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17th out of 77 books
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43 voters
Recapitulation
The moving sequel to the bestselling Big Rock Candy Mountain. Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City not for his aunt's funeral, but to encounter after forty-five years the place he fled in bitterness. A successful statesman and diplomat, Mason had buried his awkward and lonely childhood, sealed himself off from the thrills and torments of adolescence to become a figure who...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
November 1st 1997
by Penguin Books
(first published 1979)
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This is like a coda written forty years after the symphony. If you haven't read The Big Rock Candy Mountain, I suggest you do so. Then, while it is still fresh in your mind, read Recapitulation. It fills in details left out of the first book and lets you get to know "Brucie" a lot better as he struggles through puberty and beyond in Salt Lake City. If you've grown attached to the Mason family through The Big Rock Candy Mountain, you'll find yourself wanting even more, as I did.
Bruce Mason retur...more
Bruce Mason retur...more
I'd liked Stegner's "Spectator's Bird" so much that I was fully expecting to feel the same about "Recapitulation", but I didn't. It's quite possible that the author decided to write another flashback-type of novel, as he'd just won the National Book Award with that style, but in this book one gets entangled from time to time in it's not being clear whether the present or the past is involved. It took a bit of adjustment everytime I'd pick the book up again, and I found that troublesome. He write...more
The perfect case for a 3.5-star rating. Stegner loses focus a bit in the first half of "Recapitulation" but saves things nicely in the second half, so I bumped this up. His prose is typically fine, and late in his life Stegner wrote old characters better than just about anybody. His protagonist here, the boy from "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" now a diplomat on the down side of his life on this earth, is less crotchety than usual for Stegner but still is a fine study. Here, in contrast to several...more
This novel was written some 35 years after Stegner wrote Big Rock Candy Mountain, and it is a return to the same characters and some of the themes of the first book. These were both based on Stegner's own family and tell the stories of his parents and brother--and himself, as Bruce. Now Bruce returns to Salt Lake in 1977 and notices all the changes since he left in 1932--also does a lot of remembering, and coming to terms with himself, his friends and especially his parents.
I don't know if he in...more
I don't know if he in...more
This book captured perfectly for me both the profound embarrasment I feel about many memories I have of growing up, but also the fixation I have on them. Many of my most significant memories I feel I could not relate to someone else without sounding ridiculous, because I was. That a master storyteller like Stegner also could not reinforces this belief. This was especially the case in his relationship with Nola. I felt a deep sense of embarassment throughout. Perhaps it was knowing there were man...more
I'll admit my bias right at the start - if this had been written by another author, I'd probably give it a 2. But it's by Wallace Stegner, and that gives it one star before I even read the first page. He knew how to write descriptive prose without being trite, and he knew how to construct a solid sentence/paragraph. I also think that one has to be middle-aged or older to appreciate this book. The title is Recapitulation for a reason. If you've read Big Rock Candy Mountain it is interesting to se...more
This book managed to be a coming of age tale of a teenage boy AND a reconciling of a man's past. After 40+ years a well known, successful diplomat returns to home Utah to bury his aunt. I loved the language and imagery, especially at the beginning when he is walking the street, contrasting the old memories with the changed surroundings.
Unfortunately, this books theme is mostly about the boy's sexual and emotional growth. There is one scene that was down right vulgar (like listening to crass boy...more
Unfortunately, this books theme is mostly about the boy's sexual and emotional growth. There is one scene that was down right vulgar (like listening to crass boy...more
The prom intermission, Bruce and Nola back at the house on 700 South was my favorite recollection from Mason. Here every character reveals vulnerability. Spontaneous, it is the greatest moment that Bruce and Nola will know. Bruce introduces Nola and jokes with his ailing mother. His intruding father brings the moment back aground, and the joy is gone.
