BT’s review of Angle of Repose > Likes and Comments

liz wakefield loves paragraph #3 of your review. liz wakefield thinks you rocked it.

Amy loves liz wakefield. Amy thinks liz wakefield rocks it.

BT... I feel you. I just finished this book, and man... I gotta tell you, If it wasnt for a personal recommendation, I would have chucked it long ago.

Bordered on the painful at times.

omg. thank u b/c I'm on page 176 and i was wondering! a million thank yous!

thanks for the wonderful review. Now I don't have to read this book. lol

You had me at "Lather, rinse, repeat". Funniest review I've read in a while.

I hate to have to tell you this BT, but this book is a reflection of your Reality and there's no need to take that personally because you have the company of the whole human race.
Life is plotless.(Whatever gave you the idea that you were living out a storybook.)
It is incredibly repetitive which most of us find reassuring.Only in a "story " is it unforgivable.
But stories are there for a purpose ... ...which is to relieve the boredom.
YES...Life is boring.
People spend most of their lives running from boredom
...it's another area where you will have lots of company (note your 97 likes and numerous comments !!!)
Distractions stop us from going mad which is what happens to most people who are bored and have nothing else to do when left alone with themselves.Try turning off the tv, radio, mobile and the lights and you will be pretty close to imitating the evenings of the majority of your ancestors.Sounds like fun eh!!!
Boring, plotless, repetitive (no, I'm only asking you to try it ONCE!!!)
and...BONUS!!! some of your ancestors who you could be sharing this pioneering experience with , even today, might well be people like Granny in the book, a real pain in the arse.
Whoever was guaranteed an interesting well-off storybook existence????
Take a Reality Bite BT...you are living in a Fool's Paradise. And Wallace Stegner is just trying to give you a gentle shake...wake up and be grateful and be aware that you are living not a fictional tale but reality...plotless, boring,with irritating people and its repetitive.
Of course we are all desperately trying to make it fictional...plot-filled,non-repetitive(but most of us can't take too much of THAT!!!) non-boring and free of irritating people.
Good Luck...at least we have ...company.
Enjoy your "lather rinse repeat" life...anything else is a mere desperate illusion!!!But it is what you make it...extremely fragile though it is, extremely!!!

I gave this book 5 stars - I loved it. Just goes to show you - we all like different things. After taking, as a senior citizen, Modern Fiction courses at the University I've realized more than ever that there is a way to read - there is depth to books upon closer study...I am not willing to spend my time reading shallow romance or 'summer' reads. Rather than "I liked the book" how about WHAT did you like about the book. Style of writing can be enough for me - enjoying the way a sentence is written or rereading a passage that is so wonderful you have to read it over and over....Don't give up on 'hard' books. ( I didn't find this one hard but try Faulkner!)

My friend has a goodreads "stick a fork in my eye" shelf. This book makes me want to start my own. Read it for book club and was the only one who finished (out of 8 avid readers).

Karen wrote: "My friend has a goodreads "stick a fork in my eye" shelf. This book makes me want to start my own. Read it for book club and was the only one who finished (out of 8 avid readers)."

That might say more about the quality of the readers than of the book.I know avid readers of Mills and Boon.
A review needs something a bit more than a reader survey.It is so so difficult to recommend a book or a movie. Quotes from books tell something of the style.Plot and characterisation. Tone. Originality.

A film clip gives you a feel about dialogue, character, script, acting which can all mount up to a definite rejection or acceptance.
Difficult this reviewing.

funny to write this but now I want to read it, somehow your review and the comments has convinced me to go get a copy, why, thank you!

Hahaha! Let us know what you thought of it, Margaret.

Crossing to Safety may be a better choice for you. He really is an excellent writer. Just the wrong book...

loved these comments! You are a good writer yourself. Being an English professor, I guess I found much to salvage this P.P. winner. Lots really. But I'm the opposite of you. Grandma was in the closet, understandable for those times; but Oliver is who I wanted to step in front of a train! What a downer! She should have seduced Augusta and had a Boston Marriage

Try The Big Rock Candy Mountain, love that book! After several stops and starts of Angle I am going back after Big Rock, to try and figure out what I missed. Loved all the characters in Big Rock and loved none in Angle.

