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WHERE THE BLUEBIRD SINGS TO THE LEMONADE SPRINGS: Living and Writing in the West.
Nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs gathers together Wallace Stegner’s most important and memorable writings on the American its landscapes, diverse history, and shifting identity; its beauty, fragility, and power. With subjects ranging from the writer’s own “migrant childhood” to the need to protect what remains of the great western wilderness (which Stegner dubs “the geography of hope”) to poignant profiles of western writers such as John Steinbeck and Norman Maclean, this collection is a riveting testament to the power of place. At the same time it communicates vividly the sensibility and range of this most gifted of American writers, historians, and environmentalists.
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First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Wallace Stegner
187 books2,129 followersWallace Earle Stegner was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. Some call him "The Dean of Western Writers." He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 200 reviews
September 24, 2023
✍🏻🏔️ A magnificent book of essays about fiction that has come out of northwestern Canada and the northwestern US. Stegner was actually born in Saskatchewan (where Sitting Bull resided for 5 years after the Little Big Horn) in a town called East End - in his fiction he calls it White Mud. This book contains marvelous insights into the land, the people, his own life, and stories set in the west like A River Runs Through It. His prose is rich, tight and profound.
October 29, 2019
5 🍋 🍋 🍋 🍋 🍋
Published almost 30 years ago just before he passed, I could not help but ponder what Wallace Stegner would have to say about our current administration’s effort to undo legislation and protections put in place over the past 50 years which many of us, including the author, fought long and hard for.
He was a lion of a lover of the great American west and his words about the landscape vibrate in my bones and play chords that resonate through my veins.
Part I is a personal recounting of his childhood and parents, their ever wandering search for a home base, a big rock candy mountain.
“I know the dissatisfaction and hunger that result from placelessness.”
Part II is about his beloved west, its expansion and growing concerns about its preservation and use.
“It encourages a fatal carelessness and destructiveness because it seems so limitless and because what is everybody’s is nobody’s responsibility. It also encourages, in some, an impassioned protectiveness: the battlegrounds of the environmental movement lie in the western public lands.”
Part III closes with thoughts on several of his favorite authors and their work, including two of my favorites, John Steinbeck and Wendell Berry. His letter Dear Wendell was among my favorite passages here. In the chapter Haunted by Waters: Norman Maclean he writes about A River Runs Through It:
“It is full of love and wonder and loss, it has the same alternations of sunshine and shadow that a mountain stream has and its meaning can be heard a long way from its banks. It is an invitation to memory and the pondering of our lives.”
He closes in Mariano Rivera style with reflections on his own work, in particular Crossing to Safety.
“I intended it to be true. I wrote my guts out trying to make it as moving on the page as it was to me while I was living and reliving it.”
Those guts were not spilled in vain, not for this reader and his many other fans.
Published almost 30 years ago just before he passed, I could not help but ponder what Wallace Stegner would have to say about our current administration’s effort to undo legislation and protections put in place over the past 50 years which many of us, including the author, fought long and hard for.
He was a lion of a lover of the great American west and his words about the landscape vibrate in my bones and play chords that resonate through my veins.
Part I is a personal recounting of his childhood and parents, their ever wandering search for a home base, a big rock candy mountain.
“I know the dissatisfaction and hunger that result from placelessness.”
Part II is about his beloved west, its expansion and growing concerns about its preservation and use.
“It encourages a fatal carelessness and destructiveness because it seems so limitless and because what is everybody’s is nobody’s responsibility. It also encourages, in some, an impassioned protectiveness: the battlegrounds of the environmental movement lie in the western public lands.”
Part III closes with thoughts on several of his favorite authors and their work, including two of my favorites, John Steinbeck and Wendell Berry. His letter Dear Wendell was among my favorite passages here. In the chapter Haunted by Waters: Norman Maclean he writes about A River Runs Through It:
“It is full of love and wonder and loss, it has the same alternations of sunshine and shadow that a mountain stream has and its meaning can be heard a long way from its banks. It is an invitation to memory and the pondering of our lives.”
He closes in Mariano Rivera style with reflections on his own work, in particular Crossing to Safety.
“I intended it to be true. I wrote my guts out trying to make it as moving on the page as it was to me while I was living and reliving it.”
Those guts were not spilled in vain, not for this reader and his many other fans.
December 28, 2020
Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs is a wonderful book by Wallace Stegner where he weaves his own writing and essays about his beloved West as well as the writings of other authors throughout this book, such as John Steinbeck, George B. Stewart, and Norman Maclean among others. In the Introduction, the author talks about his belief that the western wilderness is the geography of hope and that he has been shaped by the West, living most of his life there.
The book was divided into three sections, the first being Personal where Stegner explores his migratory childhood and his itinerant father. This section is intensely personal and one of the saddest, but a truly beautiful piece of writing, is the "letter, much too late" written to his mother on the eve of his eightieth birthday. There is also a chapter comparing the beautiful western wilderness to the Garden of Eden with many stunning literary descriptions.
"The best thing we have learned from nearly five hundred years of contact with the American wilderness is restraint, the willingness to hold our hand: to visit such places for our souls' good, but leave no tracks."
Habitat is the second section of the book where Wallace Stegner looks at the history of the western part of the United States and in addition to the mythology, beauty, legacy and magic of the region, the fragility of the arid and remote lands as more people migrate to the region.
"The Spanish of New Mexico, who also brought their origins with them, are in other ways an exception. Settled at the end of the sixteenth century, before Jamestown and Quebec and well before the Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Mexico existed in isolation, dependent largely on itself, until the newer Americans forcibly took it over in 1846; and during those two and a half centuries it had a high Indian culture close at hand to teach it how to live with the country."
