Crossing to Safety

One uncomfortable consequence of reading works by African-American writers in the last year: difficulty relating to more classic literature. “White man fails to get tenure at midwestern university” does not elicit the sympathetic agony in me that it might once have.

But that's not fair. This book is much more than that: it's Stegner, after all. Warm, tender, and thoughtful. A gentle tale of a rare and exquisite friendship between only-too-human (and real) characters. Of strength and weakness, loss, forgiveness, acceptance of others and oneself. Stegner has such a mature voice, capturing life's arc from energy and hope all the way to contemplation and then different forms of hope. There are many forms of love to be found here.

Near the end the narrator reflects on the chance saving of a mouse from drowning: “Survival, it is called. Often it is accidental, sometimes it is engineered by creatures or forces that we have no conception of, always it is temporary.” He thus humbly acknowledges our smallness and lack of control over fortune, along with our power to control our outlook. This was a beautiful experience; I may want to reread it if/when I reach my sixties.