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Marking the Sparrow's Fall: The Making of the American West
Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall , the first collection of Stegner's work published since his death, Stegner's son Page has collected, annotated, and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in any edition, as well as a little-known novella and several of Stegner's best-known essays on the American West. Seventy-five percent of the contents of this body of work is published here for the first time.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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575 people want to read
About the author
Wallace Stegner
179Ìýbooks1,999ÌýfollowersWallace 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 39 reviews
November 11, 2023
Catching up�
I first learned about Wallace Stegner when I took an emeritus class right after retiring from my position as a college director/instructor. (I know!)
I took this course that allowed me to read and study classic authors and be introduced to local authors in the area.
´¡²Ô»åâ€�
This experience opened the door for me to facilitate and coordinate a book discussion group and various visiting local author programs for my local library for over 12 years.
I will always be grateful for that college emeritus course.
This book of essays, which also includes a novella, titled “Genesis,� was published after his death.
This book was meaningfully compiled by his son, Page. Interestingly, with a foreword by Mr. Stegner himself. One thing he shares about the West he so loved and immortalized in his writing, (even if he wrote it before he passed in 1993), it still rings true today�
“And in spite of much human destruction, in spite of the huckstering of scenery and the commercializing of beauty and grandeur and awe, there is a lot of the West where both illimitable freedom and perfect sanctuary may be found.�
These stories showcase his love of the American West, something that has always been a part of who he has been in all his writing.
We can only hope that the land will continue to be protected, just as these stories should be treasured.
This book includes 23 essays along with the novella I mentioned above (all written between 1948 and 1992). Many are little-known items that he had submitted to magazines and/or journals.
Stegner is mostly known for being a conservationist. You feel his love of the land and his desire to preserve it throughout his writings. We can only hope that more will honor him in the same way through eternity.
August 6, 2018
This is a wonderful collection, essential reading for anyone who loves the Rocky Mountain West. It contains some of the best writing I’ve ever read, gorgeous and rhythmic and keenly insightful. This passage from “The Rocky Mountain West� exemplifies the ecstatic nature of the prose, its musical beauty, and the way Stegner’s sentences are constructed to sing their own meanings:
“By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it. Taste it, feel its chill on the teeth: It is purity absolute. Watch its racing current, its steady renewal of force: It is transient and eternal. Listen again to its sounds, get far enough away so that the noise of falling tons of water does not stun the ears, and hear how much is going on underneath: a whole symphony of smaller sounds, hiss and splash and gurgle, the small talk of side channels, the whisper of blown and scattered spray gathering itself and beginning to flow again, secret and irresistible, among the wet rocks.�
I was particularly taken with the novella that concludes the book, “Genesis,� a gripping ordeal story that captures the essence of extreme survival in a gorgeous but violent and pitiless landscape in early northern winter. Here are just a few of the passages I highlighted as I read it:
“When he chopped through the river’s inch of ice and watched the water well up and overflow the hole it seemed like some dark force from the ancient heart of the earth that could at any time rise around them silently and obliterate their little human noises and restore the plain to its emptiness again.�
“Nothing between them and the stars, nothing between them and the North Pole, nothing between them and the wolves, except a twelve-by-sixteen house of cloth so thin that every wind moved it and light showed through it and the shadows of men hulked angling along its slope, its roof so peppered with spark holes that lying in their beds they caught squinting glimpses of the stars.�
“In the thudding hollows of the skull, deep under the layered blanket, the breath-skimmed sheepskin, inside the stinging whiskered face and the bony globe that rode jolting on the end of the spine, deep in there as secret as the organs at the heart of a flower or a nut inside shell and husk, the brain plodded remotely at a heart’s pace or a walking pace, saying words that had been found salutary for men or cattle on a brittle and lonesome night, words that not so much expressed as engendered what the mind felt: sullenness, fear, doubt.�
“He watched it hypnotically, revolving slowly like the white waste of his mind where a spark of awareness as dim as the consciousness of an angleworm glimmered.�
Beautiful, original, one-of-a-kind stuff. “Genesis� alone is worth the purchase price � but the essays are a wonderful bonus in that they can be returned to again and again. Highly recommended!