'Nothing happens'. I was quite struck by this comment. My feeling is that everything happens. It's the about the inner world of a marriage, the lines between the lines, the pauses between the actions. Relationship is the plot. And it is the main plot of all our lives

Well...I am writing back to say that I LOVED IT! LOL! I will be writing my review next but I want you all to know that this book was fantastic for me and to my great surprise I am very familiar with the towns mentioned. I shop in Grass Valley and Nevada City and I live about 6 miles from North San Juan and that commune that he mentions. Talk about exciting reading about your area in a classic. Anyhoo....enough about that. I found the book was so intriguing and not boring at all....sorry but I have to disagree with the person up above, there is a lot that happens in this book. Okay, just my two cents worth. I am so very glad that I read this book, which happens to be my third Wallace Stegner book.

I'm totally with you. I made it to page 16 or something pathetic. It was a personal recommendation, and I just couldn't do it. The writing was boring, plotless, and did not flow at all.

Currently trying to slog through it for a book group- don't know how I'll ever get through it! Totally agree about the boring factor.

I did have to push myself through much of the book. the latter portion, did take off. This is where all the action happened, and I became enthralled. I agree, though, you had to wait U till the last 100 pages to find the plot, and the ultimate point of it came in the last sentence.

Just say you do not like it. No one cares. Do not so put down those of us who love it. You sound like a grumpy freshman.

Thank you for so perfectly expressing my feelings for this book. This is my second attempt to slog through this, and like you I can only manage a few pages at a sitting before I feel compelled to, as one commenter suggested, "stick a fork in my eye." This book, along with 'March' and 'Shipping News' has convinced me to abandon the idea that "Pulitzer prize winning novel" necessarily equates to "highly enriching reading experience." If I ever do finish this snoozer I'm going to use it to inaugurate my own "Stick a fork in my eye" shelf, and if I don't then I'll use it to create a different shelf - "DNF because I have better things on which to waste hours of my life."

I don't think you are so much reviewing the book

as reviewing Yourselves.

Chew the cud on THAT one !!!

I'm about 200 pages in and having similar thoughts. It passed my 100 page rule where I typically toss a book if it hasn't pulled me in, but barely. I think it might be time and I thank you for your honesty to reaffirm my decision.

Crossing to Safety is one of my all-time favorites but I am really struggling with this one. I don't like the narrator much but what I find most difficult are the times when Lyman is fleshing out Susan's story (and you forget a bit that it is his voice) and then mid-sentence he blurts out "There you go again grandmother" or "grandmother, your snobbery is showing." The asides feel disjointed to me and I can't seem to really get rolling with the story. If you are slighting through with similar complaints, I highly recommend Crossing to Safety instead.

Anyone who is reading, has read, or might read Angle of Repose should be aware of the allegations of plagiarism. Google "author Sands Hall" and "Fair Use" along with Stegner's name to learn more. Hall wrote a fascinating play I saw staged in Nevada City explaining it really well. Stegner evidently lifted big parts of a goldmine engineer's wife's journals -- without attribution.

It's always amusing to read reactions from people who are so thoroughly unseated by the fact that one person did not like a book that they thought was awesome.

Ralph really seems to have a problem with this review, even demanding that BT "not so put down those of use who love it". News flash, Ralph: BT's dislike for this (or any other book) is not a personal attack on you or anyone else.

I find that reactions to a story differ vastly among various people. What speaks to one person is unheard by another. What reaches us emotionally depends on many factors. No need to be personal or be insulted because someone else doesn't love a book you do. Just keep reading! (And I personally don't feel the need to slog through a book I don't like. I move on to all the others on my shelves!)

Actually, BT, the narrator's grand mother's toddler daughter drowns while the grand mother is dilly-dallying with a man not her husband, so something does happen...

Hari wrote: "Actually, BT, the narrator's grand mother's toddler daughter drowns while the grand mother is dilly-dallying with a man not her husband, so something does happen..."

Dear Hari, I was so awfully struck by your brief account of such a horribly tragic accident in this ''plotless" story, as someone has described it - how could one ever live with oneself knowing it was through your own neglect, and all because you were flirting...not many wives would be flirting with their husbands ??!!
that your little girl had perished.