As a youngster growing up in 1977 Salt Lake City, I enjoyed Stegner's references: Deseret Gym, Hotel Utah(Sky Room), South Temple, The Internationa...more
As a youngster growing up in 1977 Salt Lake City, I enjoyed Stegner's references: Deseret Gym, Hotel Utah(Sky Room), South Temple, The Internationa...more
I love Stegner and don't know why it has taken me so long to read something else of his (most likely because I feared disappointment after adoring Angle of Repose). His writing is beautiful and vivid and he had a gift for conveying nostalgia, longing and regret. I liked this book and enjoyed that it was set in Salt Lake City.
"The vision breaks and tears, dissolving. Below him the trees rattle and are still. Mason feels around in his mind like a blind man reassuring himself about the objects in a...more
"The vision breaks and tears, dissolving. Below him the trees rattle and are still. Mason feels around in his mind like a blind man reassuring himself about the objects in a...more
Nostalgia is a longing for once familiar circumstances or surroundings that are now remote or irrecoverable. It is this nostalgia that is the hallmark of Recapitulation, a novel by Wallace Stegner, that surrounds you while depicting events and details unfamiliar and raises the feeling of nostalgia for those once familiar circumstances of your own that are as remote as that small town in which you were raised and that you left long ago seldom to return. It is the return of Bruce Mason to his home...more
As I watched a biography on Stegner, the commentator mentioned that this book was somewhat of an autobiography of Stegner’s life. I have wanted to read it and overall I enjoyed it and the glimpse into Stegner’s “life”. It is about a man who returns to his Salt Lake City home for the burial of his great aunt and only living relative. As he drives around the city he has flashbacks of his days as a teenager and young adult. He can’t seem to reconcile his current life with his past but is trying to...more
I have a love/hate relationship with Stegner's books. Really loved Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain, liked Remembering Laughter, hated Crossing to Safety and All the Little Live Things, REALLY really hated A Shooting Star.
Stegner really likes to wear out the flashback device, loves elderly protagonists, and really doesn't care if any of his characters are remotely likable, as long as they're honest. For me, sometimes this really impacts my reading experience, and sometimes it doesn't....more
Stegner really likes to wear out the flashback device, loves elderly protagonists, and really doesn't care if any of his characters are remotely likable, as long as they're honest. For me, sometimes this really impacts my reading experience, and sometimes it doesn't....more
I feel like this book was written for me. But that's only partially due to the fact that it's the story of a man returning to his boyhood home of Salt Lake City after a long absence, and I began reading it on my first visit to Salt Lake in nearly four years. There were so many references to the city and its surrounds and its culture that I can't imagine anyone who hadn't grown up along the Wassatch Front to even comprehend it. When Stegner describes an advancing thunderstorm as seen from the Sal...more
Reading Salt Lake City with Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner’s Salt Lake City, Robert C. Steensma, available in the HBLL
At Home in the Fields of the Lord
A Gentile in New Jerusalem: certainly I was. Salt Lake City is a divided concept, a complex
idea. To the devout it is more than a place, it is a way of life, a corner of the materially
realizable heaven; its soil is held together by the roots of the family and the cornerstones of the
temple.1
Salt Lake City is an easy town to know. You can see it all....more
Wallace Stegner’s Salt Lake City, Robert C. Steensma, available in the HBLL
At Home in the Fields of the Lord
A Gentile in New Jerusalem: certainly I was. Salt Lake City is a divided concept, a complex
idea. To the devout it is more than a place, it is a way of life, a corner of the materially
realizable heaven; its soil is held together by the roots of the family and the cornerstones of the
temple.1
Salt Lake City is an easy town to know. You can see it all....more
I feel like if I had read this right after Big Rock Candy Mountain I might have given it five stars. With a clearer memory of that book, I think I might have felt like this was more of a continuation/completion than a....well....a recapitulation.
But maybe that was the point. It is interesting to think about someone telling the same story at different points in their life and how the tellings would be different.
But maybe that was the point. It is interesting to think about someone telling the same story at different points in their life and how the tellings would be different.
An introspective journey into a man's past, and how he moved from being a combative outsider to nearly having everything he desired, but then watched it all crumble away - and how he moved on from there. I read this on a journey to my own old stomping grounds, and this was a great choice. A beautifully written story of how much and how little we have to learn from our past, other than to make what peace we can.