“By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it. Taste it, feel its chill on the teeth: It is purity absolute. Watch its racing current, its steady renewal of force: It is transient and eternal. Listen again to its sounds, get far enough away so that the noise of falling tons of water does not stun the ears, and hear how much is going on underneath: a whole symphony of smaller sounds, hiss and splash and gurgle, the small talk of side channels, the whisper of blown and scattered spray gathering itself and beginning to flow again, secret and irresistible, among the wet rocks.�
I was particularly taken with the novella that concludes the book, “Genesis,� a gripping ordeal story that captures the essence of extreme survival in a gorgeous but violent and pitiless landscape in early northern winter. Here are just a few of the passages I highlighted as I read it:
“When he chopped through the river’s inch of ice and watched the water well up and overflow the hole it seemed like some dark force from the ancient heart of the earth that could at any time rise around them silently and obliterate their little human noises and restore the plain to its emptiness again.�
“Nothing between them and the stars, nothing between them and the North Pole, nothing between them and the wolves, except a twelve-by-sixteen house of cloth so thin that every wind moved it and light showed through it and the shadows of men hulked angling along its slope, its roof so peppered with spark holes that lying in their beds they caught squinting glimpses of the stars.�
“In the thudding hollows of the skull, deep under the layered blanket, the breath-skimmed sheepskin, inside the stinging whiskered face and the bony globe that rode jolting on the end of the spine, deep in there as secret as the organs at the heart of a flower or a nut inside shell and husk, the brain plodded remotely at a heart’s pace or a walking pace, saying words that had been found salutary for men or cattle on a brittle and lonesome night, words that not so much expressed as engendered what the mind felt: sullenness, fear, doubt.�
“He watched it hypnotically, revolving slowly like the white waste of his mind where a spark of awareness as dim as the consciousness of an angleworm glimmered.�
Beautiful, original, one-of-a-kind stuff. “Genesis� alone is worth the purchase price � but the essays are a wonderful bonus in that they can be returned to again and again. Highly recommended!
February 15, 2021
This is a book of some long forgotten and some well-known essays compiled by Wallace Stegner's son, Page. The first section is mostly autobiographical essays and travel pieces; the second section brings out some of his key essays on conservation and the American West; and the book ends with a novella on ranching life in Saskatchewan at the turn of the last century. As with all collections like this, some really are spectacular and others are not as good. It is a good introduction/retrospective of Wallace Stegner's work.
October 1, 2010
Don't read this of you grew up in the western arid US and now are transplanted elsewhere- it will cause unbelievable homesickness. Beautiful beautiful book.
October 1, 2018
This is essential reading for anyone who lives in the American west. The passages are as relevant today as when they were written and perhaps more potent than ever.
December 14, 2016
This collection of Stegner's essays provide an extensive history of America's public lands west of the Mississippi. The federal government purchased this land before the states were a reality. Bottom line, as a nation, the only way these lands can continue to be used wisely and protected, is through the federal government. The individual states could not possibly afford the responsibility. I had read quite a few of these essays before. This book was published after Stegner's death. A wise man we should continue to listen to.
September 28, 2015
I picked this book up primarily for the short essay on Bernard Devoto. Stengner does a great job profiling the man, his works, and the political and social battles that man waged. I didn't look at the other essays in this book, though I'm sure some are good. "Backroads of the American West" and "That Great Falls Year" would usually interest me, and maybe I'll get to them one day.
October 19, 2008
His writing is a love affair with the landscape. Once every last subdivision is built, his writing will be the blueprint for the sense of space and possibility, the incredibly attentive privacy possible in that bulldozed frontier.
