You know you've been watching the Olympics for too long when curling starts to look like fun.
Angle of Repose is great so far. It's a very easy read. It became even more interesting to me when I discovered today that it is based on the life of a real woman, Mary Hallock Foote, who was a writer and illustrator like Stegner's fictional Susan Burling Ward. Like Susan, Mary was also Eastern born, well bred and very literary, who married a miner and followed him to the wilds of California and Idaho. Her articles and illustrations of her experiences were published in magazines back East; they helped people visualize the unsettled and 'uncivilized' parts of the American West.
Angle of Repose is great so far. It's a very easy read. It became even more interesting to me when I discovered today that it is based on the life of a real woman, Mary Hallock Foote, who was a writer and illustrator like Stegner's fictional Susan Burling Ward. Like Susan, Mary was also Eastern born, well bred and very literary, who married a miner and followed him to the wilds of California and Idaho. Her articles and illustrations of her experiences were published in magazines back East; they helped people visualize the unsettled and 'uncivilized' parts of the American West.
Here is a great link to learn more about Mary Hallock Foote, her husband Arthur and their Western life, and see some of her awesome illustrations.
http://www.idahohistory.net/prospector_feb04.pdf
Angle of Repose is a beautiful book. I read it at a time in my life when it really touched me. I loved it. It is one of the few books I plan to re-read.
ReplyDeleteI used to live in the Bay Area (Santa Rosa) so this book is really bringing me back to those days and how much I loved California. It really is a wild kind of beauty you can't find anywhere else in the country.
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