Crossing to Safety Part II
Hello Fellow Readers,
I am writing to you in the wee hours of the morning where it is actually quiet in my house (which is rare because there are lots of cute small people around here). I don’t usually wake up early on Saturdays, but I think my body naturally was ready to wake up since we’ve been getting back to better morning routines around here (which for us always include waking up before the kids). I am so much kinder throughout the day if I’ve had a little bit of quiet and prayer (and probably books) before being called upon to deal with toddlers. So I am glad that the birds outside my window worked as a natural alarm for me to start writing earlier than intended. Maybe, just maybe, my thoughts will be a little less scattered if I write most of them in the quiet (instead of amidst the chaos like usual). Though as I wrote that last sentence a tiny human just ambled out of bed and is now laying on the couch next to me so my peaceful moments seem to be numbered.
In case you are an email skimmer (I feel you) I wanted to give a quick list of important things in this newsletter. I am going to give you some of my musings on Part II of Crossing to Safety, the podcasts are linked below, a reminder about Book Drop Day, some homework for your in person meeting, and there is a schedule for The Remains of the Day (our June book). As always there are lots of reminders and schedules at the bottom of the e-mail as well!
Thoughts on Part II of Crossing to Safety
And now let’s get started on the book chat part of our morning. I hope you are all enjoying Crossing to Safety still. If you are reading along with me, we read Part II this week and it felt a lot heavier than the last two weeks (of reading Part I). The three parts of the book seem to be mirroring the stages of life and marriage: youth (Part I), middle age (Part II), and then old age/death (Part III). In this section we get a sprinkling of stories from Larry about the couple’s time between that year in Madison and the present. In the first part the time span was much shorter, as opposed to the second part covering at least 17 years (Lang is in college when they’re in Italy). That is probably also contributing to the change in feel of the narrative as well.
In chapter one we are back in the present day with Larry, Sally, Hallie (the Lang’s daughter), and Moe (her husband). We get a lot of important information. It seems like there has been a rift between the couples, Sally doesn’t know what’s going on in their life it seems. We find out that Sid and Charity aren’t at Wisconsin anymore and Larry got him a job at Dartmouth. I have a lot of half-baked thoughts about the East and West themes running through the book (especially because most of Stegner’s books are set in the West). They go to Sid’s workshop together a reminisce about old times and catch up on new. Hallie complains about Sid always “preparing and cleaning up” and not actually doing a job. She even claims to be just like her mother while also wanting Sid to stand up for herself. We find out that Sid wasn’t allowed to enlist during WWII because Charity was in a pacifist stage. And in the present day we see Charity still in control and even dictating how her sickness and death will go. Today is her birthday and she has planned a picnic for everyone. This exchange was my favorite in this chapter…
“I don’t know whose side you see it from?” -Hallie
"Are there sides? Is there an it?” -Larry
”I only meant…I don’t know. Neither one of them could get along without the other. He needs her to manage him and she needs him to manage. I just wish it was more equal…Also, now that she’s dying, she almost seems to find him in the road. She’s got these notions of how he should take it stoically, and he’s so torn up he can’t, and that upsets her.” -Hallie (206)
In chapter two we are transported back in time again. We find out a bit about what happened in the aftermath of the camping trip. After Sally recovers they see the Langs for a few days and then don’t see them again for two years. We get a quick scene at Battell Pond and then the war starts and they don’t see each other again until 1945. Then Larry says, “the snake was back in Eden.” We get a very painful scene about the dishes. Sid and Charity have an “agreement” that he always does the dishes and she will not let Larry help. Larry decides to put his oar in anyway and it doesn’t go well.
“Good cooks dirty a lot of dishes, especially when they themselves don’t have to wash them.” (219)
Is the above quote a reference to the way Charity is handling her death as well? She won’t be there to clean up. In this chapter I am thinking a lot about Larry’s perspective of Charity. Is it clouded by his own similarities to her or his protection of Sid? Is she right that Sid needs the things she forces on him. Is Larry’s judgement clouded?
“Long time ago. Better times grew over and healed those bad war years as grass and bushes heal scarred earth. Why did I think of that bad evening when there were so many good ones to remember?” (223)
In chapter three we are pulled back to the present day. Moe shares his feelings about the matriarchy of the family and wants Larry to commiserate. Hallie wants Larry to write about Charity and Sid. Larry says that writing about real life and real people is hard.
“Hallie, you’ve got the wrong idea of what writers do. They don’t understand any more than other people. They invent only plots they can resolve. They ask questions they can answer. Those aren’t peope you see in books, those are constructs. Novels or biographies, it makes no difference. I could reproduce the real Sid and Charity Lang, much less explain them; and if I invented them I’d be falsifying something I don’t want to falsify.” (230)
This exchange gives me a hint about how to read the book, but also has me asking a lot of questions. Is the Sid and Charity we are getting in this book the right one? Why did Larry choose to write after saying he couldn’t? What changed?
In the rest of this chapter we hear the story of Sally’s polio and what the Lang’s did to take care of them. And Sally admits that she let her irritation with Charity’s control problems get in the way of their friendship. The last thing I noticed in this chapter was that Charity is giving her body to science. She is so generous, but at the expense of those closest to her it seems.
In chapter four we find out about the couples’ year long Italy trip. We get a lot of references to Charity being in charge still (and being godlike in it…252). We also get a lot of thoughts on Larry’s writing process (and him being godlike in that…253). Larry even makes a comment about one of his characters being like Charity and needing him…
“They were people whom, having invented them, I rather liked. I didn’t want to do them in, only make them see a little better. One of them was a little like Charity, in that she thought she saw very clearly without any assistance.” (253)
The themes of East and West running through the book get more complicated as we add in the Old World (Europe). They are all there to receive (especially Sid).
