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The Sound of Mountain Water
A book of timeless importance about the American West, our "native home of hope."
The essays, memoirs, letters, and speeches in this volume were written over a period of twenty-five years, a time in which the West witnessed rapid changes to its cultural and natural heritage, and Wallace Stegner emerged as an important conservationist and novelist. This collection is divided into two sections: the first features the eloquent sketches of the West's history and environment, directing our imagination to the sublime beauty of such places as San Juan and Glen Canyon; the concluding section examines the state of Western literature, of the mythical past versus the diminished present, and analyzes the difficulties facing any contemporary Western writer. The Sound of Mountain Water is at once a hymn to the Western landscape, an affirmation of the hope embodied therein, and a careful investigation to the West's complex legacy.
The essays, memoirs, letters, and speeches in this volume were written over a period of twenty-five years, a time in which the West witnessed rapid changes to its cultural and natural heritage, and Wallace Stegner emerged as an important conservationist and novelist. This collection is divided into two sections: the first features the eloquent sketches of the West's history and environment, directing our imagination to the sublime beauty of such places as San Juan and Glen Canyon; the concluding section examines the state of Western literature, of the mythical past versus the diminished present, and analyzes the difficulties facing any contemporary Western writer. The Sound of Mountain Water is at once a hymn to the Western landscape, an affirmation of the hope embodied therein, and a careful investigation to the West's complex legacy.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Wallace Stegner
218 books1,856 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 51 reviews
October 27, 2022
The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner
His four road trip chapters on Utah are as good as essays on the American West as one could hope for. The two chapters specifically on the Glen Canyon Dam were extraordinary. So many insights.
I did not care much for part II which is largely his critiques of other writers.
4 stars. First half of the essays was 5 stars.
His four road trip chapters on Utah are as good as essays on the American West as one could hope for. The two chapters specifically on the Glen Canyon Dam were extraordinary. So many insights.
I did not care much for part II which is largely his critiques of other writers.
4 stars. First half of the essays was 5 stars.
October 30, 2017
I have been slowly working my way through Wallace Stegner's entire body of work, and this collection of essays and letters ranks right up among his best. The first part presents a fascinating series of Stegner's personal journeys throughout the American West, describing road trips in the 40s through Arizona, Nevada, and Death Valley; a packhorse trip into Havasupai Canyons; and a boat excursion into Lake Powell. The second part is a terrific treatise on the importance and style of literature in the American West, and how fundamental such literature is to the sense of community that will be necessary to conserve all that is good about the West.
In the book's opening "Overture," Stegner describes an experience he had as a child in 1920, camping on the banks of the Snake River, and his words demonstrate his gift for language that I never tire of reading:
"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. And 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."
In the book's opening "Overture," Stegner describes an experience he had as a child in 1920, camping on the banks of the Snake River, and his words demonstrate his gift for language that I never tire of reading:
"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. And 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."
January 18, 2024
A series of essays on the American West in two parts. The first half focuses mostly on the land, culture and environment - mostly the desert areas with a heavy focus on southern Utah. The second half is more about western writers and literature. Honestly, I loved the first half - a solid 4 stars for me - and I loved some of his observations of Glenn Canyon and the area lost to Lake Powell. But the second half seemed to just be a lot of obsolete ruminations about the state of literature - and wasn't interesting enough to keep me from eventually skimming most of it - 2 stars. The first half I'd hold up alongside other older "nature" writers like John McPhee and Hal Borland and some of the newer ones like Jim Sterba and Jordan Fisher Smith, or even Fred Pearce. But the second half I could have skipped.
November 10, 2015
If you live west of Denver and haven't read Wallace Stegner, you're not living right. The essays collected here are a bit less accessible than some of his other stuff, but this one's worth the slog. My favorites were the essays on Havasupai Canyon and touring the Mojave Desert. It's a hymn to the West. Give it a whirl.
April 23, 2009
I enjoyed the first 169 pages of this book. I won't be reading beyond that. From page 170 on, the pieces are better suited to a college course on writers of the American West. I'm not fond of reading writers writing about the writing of other writers. The one exception being book introductions, which are often helpful.
