston quietly retired. Having voluntarily removed himself from the rush and bustle of modern life, he seeks a life of quiet solitude, free of entanglements. However, he soon finds out "there is no way to step off the treadmill. It's all treadmill." Through the course of the book several people come in and out of his life in such a w...more
Stegner's Joe Allport is the quintessential cranky old man, with whom all is not as it seems to the casual observer. After the death of his estranged son, Joe and his wife Ruth decide to make a new start in 1960's California (I can't quite pin down where -- I think north of San Francisco), at a time before mass development hit that area. In trying for a retreat from the world, the world comes to Joe's doorstep and takes him by the throat. Joe has little tolerance for hippies and the countercultu...more
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Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909—April 13, 1993) was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. Some call him "The Dean of Western Writers."
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“It is the beginning of wisdom when you recognize that the best you can do is choose which rules you want to live by, and it's persistent and aggravated imbecility to pretend you can live without any.”
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“wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.”
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