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27th out of 108 books
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54 voters
The Sound of Mountain Water
A book of timeless importance about the American West, our "native home of hope."
The essays, memoirs, letters, and speeches in this volume were written over a period of twenty-five years, a time in which the West witnessed rapid changes to its cultural and natural heritage, and Wallace Stegner emerged as an important conservationist and novelist. This collection is divided...more
The essays, memoirs, letters, and speeches in this volume were written over a period of twenty-five years, a time in which the West witnessed rapid changes to its cultural and natural heritage, and Wallace Stegner emerged as an important conservationist and novelist. This collection is divided...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
November 1st 1997
by Penguin Books
(first published 1969)
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I enjoyed the first 169 pages of this book. I won't be reading beyond that. From page 170 on, the pieces are better suited to a college course on writers of the American West. I'm not fond of reading writers writing about the writing of other writers. The one exception being book introductions, which are often helpful.
I really liked the pieces I did read because I have been to or near most of the places he wrote about: Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, southern Utah, Mojave Desert. It wa...more
I really liked the pieces I did read because I have been to or near most of the places he wrote about: Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, southern Utah, Mojave Desert. It wa...more
this book of essays has been my companion on all of this year's land trips and (almost) daily walks and hikes. i never tired of stegner's observant environmental history, beauty, culture. the sunset this evening that accompanied this completion was and felt truly vibrant. there could have been no better partner.
loved the first half, not so much the second. I enjoy reading about stegner's personal experiences, and about places in the west. for some reason the second half in which he talks about writing about the west did not interest me as I hoped it would.
This book really annoyed me and is the reason I am not a Stegnar fan. It's a compilation of essays by Stegnar about the Western man. I think it's arrogant and condescending. In one essay, he talks about how no one wants to hear about the Western man and how he (no doubt referring to himself) is screwed because he is too good and doesn't have the paranoia, disease, and narcissism that most of the "freak" writers have--like the blacks and homosexuals, etc. I don't think he meant anything racist or...more
..Westerner can show the hopeless where hope comes from
Stegner has earned the title of Dean of Western Writing and rightly so, at least in the realm of essay. His greatest commercial successes have been with his novels [Angle, Crossing to Safety, etc]. For those of us who live in the west and love it, Mountain Water shows us is a great writer's words why we do so. By far his best book of essays and is highly recommended.
This book was recomended by author William deBuys as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration."
A book of Stegner's essays on environmentalism and conservatism. Some reads are better than others, but it's a good book to take on a camping trip and read in the forest.
Collection of essays. Wonderful essay on Glen Canyon and another on the importance of wilderness. If you like Stegner you'll like this.
Great book to read to English classes. Lots of philosophical discussion erupts. Not too mention how to describe a simple crossroads.
More series than his Collected Stories, but I love Stegner's passion for the environment and for the American West as it was.
May 16, 2013
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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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“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”
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88 people liked it
“One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”
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9 people liked it
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