I really liked the pieces I did read because I have been to or near most of the places he wrote about: Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, southern Utah, Mojave Desert. It was interesting, if a little sad, to read how things were when Stegner was there in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and compare that with how they were when I was loving those places in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
I think the "Coda" wilderness letter was probably my favorite piece. Short, but powerful and moving. I remember learning in my college Environmental Science courses about the "idea of wilderness" being an important cultural value, even if most people never visit that wilderness. The things we learned could have been (probably were?) lifted straight from this letter written in 1960.
I really liked the pieces I did read because I have been to or near most of the places he wrote about: Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, southern Utah, Mojave Desert. It was interesting, if a little sad, to read how things were when Stegner was there in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and compare that with how they were when I was loving those places in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
I think the "Coda" wilderness letter was probably my favorite piece. Short, but powerful and moving. I remember learning in my college Environmental Science courses about the "idea of wilderness" being an important cultural value, even if most people never visit that wilderness. The things we learned could have been (probably were?) lifted straight from this letter written in 1960.
July 25, 2018
I enjoyed these essays on life in the West and writers of the West. I will come back later and tell you why. As all good books do, this added weight to my TBR list. Now I am eager to read Bernard DeVoto.
June 26, 2024
Wallace Stegner's "Sound of Mountain Water" is a collection of essays from one western America's premier writers. This collection covers a lot of ground both physically and intellectually.
I particularly enjoyed the essays about locations in the Intermountain West. His historical perspective isn't limited to those who inhabit these places now. He will trace the history of a section of the Colorado River in Utah that includes the Basket Weavers, Pueblo, Navajo, Paiute, Spaniard, Mormon, gold digger, and oil prospector. When he mentions remote small towns I am a bit proud to not only know where they are but have physically been to most of them. When he speaks about the rivers in the region I likewise feel at home knowing most of the personally.
But it's really Stagner's prose that capture the reader's imagination. Even if you've never visited any of these places, Stagner will transport you there and reveal the beauty, power, scale, vulnerability and fragility of western landscapes.
Stegner was born in Utah but isn't LDS. While he may have admired much of what they had accomplished he held the religion itself at arm's length. His essay about Salt Lake City, written in 1960 titled "At Home in the Fields of the Lord" describes a SLC that simply no longer exists. He was also around when the Glen Canyon dam was built submerging Glen Canyon, which Stegner and other westerners considered the most beautiful, culturally important, and ecologically diverse section of the Colorado. His essays from both before and after the construction of the dam reflect a sad acceptance of "the way things are" and speaks to the resultant beauty of Lake Powell.
"Sound" also includes three essays which are critics of three western writers, Bret Harte, Willa Cather, and Bernard Devoto. Of the three only Cather is of any interest to me but the essays are as clear and sharp as anything Stegner writes. I enjoyed them even thru my indifference.
Highly recommended to anyone who loves the outdoors, in or out of the Intermounain West. Plus those with any interest in the American West in general. When it comes to writing with a powerful sense of place it's difficult to beat Stegner.
I particularly enjoyed the essays about locations in the Intermountain West. His historical perspective isn't limited to those who inhabit these places now. He will trace the history of a section of the Colorado River in Utah that includes the Basket Weavers, Pueblo, Navajo, Paiute, Spaniard, Mormon, gold digger, and oil prospector. When he mentions remote small towns I am a bit proud to not only know where they are but have physically been to most of them. When he speaks about the rivers in the region I likewise feel at home knowing most of the personally.
But it's really Stagner's prose that capture the reader's imagination. Even if you've never visited any of these places, Stagner will transport you there and reveal the beauty, power, scale, vulnerability and fragility of western landscapes.
Stegner was born in Utah but isn't LDS. While he may have admired much of what they had accomplished he held the religion itself at arm's length. His essay about Salt Lake City, written in 1960 titled "At Home in the Fields of the Lord" describes a SLC that simply no longer exists. He was also around when the Glen Canyon dam was built submerging Glen Canyon, which Stegner and other westerners considered the most beautiful, culturally important, and ecologically diverse section of the Colorado. His essays from both before and after the construction of the dam reflect a sad acceptance of "the way things are" and speaks to the resultant beauty of Lake Powell.
