Stegner: Conversations On History And Literature

Foreword

Foreword By NORMAN COUSINS What is most remarkable about Wallace Stegner's development as a major American literary figure is the absence of sudden thrusts or skyrockets. He has added to his reputation year by year and book by book. Whether as novelist, biographer, historian, essayist, literary critic, or teacher, he has produced a body of work of cumulative substance and stature. Even more significant than the Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award he has received is the steady development of his artistry, reflected in his consistently distinguished work over four decades. When viewed in total perspective, these contributions admit no doubt of Stegner's high station in the community of American letters. What gives his work its essential character is a deep familiarity with American historical, cultural, and political terrain. Few writers in the recent past have been able to summon as much knowledge of the main strands of our national life. Conversations with Wallace Stegner is many things. It is personal history most of all, but it is also a large slice of Americana. There are pieces here that take in the intellectual and ideological campus scene of the thirties, affected as it was by the Spanish Civil War; the literary and publishing world, especially as experienced by a young writer outside the Eastern literary establishment; the unhinging social and political issues of the sixties and seventies; the relationships with writers and students in many places and on varying levels. Stegner's personal pantheon includes names like Vardis Fisher, Scott Nearing, Bernard DeVoto, Robert Frost, Robinson Jeffersnames of men with robust lives with thoughts and words to match. [vii] Vlll CONVERSATIONS WITH WALLACE STEGNER Stegner properly takes exception to the careless tendency to pin geographic tags on writers outside the Northeast, where authors are regarded as authors and not regional oddities. For example, Saul Bellow is labeled an "American writer," not an Eastern writer, even though his books may be about East Coast life. Yet other writers who happen to live west of the Mississippi are tagged regionally, whatever their themes, as though it is necessary to warn readers about being in the company of writers who are somehow short of the mark. In my years at the Saturday Review, I deliberately tried to keep the magazine out of the swirls and eddies that characterized at least part of the New York intellectual life and that tended to reflect a certain provincialism. We consciously tried to take soundings from all over the country-not just in writing but in music, drama, and the other fine arts. This gave us the reputation of being "middle-brow," whatever that meant. What was most significant about the label was not its precise meaning but the obvious fact that it was intended invidiously. In any event, whatever the correct location of the "brows" we were said to write for, we tried to recognize the existence of writers of genuine talent wherever they might be. What appealed to us most about Wallace Stegner was the integrity of the man, the identifiability of his values, the high quality of his scholarship, his undoubted craftsmanship as a writer, and the fact that his books added greatly to an understanding of the subjects he chose to write about. Access to his wide-ranging observations and philosophy, made possible by these interviews, represents a long-overdue service-not just to those with primary literary interests but to anyone fascinated with the phenomenon of America. The book carries with it the happy prospect that readers who have not yet savored the full flavor of Wallace Stegner's work and thought wi1l be moved in that direction. ...