March 31, 2012
Reading these essays is like traveling by a slow train, looking through expansive windows at beautiful landscapes of place and time. This is not a book to eat ravenously, but one with words to chew and savor.
July 10, 2017
Gave up on it about 30% through. Not Stegner's fault. My life is too mad at the moment to find place for his slow and a ittle dated thoughfulness.
February 9, 2021
The last piece in this book entitled Genesis, is about the best writing I’ve ever read.
May 5, 2024
Don't meet your heroes. This book was split into three sections: autobiography/memoir, wilderness/public lands protection, and history/philosophy/sociopolitics. A novella is tacked on at the end. I like this book because it does give a broader view of Stegner's thoughts on a great many things. I wish they were put together chronologically though so we could get a sense of his growth through time.
The first section was beautiful. Reading about his youth in the West, reading about explorations of iconic landscapes long before they were being loved to death. All ready to give the whole thing five stars. The second section is full of every quotable nugget you've ever seen that helps bridge John Muir and the Muries to the slightly more modern David Brower of the modern environmental movement. So ready to give five stars to the whole book!
And then comes "The Twilight of Self-Reliance." This changed everything. Supposed to be his grand statement on EVERYTHING and it really does. It shows his odd mixture of Modern Environmentalism and somehow American Exceptionalism. For the most part, he blames Rugged Individualism on many of the problems in the West, but also seems to promote it at times. Manifest Destiny is fairly neutral, like a non-biased historian, but at other times he speaks of it as a seemingly positive era. A Practical Jingoist? His writing on protecting the land feels so jarring after some things said on race/minority groups. Maybe that's from our modern politics that I feel this? Maybe it's that he wrote over decades and his views evolved? Kinda feels like your Well Meaning Grandfather that is Unbashedly, Casually Racist and would be offended or angry if you pointed it out.
From "The Twilight of Self-Reliance:"
"What we see instead is a warring melee of minority groups - racial, ethnic, economic, sexual, linguistic - all claiming their right to the American standard without the surrendering of cultural identities that make them still unstandard." You're going into the Melting Pot whether you like it or not!
Yikes! And a couple paragraphs before, he states the emancipation of enslaved people "was sure to trouble the waters of national complacency for a century and perhaps much longer." It feels like an understatement to the point writing emancipation off as frivolous. But overall, not as much casual racism as his book "Wolf Willow."
I have been reading more about our public lands being based in racist policies with the dispossession of native people's from their lands, so maybe that's what is making me notice this more. I've seen the bigger push on the racism of John Muir. I (and all of us) need to do more research on explicit and implicit racism in conservation and environmentalism. There are some books out there that tackle parts of these topics, , , and .
On Stegner specifically, I found the essay "Wallace Stegner as a White Guy, circa 1945" () that led me to Stegner's book . Out of print for a long time and ABEbooks has it for like $175 at the cheapest. You can find a blurb about it in the LA Times () where the author states Stegner's outrage at racism is palpable.
Kinda rambled for a long while there. Another work where I wonder about babies and bathwater and what to throw out, but we all have growth to do.
The first section was beautiful. Reading about his youth in the West, reading about explorations of iconic landscapes long before they were being loved to death. All ready to give the whole thing five stars. The second section is full of every quotable nugget you've ever seen that helps bridge John Muir and the Muries to the slightly more modern David Brower of the modern environmental movement. So ready to give five stars to the whole book!
And then comes "The Twilight of Self-Reliance." This changed everything. Supposed to be his grand statement on EVERYTHING and it really does. It shows his odd mixture of Modern Environmentalism and somehow American Exceptionalism. For the most part, he blames Rugged Individualism on many of the problems in the West, but also seems to promote it at times. Manifest Destiny is fairly neutral, like a non-biased historian, but at other times he speaks of it as a seemingly positive era. A Practical Jingoist? His writing on protecting the land feels so jarring after some things said on race/minority groups. Maybe that's from our modern politics that I feel this? Maybe it's that he wrote over decades and his views evolved? Kinda feels like your Well Meaning Grandfather that is Unbashedly, Casually Racist and would be offended or angry if you pointed it out.