In Witnesses, the third section of the book is a moving tribute to many writers in whose writings, Wallace Stegner felt had merit and perhaps had been overlooked. Most of the authors were from the West, but he also talked about the writings of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Wendell Berry. In addition, Stegner discusses a lot of his books as well. It was a legacy to all of those amazing writers, including the author.
"It has been hard for the rest of the country to realize that the West incorporates not only cowboy-and-Indian fantasies but also the Hispanic Southwest, whose beginnings antedate Plymouth Rock by eighty years. The Grand Canyon was discovered by whites before the Mississippi was. And the Far East has been coming east to meet us and fuse with us for a long time now."
The book was divided into three sections, the first being Personal where Stegner explores his migratory childhood and his itinerant father. This section is intensely personal and one of the saddest, but a truly beautiful piece of writing, is the "letter, much too late" written to his mother on the eve of his eightieth birthday. There is also a chapter comparing the beautiful western wilderness to the Garden of Eden with many stunning literary descriptions.
"The best thing we have learned from nearly five hundred years of contact with the American wilderness is restraint, the willingness to hold our hand: to visit such places for our souls' good, but leave no tracks."
Habitat is the second section of the book where Wallace Stegner looks at the history of the western part of the United States and in addition to the mythology, beauty, legacy and magic of the region, the fragility of the arid and remote lands as more people migrate to the region.
"The Spanish of New Mexico, who also brought their origins with them, are in other ways an exception. Settled at the end of the sixteenth century, before Jamestown and Quebec and well before the Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Mexico existed in isolation, dependent largely on itself, until the newer Americans forcibly took it over in 1846; and during those two and a half centuries it had a high Indian culture close at hand to teach it how to live with the country."
In Witnesses, the third section of the book is a moving tribute to many writers in whose writings, Wallace Stegner felt had merit and perhaps had been overlooked. Most of the authors were from the West, but he also talked about the writings of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Wendell Berry. In addition, Stegner discusses a lot of his books as well. It was a legacy to all of those amazing writers, including the author.
"It has been hard for the rest of the country to realize that the West incorporates not only cowboy-and-Indian fantasies but also the Hispanic Southwest, whose beginnings antedate Plymouth Rock by eighty years. The Grand Canyon was discovered by whites before the Mississippi was. And the Far East has been coming east to meet us and fuse with us for a long time now."
August 7, 2022
Essays by Wallace Stegner, so don't really need to say anything else. Two essays about Wendell Berry; one about his sense of place in his writing, the other a letter expressing Stegner's admiration for his former student. The others relate to his own books, other authors he admires, and his love for the western landscape. He was a conservationist long before most of us even thought about it.
November 13, 2013
My father is Australian, my mother is from St. Louis, I grew up in the Philippines, I went to a few years of college in Chicago before running out of money and dropping out, and I currently live in Atlanta among immigrants and refugees. So when I read Wendell Berry's essays on a sense of place, his ideals evoked a real hunger in me to feel placed, but his example would have been absurd for me to try and follow.
Stegner, who taught Wendell Berry at Stanford, read all of his work seriously, and corresponded with the Kentucky farmer, seems to share my admiration for Berry and my difficulty with the idea of an inherited place, or a fixed piece of land or town that passed from one generation to the next. Which is why Stegner's ideas about story and place sat so wonderfully with me.
He's a thinker and writer who grew up roaming, without the kind of academic or cultural base that would lend itself to his intellectual pursuits. But he took his legacy as it was, grew into his identity as a thinker and storyteller, then met his own history and region with clarity and grace. I feel like the tension that Berry introduced has been resolved somewhat in Stegner's work. That made this collection of essays, compiled late in Stegner's career, remarkably satisfying to read.
Of course, outside of my own longing for a sense of place, there is much here to admire. Stegner's prose is beautiful, evenhanded, and understated, but he manages to slide in these rich, resonant ideas as he looks at his life, the American West, and the literature that has marked the way for him.
Stegner, who taught Wendell Berry at Stanford, read all of his work seriously, and corresponded with the Kentucky farmer, seems to share my admiration for Berry and my difficulty with the idea of an inherited place, or a fixed piece of land or town that passed from one generation to the next. Which is why Stegner's ideas about story and place sat so wonderfully with me.
He's a thinker and writer who grew up roaming, without the kind of academic or cultural base that would lend itself to his intellectual pursuits. But he took his legacy as it was, grew into his identity as a thinker and storyteller, then met his own history and region with clarity and grace. I feel like the tension that Berry introduced has been resolved somewhat in Stegner's work. That made this collection of essays, compiled late in Stegner's career, remarkably satisfying to read.
Of course, outside of my own longing for a sense of place, there is much here to admire. Stegner's prose is beautiful, evenhanded, and understated, but he manages to slide in these rich, resonant ideas as he looks at his life, the American West, and the literature that has marked the way for him.
April 24, 2013
What's not to like about Wallace Stegner? He's a brilliant writer, an activist, a great teacher and mentor, and a literary gem of the West. This collection of essays examines our relationship with the natural world, the rise of the environmental movement, commentary on other great writers, and, my personal favorite, a letter to his mother "much too late," written when he was an old man. That an old man can still look back at his life and admire his mother with such tenderness and honesty says he is humble and clear-sighted. I've read this collection on and off since I was a teenager, but it is this letter to his mother that I go back to most, especially now that I am a mother and need to remember what matters most in the world, and the people that I have a lasting affect on. It's one of the most moving pieces of writing I've ever read.