“Here I was not producer and stage manager but audience, pupil, respectful country cousin.” (254)
The conversation that Larry and Sally have about her not being “the cross he bears” made me wonder if there is a double meaning in the word “cross” in the title.
The biggest scene in this chapter is when they go to see the Piero della Francesca paintings. In it Christ is coming out of the tomb but not looking triumphant, but like he has really just come back from suffering sin and death. Charity has been developing a “sundial theory of art” and does not appreciate these artists only wanting to focus on suffering. She thinks they should focus on the good parts of life. But Sally is very moved by this picture.
Later on they pass an injured local man and drive him to the hospital. It is interesting that to get him into the car Charity is the one who is made most uncomfortable (her neck is craned from sitting in Sid’s lap). She is the one who doesn’t want to focus on suffering and she is the one who suffers in suffering’s presence. Larry notices that the man has the same eyes as the Christ in the painting. It makes me think of the gospel passage where Jesus tells his disciples that when they take care of the poor they are really taking care of him. I almost think they were driving Christ to the hospital. And the fact that Christ would bring the suffering of the world into their car is a beautiful picture. They let him out and Charity is so upset that they “abandoned” him and literally says she will help him whether he wants it or not.
“Charity hates pain”- Sally
”…she can blame it on the Artist Upstairs. How’s she going to count only sunny hours if He keeps throwing things like that in her path?” -Larry
At the end of the day it seems like Sally is seeing the best of anyone…
“When you remember today, what will you remember best, the spring countryside, and the company of friends, or Piero’s Christ and that workman with the mangled hand?”
She thought for a minute. “All of it,” she said. “It wouldn’t be complete or real if you left out any part of it, would it?”
”Go to the head of the class,” I said.
(267)
And we finish up with chapter five when we are back to the present day and we finally see Charity and Sid!
If you have thoughts about the book or my thoughts I would love to continue the conversation before we meet in person!
Homework
I am giving everyone an assignment for our in person meetings. Come to Book Club with one quote, scene, or question for the group to chat about! That's it, pretty simple. I hope it helps get the discussion going and gives everyone a chance to talk about something they are pondering.
Close Reads Podcasts for Crossing to Safety
Here are the Close Reads HQ podcast episodes again. I took a few hours and listened to the episodes on Part I this past week and I highly recommend. I am waiting to listen to episodes until after I’ve already written about them 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
Book Drop Day
Don’t forget about Book Drop Day coming up on May 18th (two weeks from today)! I declare it an annual Book Club holiday so stay tuned. The list is finalized and I am now preparing book previews and pictures for your bookish pleasure. My plan is to announce one book/month at a time throughout the day to give you time to read about each book and get excited. I love booklists, but when I look at all the books at once it almost feels like a literary firehouse of too much to take in, so I hope this helps spread the literary joy out for you. As you can tell, I am very excited and I hope you are too!
Feel free to share with your friends who want to start book clubs as well. People can join and start groups whenever, but Book Drop Day is a fun place to start!
Other Things I’m Enjoying
This article by Alan Jacobs (the author of our September 2022 book, The Pleasures of Reading) about how to choose what to read when it comes to modern fiction was super helpful for me and a bit funny. Though to be honest it does strike out a few books I do love, so take everything with a grain of salt.
I loved this article about our endless desires and our Amazon wishlists by Christopher J. Lane (friend of the Substack,
’s husband and professor at Christendom)“I do hope I’m wrong in telling students that we will drag up Mount Purgatory all the books we buy and leave unread.”
“High ideals are a start, but they’re no match for my lottery daydreams, my Amazon wish list, and the ingenuity of the data harvesters seeking to win my heart and my credit card number. But one can try. Hence, I challenge myself to some rather mundane practices to bring me closer to reality and to gratitude for what I have…”
This review of the new Flannery Biopic by
makes me want to go see it right away…fun Book Club ladies night if group leaders want to organize?
I’ve been really enjoying this Catherine of Siena biography by Sigrid Undset (author of Kristin Lavransdatter, our summer 2020 pick). I highly recommend, especially as we just celebrated her feast day this week!
We (started) re-watching Interstellar last night and if you haven’t watched it at all or are due for a rewatch, I really can’t recommend it enough!
Well, that is all I have for you on this lovely Saturday. I hope you all continue to enjoy Crossing to Safety and whatever other books you get to dig into this weekend. I am personally planning to start Howard’s End since I finished Trust a few days ago. I wish you plenty of time with a book in your lap filling your imagination with words and scenes to send you back into your own life inspired to live more fully!
Enjoy your reading until we meet again!
“We want a wider ranger of knowledge than the life about us affords, and books are our best teachers.”
-Charlotte Mason (Ourselves)
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. Here is the schedule for that:
May 25th: Prologue and Day One (pgs 3-44)
June 1st: Day Two (pgs 47-126)
June 8th: Day Three (pgs 129-201)
June 15th: Day Four and Day Six (pgs 205-245)
Then to finish up the year we have East of Eden and Pride and Prejudice!
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!
*As always, some of the links are affiliate links. The few cents(literally) earned with each purchase you make after clicking links (at no extra cost to you) go toward the time and effort it takes to keep Literature Book Club running and I appreciate it!
So glad you enjoyed Chris's essay! I thought it was a really interesting one, too.