But one of the other things that really struck me was that this event which is far from 'BORING' was obviously caused by....yes, "BOREDOM", the very thing that readers are complaining that the book is !!!! The book IS, because the book is ABOUT boredom ...and other intriguing things.
In my first Message (number 8 above) on this site I suggest to BT that boredom is what the plotless 'story'(?) is about. Stegner is (Is he really??) getting us to become aware of, empathise with our unknown forebears, reflect on our own times, compare and contrast the Now and the Then and find one of these wanting ...or not!! in many ways... these lives which contained no electricity, cars, computers, cds and dvds, TV's...ad infinitum ( I'll let the reader continue this endless list.)
Does Stegner reveal that she very probably spent the rest of her life grieving, living with self-hate at her Great Loss, torturing herself with "...if only I....". , that it put the final nail in the coffin of her Married Life. Or did she lie to her husband about her distraction ?
She might , on the other hand, have rejoiced that inadvertently she had saved her daughter from This Very Boring Life, celebrated the Death every anniversary with a huge party or went swimming in the puddle, bucket, river or whatever the kid drowned in.
I haven't read the book , but it is sounding more and more interesting for a boring book.
Perhaps I will find it wanting and rewrite it !!!!
Our Scorching Australian Xmas Break had over 24 deaths by drowning in our State of New South Wales, several of which were of very young children drowning in the Home swimming pool..."but I only looked away for a minute !!!" cried the unbelieving parent...I shudder.......................................................... it is all too ghastly to contemplate the "After-The-Drowning Life" and how one would live it, survive it...did one parent blame the other ???? are marriages surviving or cracking up????a suicide??
Oh for the Boring Life !!!!

Thanks for that review Hari..........VERY stimulating !!!

from Wayne in Sydney where it will be entering the 40 degree mark in the coming week...email me some snow !!!

P.S.
Hey, BT, you told me in BIG FAT PRINT
that "Nothing Happens" in this book!!!!

I agree with your assessment 100%!

I wish I listened to you.

Thank you for this, and most of the commentary. I made it to page 55. Stick a fork in my eye indeed.

"...or maybe other reviewers give it high praise because it was a Pulitzer Prize winner and they didn't want to look dumb..." Guilty!

I kind of felt the same way about Willa Cather’s books! Think I’ll pass on this!

You said nothing happens in this book? Besides this married couple living out their lives of quiet desperation during the opening of the West, did you miss the part where toddler Agnes dies under circumstances that change things for the four survivors in the family forever?

I’m afraid I fall into the “this book is boring” camp. I already know that we live lives of quiet desperation and that man is born free but lives life in chains. I read because I hope an author will provide illumination and reflection of that basic concept. I feel like Stegner doesn’t do that.Am I a lazy reader here? My book club will discuss this book today, and I know others already loved the book. I hope discussion with others will provide that illumination for me. But I am motivated to read the Candy Mountain book, based on comments here.

Maybe you just don't like it? Or it just didn't connect with you at the right time and mood.

There is definitely a plot. It’s the story of a challenged marriage.

I admire persistence in someone finishing a book they do not like. But, if you cannot “get into it”:put it aside, and try again later. Many books I could not “get into’ in middle school or in my 20’s, or much later, are among my favorites now. I also came to realize that writers of excellence are not writing for me, or for others. They are writing to tell truths that they feel need to be told, in the voice they need to use. Once they stop doing that, they fall into the category of pop fiction hacks. To feel a writer is failing you by writing the way she writes is a gross conceit.

Totally agree. I fully expected to love this and didn't. Boring!

I agree with every word you wrote.

I gave up at the 450 page mark and after reading this review I am so glad I did! I had exactly the same complaints with the book that you did. At the very it did a great job of helping me fall asleep at night.

I agree wholeheartedly. This book broke our book club. It's tedious bore. Such a shame, I loved Crossing to Safety.

This review is so spot on. This has to be one of the most tedious books I've ever plowed through.

Thank you! I'm about 5% into this and I just can't find a plot only a string of events. It's as if he's just saying things that should stay inside one's head about random folks that are way more pretentious than anyone I care to spend my time with. Thought I'd check some reviews to see if it's worth slogging through. His writing is so beautiful in his haunting descriptions. Does lay out an in depth visual picture with his words.

Thank you! I'm about 5% into this and I just can't find a plot only a string of events. It's as if he's just saying things that should stay inside one's head about random folks that are way more pretentious than anyone I care to spend my time with. Thought I'd check some reviews to see if it's worth slogging through. His writing is so beautiful in his haunting descriptions. Does lay out an in depth visual picture with his words.

Well, as they say, it takes all kinds. Here I am in 2021 on page 438 and enjoying it.

I am with you!!! Worst book ever!

Love your comments. I'm on pg 124 and am beginning to think about ditching it.