Crossing to Safety Part I: 8-13
Good Morning Fellow Readers,
I hope you all are enjoying your Saturday morning after a busy spring-like week. Spring has always been a busy season, but it has definitely picked up the more school age kids I have. So, I am coming to the weekends these days feeling a huge sense of relief. We are in a season where we have something to do every week night so I am getting to the weekend wanting to hunker down for some rest. Thankfully that pairs very nicely with my love of books and with the frequency my children have been sick this winter/spring. Maybe God knows we will only rest if forced to sometimes. That’s a thought!
In other news, I have finalized the book list (I think) for next year and am looking forward to sharing it with you all soon. I will release the list one book at a time throughout the day again. So, make sure you are subscribed so you get all the announcements in real time. It is always a fun day for me (and I heard good feedback from last year). I am planning to drop it on May 18th instead of a regularly scheduled post, so mark your calendars! I cannot wait (but actually will I be able to wait?)
If you are only following along virtually this could be a great time to think about starting an in person group. Book drop time is always so exciting so it could be a great way to get garner some enthusiasm from local bookish friends! Please message me to chat about how to start your own group!
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…
If you are reading along with my schedule for Crossing to Safety we are now done with Part I. I am still doing a mix of listening and reading and I am honestly enjoying both reading experiences. I cherish every chance I get to snuggle up in my reading chair with a pencil and the book. But, I also have enjoyed listening to the audio book (with my notebook and pencil nearby) while making all the pizzas for movie night the past two Fridays. I hope you are all enjoying the book as well and would love to hear your thoughts! Here are some of my scattered thoughts…
Chapter Musings
Chapter 8
In which Charity has her baby, Sally is waiting, Larry gets his novel published, there’s a party, some kissing, and Sally’s water breaks.
Sally and Larry’s disagreement about if Charity’s baby is cute!
“Mailbox scenes are the dramatic moments of our totally undramatic life.” (108)
We hear what Larry’s book is about and it is interesting because it seems to foreshadow the writing of the book we are reading…
“Yet now, having held in grief and resentment, and evaded thinking too much about the episode that changed my life with the finality of an axe, here I am exalted by having made use of it, by having spilled my guts in public. We are strange creatures, and writers are stranger creatures than most.” (109)
What is with Larry kissing different women? Is it wrong or is there some 1930’s culture thing I am missing?
Sid and Larry’s conversation about Charity’s requirements of Sid is revealing…
“She says our commitment to teaching is like a marriage vow. Once you’ve made a decision like that you should never look back.” (115)
Chapter 9
In which Sally has a rough labor that ends in a c-section and they name the baby Lang and accidentally ruin Charity’s plans.
The difference in Sally and Charity’s labors and recoveries are striking.
“I felt envious for Sally, ghastly and etherized and patched together with twine. Good fortune was like money; those who had, got.” (122)
This is the first incident that we are caused to think will be the cause of Sally’s long term disability, but we are relieved it is not.
“You’ve gone and spoiled everything. Why didn’t Sally think? We had a plot to marry her to David if she turned our female, What kind of name is that going to leave her? Lang Lang. She’ll sound like a streetcar.” (123)
Chapter 10
In which Larry gets let go for the next school year and the couple’s decide to go boating ending in almost tragic results.
Charity is right again. Sid followed her plan and gets to stay on, but it doesn’t make him very happy.
When Sid tells Larry to speak for himself it seems to have more than one meaning. Sid can’t speak for himself, Charity speaks for him. Larry and Charity want the same things.
“Maybe we’ll all drown.” (128)
Is this boating trip how Sally gets disabled?
“When are you going to write something about all of us here? Don’t we tempt you as a subject?”
”Give me time.” (130)Larry needed time to be able to look back and write about them. The memory novel themes continue to intrigue me.
“When they reached the capsized boat, (I.A.) Richards was still clinging to it, and as if to preserve the meaning of meaning they rescued him.” (131)
The above quote is even more interesting if you have read The Abolition of Man because C.S. Lewis is arguing against Richards in that book! If you wanted to read it After Humanity (published by Word on Fire) is a great companion resource (and in it Michael Ward talks a lot about I.A. Richards).
Charity is right again, but meets Sid’s resistance. Maybe being right isn’t the point?
“We are not riding the waves down and then rising buoyantly again. We are simply boring into them, heavier and lower, heading down.” (133)
“We were probably in more danger than we realized.” (134)
We get another reference to Eden…
“Naked in Eden, the ultimate atomic family, pink and wet and warm, we lay entangled in the tub, and rescue was so recent, safety so sweet, that I didn’t have the heart to tell Sally what had happened to us.” (136)
“we loved them both, sometimes in spite of themselves and ourselves. At the time I could not have told them that. I am not sure that either Sally or I was ever able to tell them, though it had to be apparent without telling. Just in case, I tell them now.” (141)
The shipwreck right after Larry being let go is significant. But the fact that they are rescued so quickly (from the shipwreck and by Sid and Charity) makes me hopeful about their future. I think the shipwreck is an objective correlative (if you want a big literary word) for the Morgan’s academic situation.
Chapter 11
In which Larry misses Sally, kisses someone else, drives to Vermont, and reunites with Sally.
Seriously what is it with Larry kissing women? Is it to tempt us to think there is going to be spousal drama (which Larry refers to in chapter 13)?
I love the musing about going east…
“There was a sense of dark enclosing forest opening up into lost farms and little lonely towns. A sense of dark enclosing history also—Indians in bark canoes, pork-eaters, blackrobes, fur traders, French exploreres greedy for empire. Exhilarated, going to the wrong way on a one-way historical street, I rattled back toward the beginnings of the Republic, toward the ancestral East that had never figured in my life…” (147)
The part about Larry trying to stay awake is written so well!
