“Order is indeed the dream of man, but chaos, which is only another word for dumb, blind, witless chance, is still the law of nature.” (p. 191)

Welcome back to Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Shari and Rhea talk (somewhat obsessively) about Charity Lang and her extreme need to control, and how it affects, well, everything! They talk more about Larry, the long-view narrator, the various narrative techniques Stegner uses through him, and how it continues to impact our understanding of Charity, Larry, both marriages, and the friendship at the heart of this story. They talk about the farce of control itself—how very little we actually have—what makes a person decide he or she has “no choice” but to sacrifice for the sake of another, and what it looks like to bend and not break. Oh, and they talk about the continual Eden imagery: Adam and Eve, and that damnable lurking snake.

Next week will be their fourth and final episode with Crossing to Safety.

Show note:

Here is the quote Shari was talking about from Madeleine L’Engle’s book, Walking on Water (in reference to bringing order from chaos):

Leonard Bernstein tells me more than the dictionary when he says that for him music is cosmos in chaos. That has the ring of truth in my ears and sparks my creative imagination. And it is true not only of music; all art is cosmos, cosmos found within chaos. At least all Christian art (by which I mean all true art, and I’ll go deeper into this later) is cosmos in chaos.

—Madeleine L’Engle (p. 8)

Thanks for reading The Reader & the Writer! If you liked this episode please give it ❤️ and share it with others.

The Reader & the Writer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the literary work we do, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to The Reader & the Writer at thereaderandthewriter.substack.com/subscribe