Willa Cather Books

The six essays Willa Cather gathered into this small book in 1936 give the reader a good idea of her philosophy of literature and also provide anecdotes about several literary figures she admired or met during her career. She writes about Flaubert (or, more precisely, Cather's friendship with his niece), Mrs. James T. Fields (the widow of the co-owner of the famed publisher Ticknor and Fields), Sarah Orne Jewett, Thomas Mann, and Katherine Mansfield. An additional piece, entitled "The Novel Demeuble" (which might be translated as "The Novel Unplugged") objects to the excesses in the fiction written by her contemporaries.

The title of the collection refers to Cather's lament that most of these writers would no longer be of interest to those then under forty years of age, and there is certainly an "old-fashioned," even prudish, stance throughout. She dismisses the realists for their "cataloguing of a great number of material objects, in explaining mechanical processes, the methods of operating manufactories and trades, and in minutely and unsparingly describing physical sensations. . . . Have such things any proper place in imaginative art?" Although she mentions only Balzac, she clearly has in mind such American writers as Dreiser, Lewis, and Upton Sinclair. And she has no brook for Lawrence, whose characters are "dehumanized by a laboratory study of the behavior of the bodily organs under sensory stimuli." Cather didn't always feel this way; thirty-five years earlier she wrote glowingly of Frank Norris (in an essay not included here), praising the descriptions of workaday environment in "McTeague" as "convincing proof of power, imagination and literary skill." Apparently, Cather eventually believed that the scales tipped too far toward realism--or her tastes simply changed.

The most interesting, and breeziest, piece concerns Madame Grout, who was Flaubert's niece and lifelong correspondent (the "Caro" in his "Letters to My Niece Caroline"); Cather manages simultaneously to provide a touching account of this aging lady and to instill an increased appreciation of Flaubert's achievement. Probably the key to understanding Cather's work is her ode to Jewett, to whom she was much indebted and whose work she championed to the reading public throughout her life. The weakest essay, it must be noted, is Cather's review of Thomas Mann's "Joseph" novels. She did not live to see the fourth book published, so the essay was premature, and her judgment that these books were Mann's greatest is hard to support. (Dare I say that it would be far more fascinating to know what she thought of "Death in Venice"?) Even here, however, she captures Mann's essence--his "rich deliberateness which is never without intensity and deep vibration." All the essays, then, will provide Cather fans with a glimpse of the art underlying the fiction she herself published in the late 1920s and the 1930s--from "Death Comes for the Archbishop" to "Lucy Gayheart."

William Gass recently observed that participants in contemporary writing workshops are not interested in literature. They are interested in writing, in "expressing a self as shallow as a saucer." Willa Cather was interested in literature, in art, in permanence, and the essays in Not Under Forty memorably illustrate her beliefs. Her seriousness and integrity are very much needed in an era when acclaimed young novelists use their acknowledgements to thank Mom for reading their manuscripts and correcting their punctuation.

In this, the author's second published work, the author writes about that which she knew best, early pioneer life in Nebraska, the place to which she and her family moved in 1883 when she was a mere slip of a girl. She eventually attended the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1895, at a time when most girls did no such thing.

In this work, the author was on very sure footing. Her clear, straightforward prose lends itself capably to the story of early pioneers who went to Nebraska and set down roots, weathering the exigencies that often plagued a newcomer to a particular region. It is a surprisingly unsentimental look at pioneer life.

This thematically complex, but simply written story focuses primarily on Alexandra Bergson, the intelligent, independent, resourceful, and strong-willed daughter of pioneer John Bergson. Upon his death he did what was then the nearly unthinkable. He left his land in the hands of his oldest child, his daughter, Alexandra, rather than in those of his sons, recognizing in his daughter those qualities that would ensure that his land would prosper under her stewardship.

This then is the story of not only Alexandra but of that land and those whose sustenance depended upon its fruitfulness. The reader follows the Bergson clan as they live their lives and interact with their neighbors. Under Alexandra's skillful management, the Bergson farm prospers. As the farm prospers, so does its environs, as the area becomes a bustling center of activity with more and more settlers developing the land around that of the Bergsons.