More Eden/Paradise imagery…
“Thus to awaken in Paradise. We hadn’t earned it, we didn’t deserve it, we didn’t belong there, it wouldn’t last. But how wonderful to have even a taste. (151)
Chapter 12
In which everyone enjoys Battell Pond together.
Charity’s routines being compared to jail…Larry then says that is not really true, but is it for Sid?
“…when he was released from scholarship.” (153)
So many more Eden references…
Sid knows a lot of sad ballads…
The reference to Charity being their fairy godmother…is it actually more sinister? Larry seems to go back and forth a bit on his attitude…Sally seems to soften our view of Charity, which is maybe the correct view. It seems like Sally is the character we sympathize most with? Is Sally the reason Larry can write like he does? Charity is the reason Sid writes what he does but in a more controlling way. I’d like to think about the ways the wives influence their husbands.
“Only when Sally explained the evening to me did I begin to realize what Charity had done for us. Until then, I thought things had just happened.” (161)
Chapter 13
In which the four friends go camping and tragedy finally strikes Sally.
The serpent is here…
“Eden. With, of course, its serpent. Nod Eden valid without serpent.” (163)
Is someone the snake? Or is it the relational dynamics? Or is it just whatever is going to happen to Sally?
The beginning of the camping trip is painful with the tea, the chicken, and the story that Comfort told about the camera. It is interesting that each story has a subject that is so little, but what it brings out in Sid and Charity’s relationship is so large.
“I couldn’t let him get away with that, telling me what I can and can’t do. Could I?” (169)
I love that the question at the end of the quote is left hanging…the moral of the story is don’t go on other people’s honeymoons, says Comfort (which is hilarious).
Also interesting that she can’t let him boss her around, but that’s exactly what she was doing (and how the marriage started so it continued).
“It is not my expedition. I am a guest here.” (171)
“As I dream of a jail sentence, he dreams of vagabondage and irresponsibility, which would probably drive him crazy as fast as a jail sentence would drive me. But it is a fine morning for fantasy…” (173)
Sid “loses” (read: throws and then lies) his cane right away…this is significant.
“I keep my peace. Also my cane. As a matter of fact, I rather like the feel of it. But then, nobody is making me carry it.” (174)
Sally calls Larry out for being like Charity.
The joke that Charity actually wrote Prichard’s book makes me think she is practically writing Sid’s too.
Sally gets worse right after Larry has semi abandoned her again…like before her labor started…this seems significant as well.
Is Larry only pessimistic in retrospect about Sally’s condition?
“Good fortune, contentment, peace, happiness have never been able to deceive me for long. I expect the worst, and I was right. So much for the dream of man.” (195)
Well there you are! There are lots of scattered thoughts that I have had while reading. I hope they draw you into the book further and increase your enjoyment of some of the things Larry, I mean Stegner is trying to do as he writes us this story. I would love to hear your thoughts as you read as well so please leave a comment! And as always, I can’t wait for our in person meetings where we can really dig into the book in community.
Close Reads Podcasts for Crossing to Safety
Here are the Close Reads HQ podcast episodes again. I have not listened to them yet on this read, but I’d like to listen to the first 4 episodes this week (since I’ve already written about those chapters). I hope you enjoy them!
Part I: 1-4
Part I: 5-6
Part I: 7-10
Part I: 11-13
Part II: 1-3
Part II: 4-5
Part III
Q&A
Other Things I’m Enjoying
I was trying to focus on silence during Lent and wanted to read The Power of Silence by Cardinal Sarah during those weeks, but I got started very late so I am slowly working my way through it now. It is a beautiful book that really benefits from being read slowly. I can pick it up and read one paragraph and have something to contemplate for the rest of the day.
I started reading Trust this past week with
and wow! I am loving this book. I don’t even want to tell you too much about it because it is a book to experience. If you end up reading it, don’t even read the back cover! Just read and enjoy the experience. I am not finished yet, but I hear it only gets better as it goes. I listened to the first podcast episode and they were careful not to give blatant spoilers, but honestly if I had to go back I would read the whole thing before I listened to anyone talk about it.
This post about why you should start or keep common placing by
is encouraging me to revive my common place book. I have a “too many notebooks” problem and recently have been putting everything in one notebook. But that has led to much less common placing and even when I do write a quote down it gets lost in my Notebook of All The Things.
And now I will leave you to your other Saturday activities, which I hope include at least a little bit of time with a book. If you’re reading anything outside of our book club reading I would also love to hear about it in the comments. One of my favorite things in this world are book recommendations. Creating a very long TBR list is a joy filled activity for me. There’s no way I’ll ever get to it all and yet I’ve found most of my favorite books from other people’s recommendations. So please share yours! Have a lovely, leisurely weekend and go grab a book!
Enjoy your reading until we meet again!
“How many a great man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”
-Henry David Thoreau (found in my actual Common Place Book!)
A Few Reminders
If you haven’t taken the survey for this year yet, please do so here!
Here’s the schedule for Crossing to Safety if you want to follow along with me. But as always feel free to read the book at any pace that works for you!
April 20th: Part I: ch 1-7 (pgs 3-104)
April 27th: Part I: ch 8-13 (pgs 105-195)
May 4th: Part II (pgs 199-271)
May 11th: Part III (pgs 275-327)
After that we have The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro for June.
If you are reading along but are not part of an in person group, please message me and we can chat about getting you set up to start one! You are more than welcome to follow along virtually, but we value in person community so much that I would very much encourage you to have a group!
If you are part of a group, but you’re not on our Slack page, please contact me. That is where people share thoughts and logistics for each in person group.
Book lists from previous years can be found here.
We are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (with links to Substack) in order to spread the joy of the reading life to more people...if you want to like or share with any friends that want to start their own groups (or follow along virtually) please do!
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