"Sound" also includes three essays which are critics of three western writers, Bret Harte, Willa Cather, and Bernard Devoto. Of the three only Cather is of any interest to me but the essays are as clear and sharp as anything Stegner writes. I enjoyed them even thru my indifference.
Highly recommended to anyone who loves the outdoors, in or out of the Intermounain West. Plus those with any interest in the American West in general. When it comes to writing with a powerful sense of place it's difficult to beat Stegner.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2016
Even if you know little, nothing or a great deal about the West, you should read this. Stegner's dedication to writing about the environment, people, and our place... our roll in it is thoughtful and speculative. The first half of his book, (stories, essays, memoirs and thoughts over the twenty-five year period, approximately 1946 to 1969 about the settling of the dry West—everything west of the 100th meridian in America) is dedicated to water, landscape and the environment of change upon it. Each chapter left me spellbound... wondering how his adventures would impact his future writing. I have read almost everything he has written and seriously only read this because I'm getting to the bottom of his books. I am not a reader of short stories as they have never been able to keep my attention, or I should say, I always found myself lost trying to figure out why I was reading a short story, as they never satisfied my curiosity, not enough time to develop characters or scenarios. In this book I was taken in and transfixed with the idea of the west, Stegner identified something in me that has been at the bottom of my gut for as long as I can remember; "Westerners...'fearing the loss of what little tradition we have, we cling to it hard; we are hooked on history." He goes on to say, "we know the obligation to be ourselves even when it seems we are squares." I'm stunned into silence and then quiet observation of this moment in time, this moment that I am indeed very thankful to have. In the second half of the book, Stegner introduces the reader to writers that had an impact on him. Again very good, but I was not as transfixed as I was with the first half. He does stir up my creative side, he makes me think about the impact I have and as an artist how I touch the world. I will find some of the authors that he discusses and read them, but I'm pretty sure no other writer will touch my heart in the way he does and has.
October 6, 2014
A collection of old essays written starting in the 1940's. I enjoyed them. I love Stegner's writing, especially when he's writing about places I know.
My two favorites were "The Rediscovery of America: 1946. It is about a road trip from Salt Lake, down to Lake Mead, Deep Springs school, Death Valley and back. The other one I liked was "At Home in the Fields of the Lord", a tribute to hometowns; and Salt Lake City, in particular, as Stegner's hometown.
I liked these quotes:
"Any place deeply lived in, any place where the vitality has been high and the emotions freely involved can fill the sensory attic with images enough for a lifetime of nostalgia. As the poet says, "There, for a while, I lived life to the hilt, and so come what may."
"There is this solid sense of having had or having been or having lived something real and good and satisfying, and the knowledge that having had or been or lived these things I can never lose them again. Home is what you can take away with you."
My two favorites were "The Rediscovery of America: 1946. It is about a road trip from Salt Lake, down to Lake Mead, Deep Springs school, Death Valley and back. The other one I liked was "At Home in the Fields of the Lord", a tribute to hometowns; and Salt Lake City, in particular, as Stegner's hometown.
I liked these quotes:
"Any place deeply lived in, any place where the vitality has been high and the emotions freely involved can fill the sensory attic with images enough for a lifetime of nostalgia. As the poet says, "There, for a while, I lived life to the hilt, and so come what may."
"There is this solid sense of having had or having been or having lived something real and good and satisfying, and the knowledge that having had or been or lived these things I can never lose them again. Home is what you can take away with you."
April 4, 2008
This book really annoyed me and is the reason I am not a Stegnar fan. It's a compilation of essays by Stegnar about the Western man. I think it's arrogant and condescending. In one essay, he talks about how no one wants to hear about the Western man and how he (no doubt referring to himself) is screwed because he is too good and doesn't have the paranoia, disease, and narcissism that most of the "freak" writers have--like the blacks and homosexuals, etc. I don't think he meant anything racist or homophobic, but the complaint is odd coming from a very accomplished western writer not without his own issues.
March 26, 2019
I wanted to love this book but I just... did not. I fell in love with Wallace Stegner in Angle if Repose, and while it was fun to read writing from his own perspective, most of these essays felt dated and not relevant to today.