Thematically, the book explores the vicissitudes of life, as well as its life-affirming moments. As in all lives, the characters in this book experience moments of high drama and great tragedy, as well as memorable moments of love and hate. All this is grounded within the context of pioneer life, with all its hardships and privations, as well as its occasional abundance. The author skillfully re-creates a melting pot of the many nationalities that cultivated the land known as Nebraska.

This is a book that those who like reading about pioneer life will certainly enjoy, as will those who simply like a well-written book with a tale to tell. This classic novel was also adapted for a Hallmark Hall of Fame film, starring Jessica Lange in the role of Alexandra Bergson.

This compelling saga of torrid passion, blood-curdling murder, and greed immediately seized my attention, and I am convinced that Willa Cather's adroit rhetoric will have the same effect on all the other skeptical readers out there. Ingeniously composed O Pioneers paints an ineffable vignette of the backdrop of the enigma more commonly known as the prairie. Growing up in this environment is Alexandra and her three brothers, who have struggled against the hardships and toils of the untamed land all their lives. It is through these afflictions and all of life's tribulations that the Bergsons grow robust in the soul as well as in the body.

The realistic fiction novel begins thirty years ago in the provincial town of Hanover, anchored on the outskirts of the Nebraska tableland. Here, two protagonists are introduced: Alexandra, a headstrong adolescent and her frail, five-year-old brother Emil who, at the time is fully dependent on his sister. The latter shows so much compassion for a kitten clutching the top of a pole in fear that he brings his tender heart and vulnerability into awareness. The sister on the other hand is completely different. " . . . His sister was a tall, strong girl, and she walked rapidly and resolutely, as if she knew exactly where she was going and what she was going to do next." When the father, John Bergson dies, it is with this sort of resolution that Alexandra makes the fateful decision to purchase two homesteads by the money collected in selling their cattle and crops. "Under the shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring."

It is now sixteen years after John Bergson has died, and the white shaft beside his grave signifies that his wife now lies beside him. Were he to rise from the shaggy coat of the prairie, he would not know the "country under which he has been asleep" for it has vanished forever. " . . . One looks out over a vast checkerboard, marked off in squares of wheat and corn; light and dark, dark and light . . . The rich soil yields heavy harvests; the dry, bracing climate and the smoothness of the land makes labor easy for man and beasts." The previous passage conveys the effect that barely two decades makes on the unpredictable land as well as Cather's virtuoso storytelling skills and unique way of adding life and color to her words. The inevitable time takes its toll on the inhabitants of this country as well. Emil Bergson is now barely recognizable for his stormy gray eyes peer out from under an intent brow. He is not quite the delicate child he was years ago, because now he is a splendid figure of a boy, with a body as stocky and built as a young pine tree. Though caught up with Emil's transformation, one should not forget Alexandra, though she has changed very little. In spite of turning into a sunny, vigorous woman, one can sense in her eyes that she is still the deliberate and placid girl she used to be. Marie Shabata was once Emil's favorite playmate in their childhood, and their friendship has remained even after all those years. Jovial Marie's dancing tiger-lily eyes and delightful nature has earned her the adoration of all that knows her. Formerly Marie Tovesky, the cheerful girl is now married to Frank Shabata. Though quite a handsome man, even in his agitation, Frank is a rash and violent man and altogether the contrary of his charming wife. In this section of the book, we are also introduced to a long-lost friend, Carl Linstrum, who is travelling back from St. Louis. Out of the group, this young man is probably the most changed. One distinctly recognizes the many rings under the boy's eyes, marking trouble and desperation. Carl almost appears to "shrink within himself" as if to hold something back that is too painful to be divulged.

Throughout the book, the reader may sense an obscure barricade between Marie Shabata and Emil Bergson that are restraining them from one another. That certain barrier is Frank Shabata. It is not difficult for one to conjecture why that barricade is there in reading this passage: "Marie, when she was alone or when she sat sewing in the evening, often thought about what it must be like down there where Emil was . . . 'And if it had not been for me,' she thought, 'Frank might still be free like that . . . Poor Frank, getting married wasn't very good for him either . . . It seems as if I always make him just as bad as he can be.' " Willa Cather has such an extensive knowledge of life's inexplicable emotions that she makes this novel all the more realistic. The author portrays such tenderness, desperation, and resolution, and she words her passages so powerfully and effectively that a reader is fully convinced by the end of the book that the events actually took place. So what happens at the end of this highly esteemed novel? One might be pondering after reading this review: How does Frank react to Emil and Marie's bond? What becomes of them? Well, patient reader, the conclusion of O Pioneers! Is up to you to unravel, and do not be surprised if it catches you off guard.