April 5, 2015
Wallace Stegner is just such a brilliant writer, and such a thoughtful man. This wide-ranging collection of essays about the west rings true on many levels for those of us who live here. It is the personal essays that I liked the most -- his tribute to his long-dead mother, for example. I'm always surprised when people haven't heard of this incredible guy. He died in 1993. What a loss that was to literature, the west, and the world.
May 26, 2024
Oh my, that was exquisite. What a fine, elegantly crafted, thought-provoking, and enjoyable collection of writings....
Whenever I read Stegner, I find myself thinking, afterwards, that I should read more Stegner, and there is much I haven't read. Conversely, at least for me, Stegner's work isn't what I want to be reading on airplanes or (jetlagged) in hotels, where greater momentum keeps the pages turning and less attention and concentration is required.
One doesn't (or shouldn't) skim Stegner. One savors Stegner. To me, Stegner is best consumed slowly, in relatively small doses, when one has the luxury of re-reading passages (sometimes aloud), tasting the lyricism, (closing your eyes and) inhaling the scents, taking off your shoes to curl your toes in the stream, or (metaphorically, thoughtfully, leisurely) staring out over an windswept plain or up at and endless sky (at least in your mind's eye).
Reviewers quirky perspective: I'm pleased and somewhat amused that, as fate would have it, I came upon and read McPhee's Encounters With The Archdruid before reading this. More broadly, in retrospect, despite that this has been on my to-read shelf for (gulp) more than a decade, I'm glad I finally picked this up now (conceptually, let's say, in the final third of my lifetime and towards the tail end of my academic career ... and after a few decades of geographical stability or rootedness as opposed to my far more transient initial quarter-century) because so much of it revolved around Stegner's (frankly extraordinary, and extraordinarily successful and impactful) life, including his life as a writer and a reader and a mentor and a friend and an academic. His journey was a remarkable one, and he was uniquely perceptive and clear about how a lifetime of influences and experiences and friendships (and, yes, losses) shaped his writing and his thinking and, well, his world.
And, at the margins, while this is not always the case, I found Watkins' Afterword a fitting coda, the kind of icing on the cake that, whether one tends to lick their plate or not, it would be a shame not to consume.
Whenever I read Stegner, I find myself thinking, afterwards, that I should read more Stegner, and there is much I haven't read. Conversely, at least for me, Stegner's work isn't what I want to be reading on airplanes or (jetlagged) in hotels, where greater momentum keeps the pages turning and less attention and concentration is required.
One doesn't (or shouldn't) skim Stegner. One savors Stegner. To me, Stegner is best consumed slowly, in relatively small doses, when one has the luxury of re-reading passages (sometimes aloud), tasting the lyricism, (closing your eyes and) inhaling the scents, taking off your shoes to curl your toes in the stream, or (metaphorically, thoughtfully, leisurely) staring out over an windswept plain or up at and endless sky (at least in your mind's eye).
Reviewers quirky perspective: I'm pleased and somewhat amused that, as fate would have it, I came upon and read McPhee's Encounters With The Archdruid before reading this. More broadly, in retrospect, despite that this has been on my to-read shelf for (gulp) more than a decade, I'm glad I finally picked this up now (conceptually, let's say, in the final third of my lifetime and towards the tail end of my academic career ... and after a few decades of geographical stability or rootedness as opposed to my far more transient initial quarter-century) because so much of it revolved around Stegner's (frankly extraordinary, and extraordinarily successful and impactful) life, including his life as a writer and a reader and a mentor and a friend and an academic. His journey was a remarkable one, and he was uniquely perceptive and clear about how a lifetime of influences and experiences and friendships (and, yes, losses) shaped his writing and his thinking and, well, his world.
And, at the margins, while this is not always the case, I found Watkins' Afterword a fitting coda, the kind of icing on the cake that, whether one tends to lick their plate or not, it would be a shame not to consume.
August 13, 2024
A love letter to the West, evoking John Muir (awestruck by the beauty), Aldo Leopold (advocating conservation), and Edward Abbey (get out and stay out, you losers!).
September 19, 2009
This is Stegner’s final book and is an excellent collection of essays about life, the West, writers and writing. What he says about literature and good writing comes close to expressing what I feel about good writing and reading. He wants writers to write from their own experiences and write in their own way and not be bound by someone else’s concept of method. “What literature is supposed to be…at its best is a bolt of lightning from me to you, a flash of recognition and feeling within the context of a shared culture.”
One chapter “Letter, Much Too Late” is a moving and poignant letter Stegner wrote to his mother when he was nearly eighty and she had been deceased for 55 years. In other chapters he revels in the achievements and books of contemporary authors and gives a brief critique of several of these books. In yet another he writes about the West from a conservationist viewpoint and asserts that “we simply need wild country for reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures and as part of the geography of hope.”
Stegner came from a dysfunctional background with his father constantly moving the family from one broken promise to another. His determination for education and his mother’s love – she died when he was a graduate student, his father committed suicide a short time later -- allowed him to break free from this troubled existence. Learning was his only way out and he applied himself so successfully that he sometimes is referred to as the “Dean of Western Writers” although that title is a bit limiting.
Stegner writes with clarity, grace and amazing insight of our humanness, half in despair but yet in true hope.
One chapter “Letter, Much Too Late” is a moving and poignant letter Stegner wrote to his mother when he was nearly eighty and she had been deceased for 55 years. In other chapters he revels in the achievements and books of contemporary authors and gives a brief critique of several of these books. In yet another he writes about the West from a conservationist viewpoint and asserts that “we simply need wild country for reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures and as part of the geography of hope.”
