The Spectator Bird
by Wallace Stegner

Read November-December 2007
Copy borrowed from Ramsey County Public Library, White Bear Lake branch
Essay written March 15th, 2008

Truth be told, I decided I love Wallace Stegner as soon as I discovered he was born in Iowa. I believe I first heard about him from the blurbs on the back of The Big Sky, either comparing A.B Guthrie to him or in a praise comment written by Stegner about Guthrie. I don't remember, and it doesn't matter. All I know is that's how I came to learn about Stegner, was through Guthrie.

I requested this book online, had it sent to the White Bear Lake brance for pick-up. Boring cover, with textured granite or carpet or something. Hardback, old copy, bad shape. But that gave the novel some character, subconsciously, as I read it.

Denmark was lovely. The old man narrator and his wife were loveable. It contained the great line that Dick Cavett stole for that PBS show about growing old: "I don't feel like an old man, I feel like a young man with something wrong with him."

You have to know what a Quisling is in order for this to make any sense. So if you don't know, look it up. I knew, but had forgotten, but then it came back to me as the context developed. At any rate, it's good American fiction, stuff they'll never assign to be read in schools because it requires too much thinking. I will definitely read mor Stegner.

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