In conclusion to my book review, I would like to quote my favorite lines from the novel. "They went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind them, under the evening star. Fortunate country, that is one day to receive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining eyes of youth!" This fictitious anecdote of French, Bohemian, and Swedish settlers in America is truly appealing. It draws its readers into the world of farming and frontier life, while offering an authentic and at times amusing glance at the dynamics of pioneer life. While providing a historical background, O Pioneers! Also relates to the turmoil of one's mind in troublesome times and predicaments. I can relate to and learn valuable lessons from this book though it takes place approximately one hundred years ago. This quality makes the novel so much more realistic and engrossing to read. Willa Cather stressed much of the book into analyzing the differences in personality in each of the characters as time went on. Now, I understand the purpose of this - indistinguishable "gears" are silently turning to lead up to the explosive culmination of this saga. Packed with warmth and poignancy, both children and their parents are privileged to step into the rich world of the Bergsons as the hardships they endure strengthen their souls. Filled with moving descriptions, vibrant settings, and strong characters, O Pioneers! will be the ideal book for readers of different styles. Seldom can one say that a book is destined to become a classic, but in O Pioneers! 's case, that problem is not presented because a classic is what it already is!

It has been lovely to revisit this old favorite on audio. Now I remember why I loved this book 20 years ago. The narrator is absolutely perfect. This satisfying audiobook has made the miles fly by during my hour-long commute to work. ahhhh!

I listened to the MP3 format of this book and really enjoyed it. I have a fairly long commute to work and have recently been listening to several of the classics in audio book format. This is my first foray into a book by Willa Cather. The reader did a great job of making each character sound different, and his Bohemian accent for Antonia made it much easier to imagine her as a recent immigrant.

The author has a very descriptive style and it made me feel like I was in Nebraska 100 years ago. I felt like I got to know several of the characters and the book did a great job of showing what a great friendship between and man and a woman can be. I recommend this book and audio book highly.

I wasn't as engaged in My Antonia as I believe I should have been. I just thought that it was simply boring, uninteresting, and it doesn't really grab you and pull you into the pages, and it's a bit disappointing.

The plotline is about a ten-year-old boy, Jim Burden, who moves to his grandparents' house in (fictional) Black Hawk, Nebraska. Living near there, in a sod house (a house made from the earth) are the Shimerdas, a Bohemian family, with the daughter Antonia.

Jim becomes acquaintances with Antonia, and the entire story is about his life in Black Hawk, Antonia's life as a Hired Girl (someone who works for their family) with Tiny Soderball and Lena Lingard, and Antonia's love life throughout.

Personally, I really didn't like My Antonia. The writing style wasn't up to par, and was a bit scattered. The description of scenery, and the description of characters were good, but overall, I thought that the book was very disappointing.

In my exuberance to visit those classic works of fiction from the past that, because of a trifle like making a living, I failed to invest time and energy into reading, I picked up Cather's "My Antonia". After relishing in "Les Miserables", "Robinson Crusoe", "The Woman in White", "Ethan Frome",and "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I hit a bump in the road with "My Antonia". H. L Mencken, one of this country's harshest critics, had the chutzpah to label this tired work a "Romantic Novel" and "Beautiful". He must have been hallucinating or was secretly in love with Cather.

This novel is neither romantic or beautiful in the sense that it has a plot. Friendship, yes, but romantic, definitely not! The descriptive passages of the Nebraska landscape drone on unceasingly. This short book could have been abbreviated by half and nothing would have been lost excepting Cather's self-indulgent verbiage. I have seldom been so critical of an accepted work by such a renowned author, but I personally must make an exception in this instance. I truly pity those who wrote and stated that this book was required reading in high school or college. It must have been just as agonizing for them as it was for me.This was not a Midwestern yarn, rather a Midwestern yawn.

