"He used congenial forms of literature to explore the world, and his sensitivity to the details of the world informed and illuminated the literature he produced. His voice is sane, and in some sense quiet, but his vision is none the less profound for that."
That passage is from Jane Smiley's introduction to Wallace Stegner's 1987 novel Crossing to Safety, and it is Stegner's clear, well-modulated voice which drives the narrative throughout this beautiful and moving novel about the lives of four friends.
The writing is straightforward, elegant and urbane, and in creating a character study and a portrait of lives lived, choices made and hopes overtaken by events, it's perfectly pitched, intelligent, fluent and highly readable.
The Langs and the Morgans meet during the Depression when Sid and Larry are both members of the English department at the University of Wisconsin and Charity and Sally are expecting babies. The Langs - slightly senior, a little older, much richer and better connected - take the Morgans under their wing, and despite the calamities which befall Larry and Sally as a result of their friends' influence, the four establish a bond which endures for decades.
The book looks at ambition, both thwarted and realised, at dependence, expectation, willful influence, at marriage and ageing, and at how pairings and groupings of people can function like a finely-tuned machine, or sometimes stall, get out of kilter and over-compensate. It's a wise book and a fine one, and as you can see I loved it. How about you?