Though I did enjoy the contrast of Glen Canyon before and after the dam, and have read a few other stories of Havusupai it was enjoyable to read about that in the earlier part of the 19th century. But I skimmed through the rest of the essays.
Though I did enjoy the contrast of Glen Canyon before and after the dam, and have read a few other stories of Havusupai it was enjoyable to read about that in the earlier part of the 19th century. But I skimmed through the rest of the essays.
November 2, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. Despite publishing in 1969, it was not only entertaining but included some attempted truisms that still resonate ~50 years later. About half way into the book, I did tire somewhat of the narrative description of nature. I have enjoyed several Stegner novels and collections of essays. This one is probably 4th on the list as a whole, but there are some really good reads in this collection. I am not a literature student, but I enjoy reading Stegner's reviews of other writings. Not sure why, but I find it page turning stuff. In particular, I enjoyed his essay "Born a Square" and wonder if that does not offer, in part, a continuing explanation of our political divide in 2020. The activities of the late 60s carry through to today as we still have two Boomers running for president. My favorite passage (talking about western writers compared to eastern literature norms and critics), and one that I identify with somewhat (not as a writer but a simpleton living a good life without angst and infidelity):
"And as he listens to the people around him it slowly dawns on him that his book and the stance from which he wrote it were both embarrassing mistakes. For his novel had a hero, or at least a respect for the heroic virtues - fortitude, resolution, magnanimity. Where it was angry, it was angry at things like incubus bankers and octopus railroads, things remote or irrelevant from the point of view of contemporary malaise; and where it dealt in the tears of things, its tears were bucolic and unsophisticated, shed for a mother's death or a father's failure or the collapse of a strenuous dream. Though they may have lived in a howling wilderness, his characters were incredibly blind to the paralyzing loneliness that both psychiatry and literature says is incurable, and they ignorantly escaped the lovelessness that the same authorities insist is standard. Their story did not question or deplore life's difficult struggle, but celebrated it.
Our Westerner, writing what he knew, or thought he knew, had filled his book with a lot of naïve belief and health and effort, had made callow assumptions about the perfectibility of the social order and the fact of individual responsibility. He had taken monogamy for granted, at least as a norm; he had kept a stiff upper lip; he had been so concerned with a simple but difficult Becoming that he had taken no thought of Being."
(pages 172-173; "Born a Square")
"And as he listens to the people around him it slowly dawns on him that his book and the stance from which he wrote it were both embarrassing mistakes. For his novel had a hero, or at least a respect for the heroic virtues - fortitude, resolution, magnanimity. Where it was angry, it was angry at things like incubus bankers and octopus railroads, things remote or irrelevant from the point of view of contemporary malaise; and where it dealt in the tears of things, its tears were bucolic and unsophisticated, shed for a mother's death or a father's failure or the collapse of a strenuous dream. Though they may have lived in a howling wilderness, his characters were incredibly blind to the paralyzing loneliness that both psychiatry and literature says is incurable, and they ignorantly escaped the lovelessness that the same authorities insist is standard. Their story did not question or deplore life's difficult struggle, but celebrated it.
Our Westerner, writing what he knew, or thought he knew, had filled his book with a lot of naïve belief and health and effort, had made callow assumptions about the perfectibility of the social order and the fact of individual responsibility. He had taken monogamy for granted, at least as a norm; he had kept a stiff upper lip; he had been so concerned with a simple but difficult Becoming that he had taken no thought of Being."
(pages 172-173; "Born a Square")
November 18, 2023
Stegner’s The Sound of Mountain Water is an exploration of the West, as seen through the eyes of a westerner. It is about describing the region, one that is bound by aridity and water scarcity, as well as enormous stockpiles of minerals — a region that is shaped by myth as much as reality, “from exploration through exploitation to federal reservation and management.”
But it’s also a moral book, one that seeks to preserve what’s left of the West: “This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins.”
Through this book, we take a trip through the Glen Canyon, before it’s drowned under water by Lake Powell, wrestling with the transformation of the land: “It strikes me, even in my exhilaration, with the consciousness of loss. In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable.”
