- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc (27 Nov 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140266739
- ISBN-13: 978-0140266733
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,204,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
""Recapitulation" is rich in the grittier American truths. . . . It has a piece of our pathos at its core."--Benjamin DeMott, "New York Times Book Review"--Benjamin DeMott "New York Times Book Review "
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
'In an age of explicit sex scenes and of male-female hates and struggles, it is wonderful to open this book...Despite the flapper fashions and references to prohibition and old Fords, one comes out aware of universal, human feelings that have nothing to do with time - present, future, or past' - "Christian Science Monitor". 'Recapitulation is rich in the grittier American truths...It has a piece of our pathos at its core' - Benjamin DeMott, "New York Times Book Review".Bruce Mason, first seen as a youth embittered by the events of The Big Rock Candy Mountain, returns to Salt Lake City forty-five years later for the funeral of an aunt. As Bruce makes the perfunctory arrangements for the funeral, we enter with him on an intensely private and painful inner pilgrimage populated by the ghosts of his past. Recollections of them become a source of revelation for Bruce Mason. He makes peace with his dead father and finally comes around to what he is: a respected professional diplomat and a man with a past worth inheriting. "Recapitulation" is a moving novel about self-knowledge dearly bought and ultimate survival by one of America's most distinguished novelists.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Recapitulation is every bit as good as The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Recapitulation will break your heart. Stegner's descriptions of the Salt Lake area are so good that you can almost smell the salt in the air.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Being from the Salt Lake area I was utterly impressed with the reality with which Stegner portrays life in Utah. More amazing is the emotion Stegner elicits with beautiful language and imagery that leave the senses wanting. The dark history of Bruce Mason is an incredible journey through swamps of heartache. This is a book that will forever shape the decisions I make about the relationships that define me.
Format:Paperback
Bruce Mason, a diplomat and ambassador in his sixties, returns to Salt Lake City for the funeral of his aunt, who is the last remaining connection to a family history Mason has spent forty years avoiding. During the day and night he is there, he travels throughout Salt Lake, trying to locate landmarks from his troubled early life while reminiscing about the events which permanently influenced choices he made and directions he took as an adult. Gentle and reflective in tone, despite its scenes of sadness and disillusionment, this is a novel quite different from Stegner's epics, such as Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain, with their enormous scope. Here, he creates what amounts to a memoir--a record of the life-changing experiences which one man, Mason, associates with his family, friends, and upbringing during the brief 24 hours he is in Salt Lake City.
Although this is supposed to be a sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, with the same main character, one need not have any familiarity with that book to enjoy this one, a book so introspective that one cannot help but wonder about the degree to which it is autobiographical. Like many of us who have outlived and, in some cases, out-achieved our parents, Mason finds his memories bittersweet. He is filled with resentment for the unintentional injuries and deliberate cruelties which made his youth and adolescence a misery. At the same time that he recognizes that he would never have been so motivated to achieve and escape had he not been so needy and so "hungry."
Though many authors have dealt with the "you can't go home again" theme, Stegner suggests here that one must go home again, not to relive early, unpleasant events again and again, stuck in the past, but to relive those events and reevaluate them from the perspective and experience one has gained over time. Unsentimental and uncompromising in its message, the book is a touching and sensitive look at the baggage we all carry with us and the need to put it aside.
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