Stegner came from a dysfunctional background with his father constantly moving the family from one broken promise to another. His determination for education and his mother’s love – she died when he was a graduate student, his father committed suicide a short time later -- allowed him to break free from this troubled existence. Learning was his only way out and he applied himself so successfully that he sometimes is referred to as the “Dean of Western Writers” although that title is a bit limiting.
Stegner writes with clarity, grace and amazing insight of our humanness, half in despair but yet in true hope.
June 29, 2012
If you're a fan of Wallace Stegner or simply love living or visiting the West, this is the book for you. Stegner's beautiful words bring with them a sense of the beauty, the desolation, the destruction, and the fragility of the West.
The book is divided into three parts. The first is a personal note from Stegner, not only to the West that he loves but to his mother as well. If you've read his semi-autobiography, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, you'll know what trials she went through with her more than difficult husband and how she kept the family going as they moved from place to place.
The next part is not only a beautiful description of the West, but how fragile the environment is and how easy it is to destroy those places we love best. Stegner was a conservationist to the core and his arguments are dead on.
Finally, Stegner chooses some of his favorite (and mine) authors of Western fiction and gives each his due; Steinbeck, Stewart, Doig, Clark and Berry. Odd that he didn't include A.B. Guthrie, one of the great Western writers, although he does mention Guthrie's The Big Sky.
One could read this book over and over and fine something new each time.
The book is divided into three parts. The first is a personal note from Stegner, not only to the West that he loves but to his mother as well. If you've read his semi-autobiography, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, you'll know what trials she went through with her more than difficult husband and how she kept the family going as they moved from place to place.
The next part is not only a beautiful description of the West, but how fragile the environment is and how easy it is to destroy those places we love best. Stegner was a conservationist to the core and his arguments are dead on.
Finally, Stegner chooses some of his favorite (and mine) authors of Western fiction and gives each his due; Steinbeck, Stewart, Doig, Clark and Berry. Odd that he didn't include A.B. Guthrie, one of the great Western writers, although he does mention Guthrie's The Big Sky.
One could read this book over and over and fine something new each time.
March 25, 2013
I really loved this thoughtful collection of essays on living and writing in the West. Written in 1990, I wonder what Stegner would think now about the rate at which we exchange information. I particularly loved his essay on Sense of Place:
“The deep ecologists warn us not to be anthropocentric, but I know no way to look at the world, settled or wild, except through my own human eyes. I know that is wasn't created especially for my use, and I share the guilt for what members of my species, especially the migratory ones, have done to it. But I am the only instrument that I have access to by which I can enjoy the world and try to understand it. So I must believe that, at least to human perception, a place is not a place until people have been born in it, have grown up in it, have lived in it, known it, died in it--have both experienced and shaped it, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities, over more than one generation. Some are born in their place, some find it, some realize after long searching that the place they left is the one they have been searching for. But whatever their relation to it, it is made a place only by slow accrual, like a coral reef.”
“The deep ecologists warn us not to be anthropocentric, but I know no way to look at the world, settled or wild, except through my own human eyes. I know that is wasn't created especially for my use, and I share the guilt for what members of my species, especially the migratory ones, have done to it. But I am the only instrument that I have access to by which I can enjoy the world and try to understand it. So I must believe that, at least to human perception, a place is not a place until people have been born in it, have grown up in it, have lived in it, known it, died in it--have both experienced and shaped it, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities, over more than one generation. Some are born in their place, some find it, some realize after long searching that the place they left is the one they have been searching for. But whatever their relation to it, it is made a place only by slow accrual, like a coral reef.”
June 4, 2009
Wallace Stegner is one of my favorite writers, whether writing fiction or nonfiction. I purchased this book to read on a long train trip home from Seattle to Wisconsin, and it turned out to be perfect for that trip through the high plains. This slim volume is a collection of essays covering a variety of subjects, his life, the geology and ecology of the West, analysis of his own writing and of other writers who wrote in or about the West. His writing is always clear, intelligent and straight forward. The third section "Witnesses" in particular interested me because he discusses writers such as John Steinbeck, Walter Van Tillberg Clark, George Stewart and Norman Maclean.
August 1, 2019
A tremendous leaping off point for experiencing Stegner’s towering meditations on the West, its people, its troubles, its opportunities. A valuable bonus is the volume of other worthy voices he introduces one to.
January 20, 2020
I’ve said this before, but Stegner has lines that make me say “yes, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say for my whole life.”
April 28, 2018
This collection of essays starts out as strongly as any book I've read in a while. The Introduction and then the opening section of essays are so sharp and so moving that you feel like a new door is opening to your understanding of America. Really. My lifetime overlapped with Wallace Stegner for probably 35 years, and I've lived in the same country, sometimes within miles of where he lived. And yet, his experience is so different, so intense, so lonely (at times) and filled with awe of nature (at other times) that it's hard for me to believe we inhabited the same space and era. His writing just makes you want to live in a cabin in Montana or eastern Oregon, or whatever, if those open places still exist.
Unfortunately, the book doesn't quite sustain that high level throughout. Each essay is really good, but there's a lot of repetition as he moves into his commentaries about the West and how it shaped its people. Over and over, we read about its dryness, about the long distances you can see in the crisp air. About how people have to live in relatively low density because there isn't a lot of water to sustain them, and this low density means that they don't develop communities in the way that Europeans or East Coast Americans have done. Those are very interesting observations, but I didn't need to read them 5 or 6 times, often with the exact same phrasing. And I'm not even sure those observations are true, as interesting as they are. Are cities in the West really less of a community than those in the East? I have no idea, and I'd like it if Stegner had quoted some actual research that might prove or disprove his provocative idea.