In “The Land of Enchantment” we see the history and booms and busts of roadside attractions along Highway 66 in New Mexico, with each capitalistic vendor trying to up the ante of the next guy, in a never ending quest to control the environment.
Perhaps the most philosophically Stegner is the “Coda” essay, in which he writes to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, in defense of “wilderness preservation that involves recreation.” He lays out his hope for a future west, one that argues for wilderness for the sake of wilderness, the identity and spiritual replenishment that is bound up in the land.
My favorite essay is probably “At Home in the Fields of the Lord,” where Stegner explores the meaning of aa hometown and wrestles with his own lack of identity when it comes to one, before finally, not reluctantly but embracingly, settles on Salt Lake City as his hometown, a sort of love letter to the city that lies in the great bowl mountain valley.
Bound up in nostalgia, Stgener revisits the city “warmed by this flood of recollection… and well-being Salt Lake gives me now [that] is partly satisfaction at having survived here things that might have destroyed me.”
What makes this book a three, rather than a four, is Stegner’s academic nature, shown most notably in his long essays on Bret Harte, Willa Cather, and Bernard DeVoto. Though a great writer, Stegner’s words still feel like work to get through, much more philosophical than descriptive, much more verbose than McMurtry, while lacking the sharp wit of Abbey.
A good read for those bound on a train from Denver to Salt Lake, with the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River just outside the observation car, a perfect backdrop — but still, it falls into a genre that flirts with high-minded literary circles, rather than the rugged mountain men that the West is so defined by.
But it’s also a moral book, one that seeks to preserve what’s left of the West: “This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins.”
Through this book, we take a trip through the Glen Canyon, before it’s drowned under water by Lake Powell, wrestling with the transformation of the land: “It strikes me, even in my exhilaration, with the consciousness of loss. In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable.”
In “The Land of Enchantment” we see the history and booms and busts of roadside attractions along Highway 66 in New Mexico, with each capitalistic vendor trying to up the ante of the next guy, in a never ending quest to control the environment.
Perhaps the most philosophically Stegner is the “Coda” essay, in which he writes to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, in defense of “wilderness preservation that involves recreation.” He lays out his hope for a future west, one that argues for wilderness for the sake of wilderness, the identity and spiritual replenishment that is bound up in the land.
My favorite essay is probably “At Home in the Fields of the Lord,” where Stegner explores the meaning of aa hometown and wrestles with his own lack of identity when it comes to one, before finally, not reluctantly but embracingly, settles on Salt Lake City as his hometown, a sort of love letter to the city that lies in the great bowl mountain valley.
Bound up in nostalgia, Stgener revisits the city “warmed by this flood of recollection… and well-being Salt Lake gives me now [that] is partly satisfaction at having survived here things that might have destroyed me.”
What makes this book a three, rather than a four, is Stegner’s academic nature, shown most notably in his long essays on Bret Harte, Willa Cather, and Bernard DeVoto. Though a great writer, Stegner’s words still feel like work to get through, much more philosophical than descriptive, much more verbose than McMurtry, while lacking the sharp wit of Abbey.
A good read for those bound on a train from Denver to Salt Lake, with the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River just outside the observation car, a perfect backdrop — but still, it falls into a genre that flirts with high-minded literary circles, rather than the rugged mountain men that the West is so defined by.
December 24, 2016
It is the writing, just the writing, that keeps me coming back. I’m lucky he writes about things I enjoy, like the west, but I'd probably read him describing cereal too. This collection of essays was written from the 1940s-1960s and Stegner himself admits it was written "in innocence, with a simple minded love of western landscape". Now he is older and wiser and, now, he is no fan of Lake Mead or Lake Powell. But the essays are priceless for the time and place they were written.
"We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope." He writes in support of wilderness, and it is interesting to hear the arguments from a half century ago. Some of it played out just the way he thought, and some of it was far worse.
He argues for a present, possessed sense of the west, not just a myth. "...millions of westerners, old and new, have no sense of a personal and possessed past, no sense of any continuity between the real western past which has been mythicized almost out of recognizability and a real western present that seems as cut-off and pointless as a ride on a merry-go-round that can't be stopped." This is a critical concept for we that love the west. When I lived on the east coast I noticed how people reacted to the fact that I came from Utah. They would talk of national parks and vacations. It meant nothing to them other than a trip. Our dependence on tourism helps create that. It is like east coast Americans are a bunch of Disneyland dads, just showing up for the fun part and leaving their trash everywhere.