From "The Twilight of Self-Reliance:"
"What we see instead is a warring melee of minority groups - racial, ethnic, economic, sexual, linguistic - all claiming their right to the American standard without the surrendering of cultural identities that make them still unstandard." You're going into the Melting Pot whether you like it or not!
Yikes! And a couple paragraphs before, he states the emancipation of enslaved people "was sure to trouble the waters of national complacency for a century and perhaps much longer." It feels like an understatement to the point writing emancipation off as frivolous. But overall, not as much casual racism as his book "Wolf Willow."
I have been reading more about our public lands being based in racist policies with the dispossession of native people's from their lands, so maybe that's what is making me notice this more. I've seen the bigger push on the racism of John Muir. I (and all of us) need to do more research on explicit and implicit racism in conservation and environmentalism. There are some books out there that tackle parts of these topics, , , and .
On Stegner specifically, I found the essay "Wallace Stegner as a White Guy, circa 1945" () that led me to Stegner's book . Out of print for a long time and ABEbooks has it for like $175 at the cheapest. You can find a blurb about it in the LA Times () where the author states Stegner's outrage at racism is palpable.
Kinda rambled for a long while there. Another work where I wonder about babies and bathwater and what to throw out, but we all have growth to do.
July 17, 2022
Book 19 of 2022: Marking the Sparrow's Fall - Wallace Stwgner's American West by Wallace Stegner (edited by Page Stegner)
Marking the Sparrow’s Fall is a collection of Wallace Stegner essays posthumously selected and edited by his son, Page Stegner. It’s subtitled “Wallace Stegner’s American West� and indeed it represents his views on and experiences in the American West. The collection is mostly work from magazines and other sources that Page felt deserved a wider audience. Some of the essays have been published in earlier compilations (which, admittedly, I skipped over since I had read these particular essays not long ago).
The collection consists of four parts:
Home Ground (essays about his nomadic childhood and places he lived)
Testimony (environmental essays)
Inheritance (essays about the place of the American West)
Genesis (a short novel about the deadly 1906 winter that destroyed much of the cattle industry in Canada and the northern United States).
I enjoyed every essay in this collection. Some highlights for me…His “Living Dry� essay on the arid West is one of the bet I have read. Having lived or spent a lot of time in many of the states described in “The Rocky Mountain West� (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada), his description of he land and people of this region rings so very true. His history of land acquisition in the American West was written in 1980 to counter that era’s Sagebrush Rebellion, especially their untrue and disingenuous cries of returning land “back to the states� (it was never theirs in the first place).
While some of the details have changed (backcountry dirt road becoming highways, highways becoming freeways, increased population in the “oasis cities�, etc.), almost every essay still is relevant and pertinent to the current conditions and fight to preserve the American West.
HIGHLY recommended.
Marking the Sparrow’s Fall is a collection of Wallace Stegner essays posthumously selected and edited by his son, Page Stegner. It’s subtitled “Wallace Stegner’s American West� and indeed it represents his views on and experiences in the American West. The collection is mostly work from magazines and other sources that Page felt deserved a wider audience. Some of the essays have been published in earlier compilations (which, admittedly, I skipped over since I had read these particular essays not long ago).
The collection consists of four parts:
Home Ground (essays about his nomadic childhood and places he lived)
Testimony (environmental essays)
Inheritance (essays about the place of the American West)
Genesis (a short novel about the deadly 1906 winter that destroyed much of the cattle industry in Canada and the northern United States).
I enjoyed every essay in this collection. Some highlights for me…His “Living Dry� essay on the arid West is one of the bet I have read. Having lived or spent a lot of time in many of the states described in “The Rocky Mountain West� (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada), his description of he land and people of this region rings so very true. His history of land acquisition in the American West was written in 1980 to counter that era’s Sagebrush Rebellion, especially their untrue and disingenuous cries of returning land “back to the states� (it was never theirs in the first place).