Nonetheless, his comments are prescient in a lot of ways. His discussions of the waste of water, the harm of industrial farming, the indifference of huge swaths of our citizens and politicians to the environment -- those statements are as relevant today (or more so) than when he wrote them 30 and 40 years ago. It makes me angry that his words weren't heeded in those days by enough people to address the types of problems we're still having. And when you think about our current leader, President Trump, you know it's only getting worse, as even something as mild as designations of wildlife areas are being overturned. As Stegner would say, what's the need for coal mining or oil drilling that would bring a negligible amount of fossil fuel to the surface, in exchange for ruining an irreplaceable desert?
In the final section, Stegner writes about writers. All of these essays are illuminating, and in some cases about authors I'm not familiar with. There's again too much repetition, as Stegner laments over and over that "Western" writers are written off as cliched hacks telling cowboy tales. But that doesn't mar his treatment of writers from Willa Cather to Henry David Thoreau to Norman McLean to Wendell Berry and Walter Clark (not heard of those last two). And along the way, he makes some interesting and funny observations, such as how he thinks that Cowboy Poetry, which is a "thing" unto itself, probably is mostly written by non-Cowboys, but occasionally by a guy with such deep calluses that he can't make a fist. And he writes about the environmentalist sensibilities of people such as Thoreau, decades ahead of his time, or how McLean "broke every rule" of writing short stories, and yet it worked. Stegner was a rule-breaker too, and it worked for him.
So, for a good introduction to the West, the "real" West, not the fake cowboy West. this is a great place to start. And then go pick up more of Stegner's amazing works. You'll never think of the West in the same way after reading his stuff.
Unfortunately, the book doesn't quite sustain that high level throughout. Each essay is really good, but there's a lot of repetition as he moves into his commentaries about the West and how it shaped its people. Over and over, we read about its dryness, about the long distances you can see in the crisp air. About how people have to live in relatively low density because there isn't a lot of water to sustain them, and this low density means that they don't develop communities in the way that Europeans or East Coast Americans have done. Those are very interesting observations, but I didn't need to read them 5 or 6 times, often with the exact same phrasing. And I'm not even sure those observations are true, as interesting as they are. Are cities in the West really less of a community than those in the East? I have no idea, and I'd like it if Stegner had quoted some actual research that might prove or disprove his provocative idea.
Nonetheless, his comments are prescient in a lot of ways. His discussions of the waste of water, the harm of industrial farming, the indifference of huge swaths of our citizens and politicians to the environment -- those statements are as relevant today (or more so) than when he wrote them 30 and 40 years ago. It makes me angry that his words weren't heeded in those days by enough people to address the types of problems we're still having. And when you think about our current leader, President Trump, you know it's only getting worse, as even something as mild as designations of wildlife areas are being overturned. As Stegner would say, what's the need for coal mining or oil drilling that would bring a negligible amount of fossil fuel to the surface, in exchange for ruining an irreplaceable desert?
In the final section, Stegner writes about writers. All of these essays are illuminating, and in some cases about authors I'm not familiar with. There's again too much repetition, as Stegner laments over and over that "Western" writers are written off as cliched hacks telling cowboy tales. But that doesn't mar his treatment of writers from Willa Cather to Henry David Thoreau to Norman McLean to Wendell Berry and Walter Clark (not heard of those last two). And along the way, he makes some interesting and funny observations, such as how he thinks that Cowboy Poetry, which is a "thing" unto itself, probably is mostly written by non-Cowboys, but occasionally by a guy with such deep calluses that he can't make a fist. And he writes about the environmentalist sensibilities of people such as Thoreau, decades ahead of his time, or how McLean "broke every rule" of writing short stories, and yet it worked. Stegner was a rule-breaker too, and it worked for him.
So, for a good introduction to the West, the "real" West, not the fake cowboy West. this is a great place to start. And then go pick up more of Stegner's amazing works. You'll never think of the West in the same way after reading his stuff.
January 21, 2018
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) was a novelist and writer of the West. He's an old dead white guy, true, but his writing is very much alive, and deserves a look--especially if you are a would-be writer.
Background: Stegner was born in Iowa, but started the creative writing program at Stanford University in the early 1960's, one of the first such writing workshops in the country. The Stegner Fellowship at Stanford is one of the most sought-after prizes for young writers. If that is a sure legacy for Stegner, the writing found in the BLUEBIRD SINGS essay collection has continued relevancy for at least two reasons.
First, you can learn a lot about writing. Look closely at his sentences, his voice, his passion for the subject matter whatever it might be (his mother, desert mountain hikes, rural Saskatchewan). If any of us could find our way to write with his smooth-flowing, richly detailed style, then publication is sure to follow.
Second, his conservationist, environmentalist vision of the West–the beauty and fragility of its aridity–is even more relevant today. The use (or misuse) of resources, the struggle to protect the land, could not be more timely not to say beautifully presented.
The BLUEBIRD collection consists of short essays. Each one is a different subject. Every one is worth your time both as a reader and a writer.
Background: Stegner was born in Iowa, but started the creative writing program at Stanford University in the early 1960's, one of the first such writing workshops in the country. The Stegner Fellowship at Stanford is one of the most sought-after prizes for young writers. If that is a sure legacy for Stegner, the writing found in the BLUEBIRD SINGS essay collection has continued relevancy for at least two reasons.