Stegner's essay on the writing of history is also a "must-read" as he addresses so many of my questions. What is a narrative? What is a point of view? Did DeVoto or Harte get it right? How do I "force shape and eloquence on a resistant and complex of historical fact?" I wish I knew. He extols Willa Cather and I would have to agree that she is brilliant: "[her] characters stretch into symbolic suggestiveness as naturally as trees cast shadows in the long light of a prairie evening." As I said, the writing.
"We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope." He writes in support of wilderness, and it is interesting to hear the arguments from a half century ago. Some of it played out just the way he thought, and some of it was far worse.
He argues for a present, possessed sense of the west, not just a myth. "...millions of westerners, old and new, have no sense of a personal and possessed past, no sense of any continuity between the real western past which has been mythicized almost out of recognizability and a real western present that seems as cut-off and pointless as a ride on a merry-go-round that can't be stopped." This is a critical concept for we that love the west. When I lived on the east coast I noticed how people reacted to the fact that I came from Utah. They would talk of national parks and vacations. It meant nothing to them other than a trip. Our dependence on tourism helps create that. It is like east coast Americans are a bunch of Disneyland dads, just showing up for the fun part and leaving their trash everywhere.
Stegner's essay on the writing of history is also a "must-read" as he addresses so many of my questions. What is a narrative? What is a point of view? Did DeVoto or Harte get it right? How do I "force shape and eloquence on a resistant and complex of historical fact?" I wish I knew. He extols Willa Cather and I would have to agree that she is brilliant: "[her] characters stretch into symbolic suggestiveness as naturally as trees cast shadows in the long light of a prairie evening." As I said, the writing.
August 8, 2017
I love Stegner. And I loved reading these essays, the best of which are travelogues through the American West. He's unique voice, and tragically under represented in the pantheon of America's great writers.
"The Rediscovery of America: 1946" describes his first road trip after the gas rationing of World War II. "One of the least-bearable wartime deprivations was the loss of our mobility. We are a wheeled people." It is beautifully nostalgic and typically (for Stegner) hopeful.
"Packhorse Paradise" is Stegner's venture into Havasupai, and he describes the canyon exactly as I experienced it myself. "This is sure enough the Shangri-la everyone has said it is, this is the valley of Kubla Khan, here is Alph the sacred river, and here are the gardens bright with sinuous rills where blossoms many an incense-bearing tree."
"Glen Canyon Submersus" is his account of returning to the site of what once was Glen Canyon after it was damed and flooded to create Lake Powell. "In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable."
"At Home in the Fields of the Lord" is his love letter to his boyhood home of Salt Lake City, that resonates with me deeply. "Its soil is held together by the roots of the family and the cornerstones of the temple...Knowing Salt Lake City means knowing its canyons, too, for no city of my acquaintance except possibly Reno breaks off so naturally and easily into fine free country...From its founding, Salt Lake City has been sanctuary; that has been its justification and its function."
"The Rediscovery of America: 1946" describes his first road trip after the gas rationing of World War II. "One of the least-bearable wartime deprivations was the loss of our mobility. We are a wheeled people." It is beautifully nostalgic and typically (for Stegner) hopeful.
"Packhorse Paradise" is Stegner's venture into Havasupai, and he describes the canyon exactly as I experienced it myself. "This is sure enough the Shangri-la everyone has said it is, this is the valley of Kubla Khan, here is Alph the sacred river, and here are the gardens bright with sinuous rills where blossoms many an incense-bearing tree."
"Glen Canyon Submersus" is his account of returning to the site of what once was Glen Canyon after it was damed and flooded to create Lake Powell. "In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable."
"At Home in the Fields of the Lord" is his love letter to his boyhood home of Salt Lake City, that resonates with me deeply. "Its soil is held together by the roots of the family and the cornerstones of the temple...Knowing Salt Lake City means knowing its canyons, too, for no city of my acquaintance except possibly Reno breaks off so naturally and easily into fine free country...From its founding, Salt Lake City has been sanctuary; that has been its justification and its function."