My Antonia was written in the 1920's, a fine book by Willa Cather, who was a truly remarkable author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Truly a classic.

Ths book characterizes the pioneers who settled Nebraska in days before the plains had been used for farming, a vast expanse of wild grasses and harsh climate. Those farmers were hardy, determined, and motivated by a vision of how the land could be, how their homes could become, and how their children could live lives better than their elders. These men and women gave up everything of their former lives to try for a better life in unknown country, living in sod houses, suffering extremes of poverty and isolation. It was a harsh existence for those whose European lives had been cultured, and some were driven to despair.

Cather shows survival of those who toiled, their givingness and collegial relationships, helping each other and gradually moving on to a better life. Antonia, her heroine, is one of those whose dedication, strength, and motivation lead to prosperity and begrudging admiration by her neighbors and friends from the past.

Cather also shows the tragedy of life in the wrong place, defeat by the very harshness of the land, jealousy and selfishness. Not all people are charitable or kind -- she well depicts variations in character and action.

We grow to admire Antonia and a few of her peers, and also we see the littleness of many others. This novel skillfully blends history with awareness of life in its many dimensions, the quest for growth, the spirit of the United States in these tough years of the late 1800s, the conditions of the high plains long ago. The author's character clearly shows through the story, a woman of strength and commitment to her craft of writing.

This is a wonderful book that deserves to be read again at different readers' ages, and provides more each time. This is one of my favorite books!

**Warning: A few plot spoilers in here.**

Will Cather's novel describing the 1851 mission of French Catholic Father Jean Marie Latour is a reverential tribute to the enchanting, indeed holy, beauty of the American desert southwest. The book is episodic in structure, each chapter a discrete, self-contained passage, only loosely connected to the others.

In her narrative, Cather cleverly turns Latour's mission purpose upside down and inside out. He has come to bring God to this wild, distant corner of the world. But although Cather depicts Latour respectfully -- as a godly, sincere, patient and resourceful man -- one is left with the feeling that this desert land brought God to him, rather than the other way around.

For example, Cather lavishes her most exalting prose, not on the church and its benevolence, but on the wonders of nature - of rock, of water, and most vividly of light - especially at the hours of the day when the shadows grow long, and the setting sun drenches the land and sky in rich, vibrant color.

The introduction takes place on the terrace of a Cardinal's home in Italy, where Cather directs the reader's attention to the light of the dying day, "both intense and soft, with a ruddiness as of much-multiplied candlelight, an aura of red in its flames. It bored into the ilex trees, illuminating their mahogany trunks and blurring their dark foliage; it warmed the bright green of the orange trees and the rose of the oleander blooms to gold." Cather very deliberately echoes this image in the first full chapter of the book, when Father Latour is received with unexpected Christian charity far out in the primitive village of Hidden Water, New Mexico. "The Bishop sat a long time by the spring, while the declining sun poured its beautifying light over those low, rose-tinted houses and bright gardens."

I was struck by the frequency with which Cather seemed to sanctify the desert landscape, even to the point where vainglorious intrusions by the European church are depicted almost as a defilement. When Father Latour climbs to the village of Acoma, high up on a giant flat rock, he is offended by the intrusive presence of the mission church there. ". . . it was more like a fortress than a place of worship. That spacious interior depressed the Bishop as no mission church had done before. . . When he blessed them and sent them away, it was with a sense of inadequacy and spiritual defeat. . . What need had there ever been for this great church at Acoma? . . . The more that Father Latour examined this church, the more he was inclined to think that Fray Ramirez. . . was not altogether innocent of worldly ambition, and that they built for their own satisfaction, rather than according to the needs of the Indians."

Contrast that with Cather's later praise of the native dwellings, which she finds beautiful precisely because they minimally disrupt the landscape: "It was the Indian manner to vanish into the landscape, not to stand out against it. The Hopi villages that were set upon rock mesas were made to look like the rock on which they sat, were imperceptible at a distance. The Navajo hogans, among the sand and willows, were made of sand and willows. None of the pueblos would at that time admit glass windows into their dwellings. The reflection of the sun on the glazing was to them ugly and unnatural - even dangerous."