While some of the details have changed (backcountry dirt road becoming highways, highways becoming freeways, increased population in the “oasis cities�, etc.), almost every essay still is relevant and pertinent to the current conditions and fight to preserve the American West.
HIGHLY recommended.
December 3, 2024
Essays and stories collected and edited posthumously by Stegner's son, Page, and published in 1998. About half of the pieces in this collection are from Stegner's previously published works. The collection is presented in four parts. The first, "Home Ground" begins with five autobiographical pieces on the author's early life experiences in rural Saskatchewan, Great Falls, Montana and Salt Lake City, Utah. These are followed by five essays on the geography, climate, ecology and history of Utah and neighboring states presented via Stegner's travels in different corners of Utah and his reflections on the unique features of the arid states located west of the 98th meridian. The second part of the collection, "Testimony" features eight essays on the conservation movement, its early advocates and the environmental issues impacting the dry zone states. The third part of the book, "Inheritance" presents four essays covering social, political and environmental issues (frontier values, aridity, Federal lands and resource management, among others), as well as a history of land use in these states. The final segment of the collection, "Genesis" features the novella of the same name; a fictional account of a deadly early winter snow storm in southern Saskatchewan - previously published in Stegner's Wolf Willow and Collected Stories.
I especially enjoyed the first part of this collection and in particular, the elements of memoir and travelogue found in most of the stories. The second and third parts of the collection were interesting and informative - offering a clear view of the important environmental issues of the mid twentieth century up to the 1980s. Not surprisingly, many of these issues are still significant concerns today. The final part of the collection, "Genesis" is a fictional masterpiece, written in a style that is reminiscent of Josef Conrad's but in a prairie winter setting.
I especially enjoyed the first part of this collection and in particular, the elements of memoir and travelogue found in most of the stories. The second and third parts of the collection were interesting and informative - offering a clear view of the important environmental issues of the mid twentieth century up to the 1980s. Not surprisingly, many of these issues are still significant concerns today. The final part of the collection, "Genesis" is a fictional masterpiece, written in a style that is reminiscent of Josef Conrad's but in a prairie winter setting.
January 6, 2020
"Driving from rainy Washington or Oregon toward Idaho and Montana, you don't drive into any greater landscape, but you do drive into the West. Eastward."
"Sure and comfortable knowledge is reinforced by association, which often amounts to love and always involves some emotional relationship. Mere familiarity, I suppose, generates an emotional attachment of a kind, but when years of the most emotionally active time of one's life have been spent among certain streets and houses and schools and people and countrysides, the associational emotion is so pervasive that it may be entirely overlooked for years, and comprehended only in retrospect. Nostalgia, the recognition of old familiarity, is the surest way to recognize a hometown."
"we do not regret leaving the desert and the mountains, though we will always love and return to both. What impresses us and fills our imagination as we lie in the sleeping bags with the rainy wind whipping leaves and twigs from the cottonwoods over our heads is the way America goes on, and with what infinite variety, in every direction. And when we hit the eastern edge, we can always turn around and come back, and that will be as good as going."
"The real people go the West are generally not cowboys and never myths; they live in places like Denver and Salt Lake, Dillon and Boise, American Fork and American Falls, and they confront the real problems of real life in a real region and have gone a long way toward understanding the conditions of western life and accepting the agencies that have been slowly evoked to meet them. But those who live by the myth, or pretend to, have never yet admitted that they live in a land of little rain and big consequences.
"Sure and comfortable knowledge is reinforced by association, which often amounts to love and always involves some emotional relationship. Mere familiarity, I suppose, generates an emotional attachment of a kind, but when years of the most emotionally active time of one's life have been spent among certain streets and houses and schools and people and countrysides, the associational emotion is so pervasive that it may be entirely overlooked for years, and comprehended only in retrospect. Nostalgia, the recognition of old familiarity, is the surest way to recognize a hometown."