First, you can learn a lot about writing. Look closely at his sentences, his voice, his passion for the subject matter whatever it might be (his mother, desert mountain hikes, rural Saskatchewan). If any of us could find our way to write with his smooth-flowing, richly detailed style, then publication is sure to follow.
Second, his conservationist, environmentalist vision of the West–the beauty and fragility of its aridity–is even more relevant today. The use (or misuse) of resources, the struggle to protect the land, could not be more timely not to say beautifully presented.
The BLUEBIRD collection consists of short essays. Each one is a different subject. Every one is worth your time both as a reader and a writer.
August 12, 2018
To read a collection of essays, I find I have to put my mind to it. It helps that the book was borrowed and I wanted to return it. But I originally found Stegner in a used bookstore in Fremont, Seattle some years back and wanted to read something of his.
The essays were about his upbringing, the West, the pragmatic spirituality of the land, water rights and the development of the West, environmentalism, and writers of the West, writers like Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold (Sand County Almanac) -- both on my bookshelves and influential on my thinking since around the age of 20. The book really brought to my attention that there had been a West/East divide at one time and lack of acceptance in the NY publishing world of "Western" literature. At the end I skipped a few pages when he talked about an author I thought I might never read, but all in all, I give it a thumbs-up.
Now having read this book, I will go back to another book of essays by a Western writer, Edward Abbey -- The Serpents of Paradise -- to continue reading in the genre.
And, for balance, I just ordered a used copy of a book that came up on a quick Google of "Wallace Stegner essays" -- Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner, and Other Essays: A Tribal Voice by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn.
The essays were about his upbringing, the West, the pragmatic spirituality of the land, water rights and the development of the West, environmentalism, and writers of the West, writers like Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold (Sand County Almanac) -- both on my bookshelves and influential on my thinking since around the age of 20. The book really brought to my attention that there had been a West/East divide at one time and lack of acceptance in the NY publishing world of "Western" literature. At the end I skipped a few pages when he talked about an author I thought I might never read, but all in all, I give it a thumbs-up.
Now having read this book, I will go back to another book of essays by a Western writer, Edward Abbey -- The Serpents of Paradise -- to continue reading in the genre.
And, for balance, I just ordered a used copy of a book that came up on a quick Google of "Wallace Stegner essays" -- Why I Can't Read Wallace Stegner, and Other Essays: A Tribal Voice by Elizabeth Cook-Lynn.
October 14, 2016
Also suggested by a friend from college. I hadn't ever read anything by Stegner. There are some gaps in even my books. I will read more by him. He writes very well for starters and he writes very well about the Southwest. Where I lived for some time. He captures what the life is like there, the geography and the differences from the East. And how the East was trying to replicate what the East was like in the West. And so forth. Some of his essays are better than others and sometimes I get bogged down in the conservation stuff. My favorite essays are the letter he writes to his mother, the one about George R. Stewart and America. And the Names of America and what naming does. Not doing justice to his words. But it is very good. He writes evocatively, ooh big word, about the West and what Western literature as in the Southwest is like. Very interesting. Would read more of his stuff. Liked it a lot.
January 23, 2013
I will pretty much read anything and everything Wallace Stegnar writes. This is a lovely book of essays that made me think about the West, water, and Mormonism in a totally different way. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because his message gets a little old. The West, it's sacred, it doesn't have a lot of water, our current treatment of the land isn't sustainable, we get it. Still, some lovely, lovely essays that should be read in a hammock in the backyard, or on the shores of a river while waiting for fish to catch. Unfortunately, I don't have a hammock and I'm not particularly fond of fishing, so I read it in bed. Oh well.
November 4, 2016
Sagebrush is an acquired taste.
Nothing superlative or enchanting should be easily accessible.
I admire and respect Wallace Stegner for his literary genius and for his life as a teacher of writing who has influenced many other great writers, among them one of my all time favorites, Edward Abbey. But more than that, I respect him for his devotion and activism to protect what remains of the wilderness and wild places of the western United States.
A very good collection of essays about living and writing in the West, some of them better than others, as will always be the case for a collection such as this.
April 12, 2013
Yes, the power of place. I've lived in the west all my life, but I fell in love with the west when I read this book. Stegner is ... I got nothing. Just read this book if you are a westerner or wish to understand one. I had all these feelings about the west, Utah in particular. Stegner helped me articulate them.
First Reading July 2005
Second Reading April 2013
First Reading July 2005
Second Reading April 2013
September 22, 2019
A must-read book if you live in the American West. These essays have enriched my view of the West’s various cultures, given me a deeper appreciation of the landscape, and confirmed my belief that, yeah, maybe not everyone who wants to live in the American West should. Also, his connection to and admiration for Wendell Berry really seals the deal.
Read
September 9, 2020Stegner's novel Crossing to Safety is one of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's favorite novels, and Stegner was her writing teacher at Stanford, so I've always felt a special interest in him. Plus I love essays.
June 3, 2022
This book is a collection of essays which shows the breadth of the diverse interests and background of author Wallace Stegner. He lived most of his life in the American West and that experience is a thread which connects all of these writings. For readers who have read Stegner's novels, he offers some additional insights on how the places he lived had an impact on several of his best known novels. Stegner also has strong views on some common mythologies of the West and among other points, notes that the stereotype of the lonesome and independent cowboy does not align well with what it took to be successful during the past one hundred and fifty years that Americans have been settling in the West.