I found myself wondering throughout the book just who, more literally, was saving whom. Father Latour comes to New Mexico to save souls, but when he and Father Vaillant unwittingly stumble into the home of a murderer, their lives are saved by the silent warning of the man's Native wife, who makes a silent slashing motion across her throat and clandestinely points them to the exit. Later, too, when Latour is caught in a terrible snowstorm, his guide Jacinto saves him by leading him to a secret cave, sacred to the locals.

Early in the book, Father Latour and Father Vaillant are dining together over soup made by the Vaillant, a pleasant import of one of the creature comforts of their former lives in France. Over that dinner, Vaillant begs Latour not to take him any further out into the wild than they have already gone. But by the end of the book, Father Vaillant is fully comfortable making his home in this country, spreading the Word on horseback, and sleeping under the stars. And when it is time for father Latour himself to die, he wants to return, not to France, but to Santa Fe, where he first established his mission church and, apparently, found his heavenly purpose.

Those of you who relish the incomparable beauty of the canyons, mountains, mesas, and colors of America's desert southwest will respond intensely to Cather's vivid, painterly depictions of it. Instead of depicting, the world of nature as a harsh punishment to mankind after being cast out of the edenic garden (as traditional Christianity often did), she does quite the opposite, lending a sublime aspect to Latour's journey through the wild.

Finally, to those students here who were forced to read this book for school and found it boring, allow me this observation: it's perfectly fine for your mind to wander on occasion when reading this book. Indeed, it's not a book for white-knuckled, gripping plot development, but for meandering reflection, much like a walk through the canyon country depicted in the novel, liberated from the sensory overload of so-called civilization. Give yourself time and space to visualize the scenes, to see the light of a desert dusk, to smell the juniper bushes, and for your mind to roam around aimlessly for a bit. In this book, the earthly journey means just as much as the heavenly destination.

Death Comes for the Archbishop reminds me of a watercolor painting. At their best, watercolor is very fluid, and yet the result is often very beautiful and full of depth. This book was much the same. The story itself jumps around a lot and is more like a series of short stories, with the same main characters. It is very fluid.

However, the finished book is breathtaking in its scope and beauty. It is a book about friendship, about evangelism, about a strange and desolate country, about the way that all these elements blend to give us a picture that is humanity. Very few books are able to really carry this off successfully. Death Comes for the Archbishop is one that is successful.

A great collection of stories about two priests who leave France for the American Southwest. And in their attempt to teach the people there, they learn a lot themselves.

Others here have already done a better job than I could of describing why this book is an example of great literature. I will add that as a young Catholic who spent a semester as a missionary on the Navajo reservation, it was quite uplifting to read such a well-written account of heroic virtue in the Southwest I remember so vividly. Reading about Chimayo, Shiprock, Canyon de Chelly and Santa Fe was a reunion with old friends. Archbishop Latour is a devout man, with flaws of his own, yet striving to serve the very different cultures of the Native Americans and the Mexicans. Some of Cather's sentences were like echoes in my soul of memories from this time. Here is what I want to remember:
p. 50 "The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is ther about us always."
p. p. 203 "Once again this had been his month; his Patroness had given it to him, the season that had always meant so much in his religious life."
p. 217 My one complaint about this book is here. Cather writes for the most part with incredible insight into the Catholic faith, but here she misrepresents an important theological point. Catholics (if they are adhering to Church teaching) do NOT worship or adore Mary and do NOT view her as a female image of the Divine. We honor her for the pivotal role she played in bringing Christ to this world and for her continued intercession for us, her spiritual children. Only Christ's Heart is Sacred, Mary's Heart is referred to as the Immaculate Heart.
p. 225 "Though the Bishop had worked with Father Joseph for twenty-five years now, he could not reconcile the contradictions of his nature. He simply accepted them, and, when Josph had been away for a long while, realized that he loved them all." Our world today often does not understand spiritual friendship. The deep, fraternal love between Bishop Latour and Father Valiant is beautiful and inspiring.
p. 232 "Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky."
p. 273 "Something soft and wild and free, something that whispered to the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, softly picked the lock, slid the bolts, and released the prisioned spirit of man into the wind, into the blue and gold, into the morning, into the morning!"
p. 279-The story of Bl. Junipero Serra's encounter with a family is awesome!

p. 263 "I am enjoying to the full that period of reflection which is the happiest conclusion to a life of action."
Let us too lead lives of action!

