I found this section of Stegner’s memoir, Wolf Willow, incredibly enjoyable to read. As a memoir, I felt that it had a nice balance of scene setting and reflection. I especially enjoyed the way Stegner does his reflective pieces, and I would like to spend some time talking about it.
This section is very clearly about Stegner as a child (he says he is 6-11) learning to live on and with the land. In the beginning of this portion, we get that sense without him ever needing to state it outright. He does this by choosing very specific adjectives, and creating phrases that give this feeling. Some examples of this are at the end of the first paragraph on 25 where he says they spent “five summers vainly trying”, and in the middle of the next paragraph when he describes the truck “stuck up black and foreign”.
After these few paragraphs he solidifies these feelings with a paragraph of more straightforward reflections. The first sentence of the last paragraph on 25 states “Because this was the essential feeling I had about the country-- the sense of being foreign and noticeable, of sticking out.” Stegner uses this pattern of scene and summary incredibly effectively; first he sets up the scene, and alludes to the feelings within the scene, then moves into a paragraph or two of pure reflection that leads into the next scene. By doing this the audience gets a clear picture of his experience and also how this experience affected him.
The other big thing I feel is worth mentioning is the use of rhetorical questions to create reflection and audience connection. Usually, I am not a huge fan of the rhetorical question, and I am not sure how I feel about it in this piece either. The part I am referring to us on page 37. This part at the end of the section provided is essentially a list of questions. There are two whole paragraphs dedicated to this strategy, and then in the following paragraph, the last paragraph on 37-38, he answers the questions.
Through this progression of questions and answers the audience gets an even stronger sense of what the prairie meant to Stegner. Additionally, by framing it the way he does, it seems like a sense of what anyone on the prairie at that time would have felt. Not being a pioneer, I don’t know if this is true or not, but the way he writes it certainly seems to be speaking for the majority.
I like a lot of the writing within these few paragraphs, and I think what he says is interesting, but I feel that this much solid reflection and philosophizing took away from the scene a little too much. It seemed drastically different than the rest of the piece, and the switch in pace threw me off a little. I think Stegner could have easily worked these ideas into scenes more, and I feel that it would have been just as powerful and even more compelling (at least for me).
The end of the section tidily ties up the loose ends, and gives a sense of closure to the story. After much contemplative reflection, he ends on a positive quote from his mother, which adds some (much needed) humor to lift the somber mood he sets with his reflections.
In his excerpt from Wolf Willow, Wallace Stegner does a good job at putting the reader into the time and place (the early 1900s on the prairie). He also does a good job at setting the scene. The scene that stood out to me the most was the the cyclone scene. He not only describes the weather conditions, but he also describes how it affects their tent and how the gophers react; it's well-written and vivid. Another scene that I like is the scene where Stegner watches a fly escape from a piece of flypaper with his mom. He uses an incredible amount of detail in describing how the fly struggles to escape the paper. I also like how he then relates the flies stuck to the paper to his family's situation. Stegner writes that he and his mom and brother feel that they are not farmers but “trapped” wheat miners who had “flown in carelessly, looking for something,” and had gotten themselves “stuck.”
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Stegner writes a lot of long passages that reflect on what it was like living on the prairie and what it ultimately meant to him. For example, Stegner reflects on how boring and lonely the prairie and homestead were for him. However, Stegner feels that he is better for living through those summers. He admits that he wouldn't be the same person without those experiences; he learned about loneliness and witnessed the beauty of nature from being in “exile” on the homestead.
I had a hard time of getting through this piece, and unfortunately, I ended up skimming some of it and having to return to it later. Maybe it was the content, the scene of living out on a prairie growing wheat. But I am not too enthralled with his style of writing either. For instance, I did not like how he comes out and says, "I do not know why the last miles...should have always excited me so, unless it was that the trail was a thing we had exclusively created and that it led to a place we had exclusively built" (27). I wish he had created a scene to begin with, for this section, and allowed the reader to figure this out along with him.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do really like his reflection about making a trail and what it meant to him: "Those tracks demonstrated our existence as triumphantly as an Indian is demonstrated by his handprint in ochre on a cliff wall. Not so idiotically as the stranded Ford, this trail and the shack and the chicken house and privy at its end said, "See? We are here." Thus, in the truest sense, was "located" a homestead. I thought this was a really cool idea, but I also thought he presented it well. I like his use of metaphor and then personification as he gives the shack and the chicken house and the privy a voice.