"we do not regret leaving the desert and the mountains, though we will always love and return to both. What impresses us and fills our imagination as we lie in the sleeping bags with the rainy wind whipping leaves and twigs from the cottonwoods over our heads is the way America goes on, and with what infinite variety, in every direction. And when we hit the eastern edge, we can always turn around and come back, and that will be as good as going."
"The real people go the West are generally not cowboys and never myths; they live in places like Denver and Salt Lake, Dillon and Boise, American Fork and American Falls, and they confront the real problems of real life in a real region and have gone a long way toward understanding the conditions of western life and accepting the agencies that have been slowly evoked to meet them. But those who live by the myth, or pretend to, have never yet admitted that they live in a land of little rain and big consequences.
April 24, 2021
What a beautiful collection of essays and stories! I really enjoyed this book. One of my favorite chapters was entitled "Living Dry". A sample:
"The true West differs from the East in one great, pervasive, influential, and awesome way: space. Space is perceptible, and often palpable, especially when it appears empty, and it's that apparent emptiness which makes matter look alone, exiled, and unconnected... But as space diminishes man and his constructions in a material fashion it also - paradoxically - makes them more noticeable. Things show up out here... And what do you do about aridity, if you are a nation inured to plenty and impatient of restrictions and led westward by pillars of fire and cloud? You may deny it for a while. Then you must either adapt to it or try to engineer it out of existence."
I was pleasantly surprised by the capturing style and story in the one piece of fiction included in this collection, a nouvelle entitled "Genesis". Wow! Things I would have never considered about the life of an early 20th century cowboy.
Stegner's philosophical leanings about environment and duty to it need to be understood and considered more today than ever!
"The true West differs from the East in one great, pervasive, influential, and awesome way: space. Space is perceptible, and often palpable, especially when it appears empty, and it's that apparent emptiness which makes matter look alone, exiled, and unconnected... But as space diminishes man and his constructions in a material fashion it also - paradoxically - makes them more noticeable. Things show up out here... And what do you do about aridity, if you are a nation inured to plenty and impatient of restrictions and led westward by pillars of fire and cloud? You may deny it for a while. Then you must either adapt to it or try to engineer it out of existence."
I was pleasantly surprised by the capturing style and story in the one piece of fiction included in this collection, a nouvelle entitled "Genesis". Wow! Things I would have never considered about the life of an early 20th century cowboy.
Stegner's philosophical leanings about environment and duty to it need to be understood and considered more today than ever!
May 21, 2024
Marking the Sparrow's Fall is a curated group of works of the great American and Western writer, Wallace Stegner. The book has a range of works, including descriptive narratives of trips and experiences of Mr. Stegner in the American West, essays about his interests in and efforts to preserve the West, and even a short story about a cattle drive. I greatly enjoyed his descriptive prose when talking about some of the beautiful places he explored in the west, some of which no longer even exist due to public works projects like dams that have erased what sounded like some spectacular wilderness areas. His essays about the critical need to preserve lands in the West should be read by any contemporary environmentalist. Back in the 60s and 70s Mr. Stegner was advocating for environmental protections in the most eloquent of ways. The entire history he provides of the development of the environmental movement, which he traces back into the 1800s, is fascinating and insightful. For those who love Stegner's work, this is worth reading given its breadth, depth, and beauty of writing. For those unfamiliar with his work, this would be a fabulous place to start!
May 4, 2018
Wallace Stegner is a wonderful writer, equally skilled in both fiction and nonfiction works. This particular book is a compilation of essays, lectures, letters and stories of various lengths all selected from his vast output by his son. Some of the included works had appeared in earlier books and in other publications. Anyone familiar with Stegner's books would likely have read several of the pieces chosen. Stegner's opinions on environmental issues written 30 or more years ago remain relevant today, maybe especially today. Personally, I enjoyed and found new insight in many of the pieces that I had read a number of years ago. It is a great collection, something for everybody!