This is a good book, but not great like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." It's only half the length, but felt twice as long. I wasn't compelled to read on like I was with the earlier book. I would definitely read "Big Rock..." first to get to know the characters. "Recapitulation" fills in gaps from the earlier book, told in flashbacks. The character has returned to Salt Lake City 45 years after leaving, looks up old haunts and the memories come flooding back. I was disappointed in the one item from...more
Love Wallace Stegnar. Loved Big Rock Candy Mountain and loved this sequel. Made me miss those beautiful mountains, spacious valley, and summer nights that was/is my Salt Lake City. You can smell the grass and feel the warm breeze of summer in the East Bench of Salt Lake as you turn each page.
This was the second book in Stegner's semi-autobiographical novels and follows The Big Rock Candy Mountain. It was written 45 years after the first and picks up where the first one leaves off, except in flashbacks from an older Bruce Mason (Stegner) as he returns to Salt Lake City for his aunt's funeral. Although his writing is as gorgeous as usual, the story bogs down, particularly in the first half. Mason is in college and then in law school as the story progresses through a failed romance, hi...more
a wonderful book that is a love song to the Salty city and is set in the decade of my parent's birth. I love the descriptions, character s and setting. it is extremely autobiographical about the authors life in SLC in the 20's and 30's. Wonderful, highly recommended!!
I've read so many of Stegner's works and loved all the fiction (not so much when he gets into water policy). Recapitulation isn't quite as good as Angle of Repose or Crossing to Safety, but then, the bar is set awfully high with those two which are outstanding. Still I really enjoyed this with the exception of a rather strange 3rd person account at the wedding......
I read this in one sitting, on a Friday afternoon. It was very good and had the depth of a Stegner retrospective on life. It may not work as well, if I read it over a number of days or weeks. This is the story of a famous man who returns to his childho
A sequel to the great "Big Rock Candy Mountain", the novel didn't grab me early on but about 80 pages in, this is a great book that can stan by its own and also brings more depth and perspective on BRCM. Another wonderful book by Stegner. Anyone interested in novels about confronting one's past later in life will enjoy this.
A well written story of my scrawny, insecure youth. Not a bit like my family but certainly a recording of my internal dialogue. A little painful to struggle through but well worth it. Stegner was a great writer. I was sorry when he died.
I re-read this book this week, just hungry for that Stegner touch with words and phrases. So beautifully written about a young man coming of age. The catch is that he is now an older man who knows what life will deal him, and he goes back to his hometown to settle some family business. He reviews his teen to manhood years in lifelike detail, sexual details extant. It is the vivacity of the memories that takes the reader to the front line of a troubled young man who is so because of a troubled fa...more
In my view, it is simply the best-ever depiction of what it was like to grow up non-Mormon in Utah. Forget that the young adulthood he writes about precedes my own experience by about four decades -- it's pitch perfect.
This is a sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain. I didn't like this one as much as BRCM. I would give it 3.5 stars. For some reason, I found myself still thinking about this book days after I finished it.
interesting story, though I found the hero a little difficult to like. I particularly didn't like the ending when he failed to phone his long-time friend, Joe. I kept inventing better endings in my mind.
Stegner is a terrific writer! Interesting book about trying to make peace with your roots and childhood and those small events which change the course of our lives. Takes place in SLC so that was fun too - to read about what it used to be like.
The narrator, Bruce Mason, returns to Salt Lake City after a forty-five year absence to arrange his aunt’s funeral, and it just so happens that the funeral parlor that Mason must visit was once the apartment building in which his old friends had lived. Mason asks the owner of the funeral parlor if he can see the place, and soon enough he is in the old apartment reminiscing about the by-gone days, despite an embalmed corpse laying on a slab in the middle of the room. In the hands of a lesser writ...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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“When you marry into a Mormon family you marry tribes and nations.”
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Nov 21, 2009 08:52am