After reading the selection from Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner, I’ll have to retract the last comment I made about Confessions of a Knife. Stegner, in my opinion, has the most unique and beautifully aesthetic writing style of any of the writers we’ve studied this semester. He doesn’t just set the scene or paint a picture, he completes a full scale mural for the world to see whether it’s succinct, “It began as it ended—empty space, grass and sky” (24), or rather embellished, “Then the grass stirred; it was as if gooseflesh prickled suddenly on the prairie’s skin” (26)—it is all extremely effective for putting the reader in time and space as well as keeping one interested in the storyline. His use of reflection is also very effective, regardless of its succinct and subtle nature: “And that was why I so loved the trails and paths we made. They were ceremonial, an insistence not only that we had a right to be in sight on the prairie but that we owned and controlled a piece of it” (27).
ReplyDeleteWallace Stegner's piece Wolf Willow is an interesting piece for me. It could be because of the growth of my homework pile I read it quickly, but I just couldn't get into the story line of the piece. Strangely enough, and this is the first time it has happened to me in a piece we’ve covered in class, I enjoyed the reflection more than the actual story itself.
ReplyDeleteI found myself skimming the piece, but picking up greatly on the description Stegner used. I felt like I was on the prairie with him taking in the same air and noticing the little things about the setting. That aspect, I greatly appreciated. Like others have mentioned and that it seems like we need to focus greatly in our own memoirs, is setting up the scene, detail by detail, and then setting up the story that way. Half the battle is getting your reader on the same page as you, then as an author, you can write about what you please.
Aforementioned, I greatly enjoyed the reflections—they’re too beautiful and profound to not enjoy. My favorite part was towards the end, page 37, “One who has lived the dream, the temporary fulfillment, and the disappointment has had the full course. He may lack a thousand things that the rest of the world takes for granted, and because his experience is belated he may feel like an anachronism all his life” and so forth. Finishing out that section, “Some of the beauty, the innocence, and the callousness must stick to him, and some of the regret”.
Look-see, I'm a fan of the Canucks. The North American Bison holds a prime spot in my top five animals. Hockey is alright, I s'pose, but I'm getting so tired of this Same Old Setting. To save myself the pain of knowing memoirs that weren't written within the time period of 1890-1930 exist, I'm just going to pretend that they don't, so I can judge the piece objectively, without contracting serious unoriginalitis. Stegner drones, but attractively, his prose is as dry as it is vivid; with that passage on butter, I could clearly see (and attempt to avoid tasting) the tallow mush. He uses some of The Old Words, which I appreciate. (Man-o'-Day, I haven't heard the slur "rezavoy" since 1916!).
ReplyDeleteI found the ending ineffectual; "Better luck next time," she says. ...Yeah, better luck keeping my attention next time! A harsh joke, and one I don't truly mean but only half-heartedly. Still, though, it points to the thought that maybe he should've left us with an excelling word-painted landscape instead of dialogue from a character we don't really know all too well. One can only assume his brother was eaten by small prairie mammals; this would explain his apparent disappearance from the narrative and offer retribution for the extreme amount of gophicide committed within the tale's confines.
Like many of my other classmates have said, Stegner does a wonderful job at the describing the scenery around him, so much that it is easy for the reader to get this vivid picture of where he is. However there was an overwhelming amount of physical description in this. And he writes it beautifully, but where was the story? The people? I feel like the reader doesn't really know him at all. He spends so much time describing the setting and yet very little time giving us any sort of reflection that could form into a character for the reader. Not to say that there isn't any reflection at all; there are a few places where he does like how he feels about making the trails and about his mother's unhappiness. Still, they don't seem to really tell us about him at all. He describes a few scenes, like making the prairie trails or the cyclone at the beginning, but there never seems to be enough there to get an actual story. Like Malachi said it was more like a description of a landscape drawing rather than a memoir. Overall, I found it very difficult to get through this memoir, as I just couldn't get into it. I prefer memoirs like Wolfe where the author reflects on themselves, not the things around them.
ReplyDeleteWhile Stegner does a wonderful job of describing the scenery around him and putting me, as a reader, in time and space, I found this piece rather boring. As I began to read this piece, I found myself skimming to merely get to the end.
ReplyDeleteThe description he gives us left a very strong impression on me. He gives us such vivid description that reading this I could get a mental picture, practically a movie.
I did gather a strong sense of how the prairie and what it meant to him. I get a sense that this time means quite a lot to Stegner.