September 22, 2022
Some of the essays in this collection date back almost 70 years. We've learned so little and continued to enjoy our "careless plenty" in spite of the damage we do to the earth, the air, and the water. Stegner has harsh judgments for past and present exploiters of the public domain--especially timber, mining, and cattle grazing interests; he pulls no punches, calling out by name many politicians who ignore and obstruct environmental concerns. The land itself is the great teacher.
The novella, "Genesis," is a gem of an ordeal story and the making of a man. Read it and lose every silly romantic notion about the working life of a cowboy.
The novella, "Genesis," is a gem of an ordeal story and the making of a man. Read it and lose every silly romantic notion about the working life of a cowboy.
September 20, 2023
Wallace Stegner didn’t “just� write great books. He was an early conservationist. His words in the 1960’s about caring for the earth sounded completely at home here in 2023. After a road trip out west this past summer, I wanted to read more about this huge part of America. I saw this book in a National Park bookstore on our trip, and requested it from my local library. Stegner helped me scratch the surface of Western pride. Recommend this book.
Currently reading
April 6, 2025Found at a lovely bookstore in Annapolis. Prefatory quote drew me in:
"It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones. At noon the total sun pours on your single head; at sunrise or sunset you throw a shadow a hundred yards long. It was not praise dwellers who invented the indifferent universe or impotent man. Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but not unnoticed. This is a land to make the sparrow's fall."
"It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones. At noon the total sun pours on your single head; at sunrise or sunset you throw a shadow a hundred yards long. It was not praise dwellers who invented the indifferent universe or impotent man. Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but not unnoticed. This is a land to make the sparrow's fall."
May 2, 2018
Wallace Stegner's talent for rich description and creation of place is unmatched in my view. His views on the abuse of our western environment have earned him some strong critics among westerners who view him as a 'traitor.'
May 28, 2021
A collection of essays on conservation and the environment, the West, America, memory, place, nostalgia, and other related topics. “The Twilight of Self-Reliance� and “At Home in the Fields of the Lord� are the cream of the crop.
July 5, 2023
Highly recommended read for the environmentally minded and those who love the West.
April 26, 2024
Stegner is� well he’s Wallace Stegner. If you live in or love the West you must know Stegner.
October 29, 2024
Stegner is a great writer. I may not always agree with him but, his writing is the best!
December 7, 2024
One of the greatest writers about the American West.
March 11, 2017
This collection of essays is a wonderful compilation of some of Wallace Stegner's most descriptive works concerning the landscape and conservation of the west. For this New Englander it was a revelation. When one is used to forests and trees the western landscape seems alien and remote but Wallace Stegner captures its beauty and conveys that beauty in wonderfully descriptive passages. He also describes in 'Xanadu on the Salt Marsh Flats' the excitement and thrill of a long lost amusement park. Essays are meant to be savored which makes this book an easy but long term read.
March 4, 2017
Ever enlightening, Stegner continues to give me trailheads (books) I have not explored. I am so grateful for all his efforts and cherish all that he has shared with me.
This book of essays is another gem, especially those that are earnestly concerned about conservation.
This book of essays is another gem, especially those that are earnestly concerned about conservation.
January 7, 2011
This book of essays was bittersweet. Stegner's evocative language made me sad that the American West, particularly the middle reaches of the Colorado River altered by the building of Hoover Dam, is no longer available to me or my children or their children. The sweet was that he could describe it vividly, so at least I have a mental picture of what's now drowned. But it does make me ask myself, did we really need a huge lake for water-skiing, houseboating, etc.? Are we better off now that the hotels along Las Vegas Strip can put in huge water features? Um...no. A fascinating look at "progress" from someone who was there and documented it at the time.
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