Fires are raging, and we should all huddle in corners and read books

[itsallovernow]

Because someone's subject line reminded me.

I talk about Wallace Stegner, because he was a big, bold, brassy symbol of Western writing. He is not, in any way shape or form a brassy writer, lyrical and practical and sometimes even a little wistful, but not flamboyant, and also not dull, not endless. He's the end all be all of Western writers, and while there are new ones who shimmer and shine, he's the pinnacle.

But, and I say this with emphasis, let's not forget Norman MacLean in the deifing of Stegner. Because A River Runs Through It is a purely beautiful book, and Young Men and Fire is also, fighting nature and growing up, and how those things do seem to interweave and intertwine.

And fire, I guess is the theme, because I think of the scene in Always, which I know is a merely adequate Spielberg movie that I nevertheless loved passionately as a teenager because it's about death and loss and bravery and Audrey Hepburn was an angel without wings, but I giggle even now thinking about John Goodman sitting under his unbrella, watching the planes try and put out a little fire on the runway, getting pelted with the chemical dump because Richard Dreyfuss is a ghost with a sense of humor.

ETA: LJ seems to be having some peculiar issues today. My posts that had comments, no longer have comments. Not all of them, but some, and it's odd. And yesterday it deleted, or tried to delete a post that hadn't posted yet.

Comments

[raithen.livejournal.com]

funny you should mention MacLean. I loaned my copy of A River Runs Through It & Other Stories" to a 19 year old friend a couple of weeks ago. I HIGHLY recommended Young Men and Fire to her. I taught both novellas to my YOuth and Adolescence lit courses a few years back, and BOY was it interesting. I love those stories. and MacLean's style, and subject matter. I really must read Stegner. *ashamed I haven't done so yet icon*.

Tangentially, this relates to our discussion of feminism, because the REASON I taught MacLean in this course was that I found it REALLY tough to find interesting modern coming-of-age novels about men. There were lots of classics, of course, but I wanted something 20thC, and accessible. I could find any number of Bildungsroman about girls, but not as many about boys. I have always wondered about that. Is it that we feel the need to articulate women's experience because it is so subjugated? Is it that men simply don't discuss/write about/explore these experiences. I dunno. I am just awfully glad MacLean did.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I love MacLean (and may I just say in a moment of girlishness that I also love the movie of A River Runs Through It, and not just because of Brad Pitt fly-fishing which is a turn on in so many ways to my Westerner's geekiness:) And I find MacLean's coming of age take so much more palatable than Holden Caulfield, but maybe it's because I was never a teenaged boy, and didn't read Catcher in the Rye at the right time.

That is interesting, and I think that may be true, that women's experiences feel so personal, because the smallness is overlooked, the everyday and yet it feels so intense to young women - first love and bodies changing, suddenly feeling foreign, and no one says who hoo, now you can have sex, but instead say, oh no,make sure that no one knows.

And for men, it is unspoken, fly fishing and baseball, cars and breasts and beer, and quiet. So much that doesn't get talked about while girls and talk and talk and talk.

BTW, who else did you use in your course?

And yes, you really must read Stegner. He is so worthwhile.

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

Hmm. A River Runs Through It is one of the very few cases where I liked the movie better than the book. MacLean's writing always sounds to me like an asthmatic brain trying to prove he's as macho as the next guy. (Saul Bellow and Normal Mailer often also provoke this reaction in me.) River wasn't as bad as Young Men and Fire in this regard, but I still don't care for his writing.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's a fantastic description of Norman Mailer's writing:) There's something very clean about MacLean's work though, I guess because it's smaller, closer to something I'm familiar with, and I always feel like Mailer's trying to bowl me over and instead ends up pissing me off.

But I have to admit, the book and the movie for River are so tied together for me. I love what they did with the words and the images and the beauty of the Rocky Mountains:)

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

MacLean's *is* a clean style and Mailer always seems cinematic to me but I was thinking less about style and more about content, or about the men that are central to their tales.