January 18, 2022
The first part of this collection reminded me a bit of Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent—just less funny and more literary—and the rest of it made me want to take a class on western American literature. This was my first time reading Wallace Stegner's nonfiction, which confirmed what I already knew: I will enjoy anything this guy writes. He's that good. I love that he's a non-Mormon Utah guy, too; he brings a different perspective about a place I know and love.
I don't often want to meet the people I admire, but I think Wallace Stegner would have been a fascinating person to have a conversation with. He has such a good mind. I guess I'll just keep working my way through his backlist instead.
I don't often want to meet the people I admire, but I think Wallace Stegner would have been a fascinating person to have a conversation with. He has such a good mind. I guess I'll just keep working my way through his backlist instead.
March 21, 2019
Wallace Stegner is an American treasure. He carved out a niche as a fictional and nonfictional writer of the West, and one who was also a devout environmentalist, before environmentalism became chic. This book is a collection of essays by him, but it's a little deceptive, as much of the book concerns his thoughts on writing and writers, notably his friend (and biographical subject) Bernard DeVoto. I expected more about the West and its conservation. Nonetheless, if you're a fan of Stegner, you'll enjoy "The Sound of Mountain Water."
January 28, 2021
I consider myself a pretty huge Stegner fan. I was surprised that I hadn't picked up this collection before. The first 2/3 are wonderful essays about trips and travels in the west. Floating the San Juan, Glen Canyon before and after it became Lake Powell, and other great glimpses of the west. His love of the landscape and his command of word is remarkable. The last 1/3 he gets into some deep thoughts about western literature and what is and isn't literature and history. He tends to lose me when he delves so deeply into fairly abstract thoughts. He does share some great thoughts about Willa Cather that I enjoyed.
January 29, 2018
The book has two parts: the first is very nice, but I wish I had skipped the second. The first part contains some nice essays about different places and experiences in the West. The second contains essays that are supposed to be literary criticism, but --- to me at least --- really fell flat. Still, I'm a complete Stegner junkie so I can't help but like it overall.
July 22, 2019
Really enjoyed this book—it’s divided into two parts-essays from his travels in the west. In this section he captures the difficulties of different cultures and their merging/parallel existence. And in the second section, he writes essays pertinent to the western reader: thoughts on western authors, culture, and literature.
October 28, 2020
The second half of this collection of essays, letters, speeches, and such was thought-provoking, particularly the article about novelists as historians. It also provides much information about Stegner's relationship with Bernard Devoto. Few writers have written about the West with the insight and knowledge and skill of Stegner.
August 23, 2022
I enjoyed this for the most part but found my self skipping through certain sections. My beef with this compilation: I have no idea the time frame he is writing about in these essays, and 2) it would be nice to know when the essays were precisely written/published. Otherwise I was swimming in the dark. Therefore, a lot of these writings were, if I can use pun-ish irony, dated.
June 20, 2018
A great collection of non-fiction that evokes the West. I could quibble with a couple of things - in fact I will, if you ask me - but overall, Stegner makes the flatness, the horrors, the lack of water, the landscapes seem grand without becoming mystical about it.
December 3, 2018
A beautiful, layered homage to the West, and in particular the desert landscape and people. Dated in both voice and cultural nuance at times, it still shines. If you love the backcountry and canyons of the Southwest, this is a worthy read.
December 21, 2020
I love Stegner, and here are some essays on the Western landscape and the importance of wilderness. However, “Born a Square” is a terrible, self-centered and self-pitying essay that almost sinks the entire collection.
February 16, 2023
There are moments when Stegner’s prose envelopes you and carries you downstream in a slow and seductive way. There are other times when just getting through a page is sheer drudgery. These essays are best sipped and not guzzled.
July 25, 2017
Loved the essays about his adventures in the back country the most. Love the way he writes.
April 26, 2018
Enjoyed the descriptions of exploring the southwest during the years immediately following WWII, but skipped the literary criticism, which was most of the book.
January 8, 2019
Stegner is a Utah darling. It is thrilling to read his prose about my new environs, however his writing can be wooden and forced at times.
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