For those Americans who have not lived out in the West, Stegner offers reality checks for the reader on how substantial the arid character of most of the west has affected the possibilities for work and life in most of the western regions. All of these essays were written over thirty years ago, but his views on conservation and habitat were prescient in their concerns and still are highly relevant as we see the dramatic impact that droughts and wildfires have had in more recent years.
His first essay on "Finding the Place" describes how his experiences as part of a family that rarely settled in one place and even made a habit out of migration had a dramatic impact on his life and exerted influences which were lifelong. The two places his family did remain for several years, Saskatchewan and Salt Lake City, were places that solidified his attachment to the west. He notes how he continued the pattern of mobility from his childhood in the early years of careers in writing and university teaching, but eventually decided to settle in the west at Stanford in Palo Alto after a teaching stint at Harvard.
The second work in the book is a poignant letter to his mother written fifty-five years after she died. But in the letter, he makes it clear that she had been a profound influence upon him and characters much like her were prominent in his quasi-autobiographical novels The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Recapitulation. In this essay, he says "You are at once a lasting presence and an unhealed wound." Later, he writes: "I began this rumination in a dark mood ... already you have cheered me up. I have said that you didn't die and you didn't. I can still hear you being cheerful on the slightest provocation ..."
The middle of this book talks mostly of the west and the dramatic impact that its desert character and general lack of water (aridity) have had and will continue to have upon its inhabitants. These facts greatly influence the cities in the west and their profound need to find and even cling to water supplies. Stegner was a strong advocate for conservation and much of his advice emphasizes the need to lean into the reality of these lands and not weave fantasies about possibilities which might work in areas like the midwest and eastern US, but have never been suitable in the desert regions of the west.
Stegner also devotes several essays to other western writers and notes the challenges all of them have faced as they have written about experiences of their life and times which don't translate well for many readers from other parts of the United States and even Europe.
Finally, the final essay on "Ruminations About the Art of Fiction" will likely be of interest to both other writers and those readers who have enjoyed Stegner's novels. Here he writes candidly about the differences between autobiography and fictionalized works that draw upon one's life. He wrote this essay shortly after he finished his final novel Crossing to Safety and makes some fascinating points about how he drew deeply from his life experiences in the book, but nonetheless created fiction which veered away from some particulars about the four lead characters. I highly recommend this novel to readers for so many reasons, but it is rare that a writer at the peak of their powers can create a narrative that draws on so much life experience and is likely to force the reader to consider their own lives and the extent to which we have been able to stay true to our moral compasses and somehow achieve even a fraction of some of our younger hopes and dreams. Even better, Stegner digs deep into friendships and marriages and what it takes to sustain these over a long period of time, At the close of this essay he compares autobiography and fiction and concludes by saying: "Either way, if you have done it right, it's true."
I began reading this book in a beachside setting in Maine and concluded my reading at home about three weeks later. This book conveys a strong sense of place and may cause readers to dig into their own backgrounds and contemplate how they have been shaped by the places they have lived and care about. In a like manner, this book also talks about people in general and writers in particular and some of these essays examine the profound impact they can have upon us.
For those Americans who have not lived out in the West, Stegner offers reality checks for the reader on how substantial the arid character of most of the west has affected the possibilities for work and life in most of the western regions. All of these essays were written over thirty years ago, but his views on conservation and habitat were prescient in their concerns and still are highly relevant as we see the dramatic impact that droughts and wildfires have had in more recent years.
His first essay on "Finding the Place" describes how his experiences as part of a family that rarely settled in one place and even made a habit out of migration had a dramatic impact on his life and exerted influences which were lifelong. The two places his family did remain for several years, Saskatchewan and Salt Lake City, were places that solidified his attachment to the west. He notes how he continued the pattern of mobility from his childhood in the early years of careers in writing and university teaching, but eventually decided to settle in the west at Stanford in Palo Alto after a teaching stint at Harvard.
The second work in the book is a poignant letter to his mother written fifty-five years after she died. But in the letter, he makes it clear that she had been a profound influence upon him and characters much like her were prominent in his quasi-autobiographical novels The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Recapitulation. In this essay, he says "You are at once a lasting presence and an unhealed wound." Later, he writes: "I began this rumination in a dark mood ... already you have cheered me up. I have said that you didn't die and you didn't. I can still hear you being cheerful on the slightest provocation ..."
The middle of this book talks mostly of the west and the dramatic impact that its desert character and general lack of water (aridity) have had and will continue to have upon its inhabitants. These facts greatly influence the cities in the west and their profound need to find and even cling to water supplies. Stegner was a strong advocate for conservation and much of his advice emphasizes the need to lean into the reality of these lands and not weave fantasies about possibilities which might work in areas like the midwest and eastern US, but have never been suitable in the desert regions of the west.
Stegner also devotes several essays to other western writers and notes the challenges all of them have faced as they have written about experiences of their life and times which don't translate well for many readers from other parts of the United States and even Europe.
Finally, the final essay on "Ruminations About the Art of Fiction" will likely be of interest to both other writers and those readers who have enjoyed Stegner's novels. Here he writes candidly about the differences between autobiography and fictionalized works that draw upon one's life. He wrote this essay shortly after he finished his final novel Crossing to Safety and makes some fascinating points about how he drew deeply from his life experiences in the book, but nonetheless created fiction which veered away from some particulars about the four lead characters. I highly recommend this novel to readers for so many reasons, but it is rare that a writer at the peak of their powers can create a narrative that draws on so much life experience and is likely to force the reader to consider their own lives and the extent to which we have been able to stay true to our moral compasses and somehow achieve even a fraction of some of our younger hopes and dreams. Even better, Stegner digs deep into friendships and marriages and what it takes to sustain these over a long period of time, At the close of this essay he compares autobiography and fiction and concludes by saying: "Either way, if you have done it right, it's true."
I began reading this book in a beachside setting in Maine and concluded my reading at home about three weeks later. This book conveys a strong sense of place and may cause readers to dig into their own backgrounds and contemplate how they have been shaped by the places they have lived and care about. In a like manner, this book also talks about people in general and writers in particular and some of these essays examine the profound impact they can have upon us.
December 27, 2024
This book is a collection of essays about the conditions and circumstances that provided the foundation for the way in which the Midwest and then the Western United States was settled viewed from the perspective of climate and geography first and then influencing the culture. Because of the arid climate certain ways of living, on far separated homesteads, forced individuals to be multi skilled and self reliant ultimately leading to the “mythic” cowboy culture - not true to the actual way in which actual cowboys lived or spent their lives. As areas first seeming fertile became less so, families moved repeatedly, becoming a mobile culture rather than settled communities with a sense of place and belonging. With migration coming from the East, with Europe as a reference, adaptation to the land ( beyond the 98th meridian) was particularly difficult in relation to the lack of water.
This collection, published in 1992, is still relevant today, maybe even more so, and should be considered for assignment to those responsible for climate policy and action today
This collection, published in 1992, is still relevant today, maybe even more so, and should be considered for assignment to those responsible for climate policy and action today
September 28, 2023
A sensational collection of memoirs and essays. The book begins with stories about his early years growing up in various locations in the West and his fathers inability to stay in one place. The second memoir and best of the book, also the most heart-wrenching, was one Stegner wrote when he was eighty years old and his mother had been dead for over fifty years. As he reflected on her he began to realize what an amazing woman she had been and how he had taken it for granted all these years and how he hadn't appreciated what he had until it was way too late. The middle part of the book was essays about the geography and history of the places in the West he had lived in and the last part of the book was essays about writers of the West and separate essays on individual writers including John Steinbeck, George Stewart, Walter Clark, Norman Maclean and Wendell Berry. Wallace Stegner's incredible poetic prose made the book a sensational read and one of my favorites by him.
November 20, 2025
Wallace Stegner inspires me most when he is writing about his own life. I was not familiar with most of the Western writers he critiques in the book.
July 12, 2020
What a joy it was to read my first piece of Stegner fiction. I came inspired from loving Crossing to Safety, and what a perfect transition it was.
This collection of essays provides a clear look into Stegner's fascinating mind and life. I couldn't stop thinking while I digested his ruminations on life, that Wallace would die in a car accident in New Mexico just a few years later.
The beginning few are Wallace's most personal essays. My favorite of the whole book was "Letter, Much Too Late" in which Wallace writes to his mother who passed 50 years ago, when Wallace was only 25. Wallace describes himself as being self-obsessed during the 25 years in which he shared with his mom, made me wonder the regrets I'll one day have for the way in which I used my attention during these glory days. I was near tears as the essay closed with Wallace's observation that soon he will die, too: "Any minute now I will hear you singing."
The middle is a long collection of essays on the beauty of the American West and the threat of man to destroy that beauty. It gave me a greater appreciation for the time I am spending out West and helped me notice on our drive home the beauty of the dry, golden rolling hills of California. Admittedly, by the end of this collection, I did get a bit tired of the beauty of the environment.
The end is a few essays of Wallace writing to and about other writers that he respects and has some sort of relationship with. His essay about George Stewart made me want to read "Names on the Land." I also deeply enjoyed the personal touch of his writing to his student, "A Letter to Wendell Berry." His distinction between respecting someone for their accomplishments and respecting someone for who they are and their values is both profound and useful.
One more quote that strike me, this one about truth, from the very end of the book:
"Sure, it's autobiography. Sure, it's fiction. Either way, if you have done it right, it's true."
This collection of essays provides a clear look into Stegner's fascinating mind and life. I couldn't stop thinking while I digested his ruminations on life, that Wallace would die in a car accident in New Mexico just a few years later.
The beginning few are Wallace's most personal essays. My favorite of the whole book was "Letter, Much Too Late" in which Wallace writes to his mother who passed 50 years ago, when Wallace was only 25. Wallace describes himself as being self-obsessed during the 25 years in which he shared with his mom, made me wonder the regrets I'll one day have for the way in which I used my attention during these glory days. I was near tears as the essay closed with Wallace's observation that soon he will die, too: "Any minute now I will hear you singing."
The middle is a long collection of essays on the beauty of the American West and the threat of man to destroy that beauty. It gave me a greater appreciation for the time I am spending out West and helped me notice on our drive home the beauty of the dry, golden rolling hills of California. Admittedly, by the end of this collection, I did get a bit tired of the beauty of the environment.
The end is a few essays of Wallace writing to and about other writers that he respects and has some sort of relationship with. His essay about George Stewart made me want to read "Names on the Land." I also deeply enjoyed the personal touch of his writing to his student, "A Letter to Wendell Berry." His distinction between respecting someone for their accomplishments and respecting someone for who they are and their values is both profound and useful.
One more quote that strike me, this one about truth, from the very end of the book:
"Sure, it's autobiography. Sure, it's fiction. Either way, if you have done it right, it's true."
March 20, 2024
I don't care for poetry, nor constant repeating. But the stories are wonderful. I'm from the West and Mr. Stegner made me think of home with his descriptions.
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