Relish this wonderful novel slowly, like a ride on a good mule through the beautiful desert at sundown.

I had no preconceived notions about this book, apart from the reviews here on Amazon, and I was most pleasantly surprised. Willa Cather did such a wonderful job in storytelling, in depicting the time and situation, in descriptions, and above all, in communicating the overall feeling of such a transitional period in history. It was a wonderful intro to a wonderful author, had a great flow; I can't wait to read more.

Beautifully, beautifully written. Makes a faraway time and place understandable, knowable. The American prairie is as complex an ecosystem as a forest and a place to visit through this book.

Attention all readers, this is a general alert. If you come in contact with this book, it must be destroyed immediately! It may be contaminated by a rare soul-sucking virus that causes students who are forced to read it to loose all willpower to go on caring about 10th grade english class.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a touching, well-written story with a good plot and a lot of heart. If you have a sentimental side but still want intelligent writing, this novel is for you.

O Pioneers! starts with the death of John Bergson, a Swedish immigrant with a keen foresight to the eventual worth of his land in rural Nebraska. The rest of the novel follows the lives of his children, particularly Alexandra Bergson who inherits her father's business sense and foresight. John Bergson's spirit remains present throughout the story, observing from his portrait on the wall the changes that follow the land and his children. It seems to be through his eyes-not through a religious or other moral compass-that Cather presents her story.

I would call O Pioneers! the perfect novel had I not read that her following novels are even better. It is short, but engrossing, and meticulously crafted. Her characterization is reminiscent of George Eliot: there are no good or evil characters. All characters have both good and evil in them, and through their actions good or evil befalls them. It is refreshing to read a story in which the author is not heavy-handed in her judgments or moral ideals. Apparently Cather was criticized during her time for simply describing poor people rather than politicizing their cause. But by staying true to her story, she presents a timeless narrative more moving that any political tirade could be.

made me cry...and I dont cry. full of her love of the land, and her annoyance with the men who farm it.

The penguin classic editions are sure nice little books. It's my first Wila Cather book and I was expecting much more (actually not more, but better) from the reviews I've read. The style is of a quiet, unpretentious storyteller, almost intimistic tone; but it doesn't deliver anything. I was waiting and waiting for the great moment in the narrative, thinking the story would produce at any time some interesting twist, some exciting and unpexpected bonus, but there's nothing extraordinary. The plot flows in a totally predicatable way. Predictability is not the reason why it fails, though, is its plain lack of interest all through. Let me be fair: it could be interesting, and her style would be much more appreciated, if she had reduced the book to 100 pages at most. The book is way too long for what it gives us. The landscapes that the critics seem to relish are just a little insert among the several hundred chit-chat pages.

After reading almost the whole book a gave up at the finish line. I wouldn't discourage other would-be readers from further delving into this lady's prose. It has its enchantment. But one has to be in the mood for it, or be very idle.

The Song of the Lark was Cather's third novel. Written between O Pioneers! and My Antonia, it is very different from those novels for which Cather is better known. The story is set among sand hills and canyons, big crowded cities and harmonious music. It is the story of the making of an artist, from her humble beginnings in Moonstone, Colorado to the big time singing operas in New York. It is a story in three parts.

Part one: A young, talented girl from an immigrant family grows up in a rural town. Those familiar with Cather's more famous works will feel right at home with Thea Kronberg as a young girl surrounded by her large Swedish family, German music teacher with a taste for the booze, all-American sweetheart, and Mexican musical compatriots.

Parts two and three break with Cather's traditional fare to follow Thea in search of musical knowledge and finally, as the star of the New York opera scene. If the story were simply Thea's struggles inner and outer during her rise to fame, it would have been tiresome from the start. For all her imagination and talent, Thea is not entirely likable. However we are provided with a colorful cast of supporting characters that carry us through the story. We start and end with supporting characters-not Thea-and it is through them that we find a reason for empathy. We are in fact her audience even while reading her story.

If you're searching for Cather's famous prairie stories, you should probably move on and come back to The Song of the Lark when in a more introspective mood. However, if you're looking for the making of an artist as she realizes her talent and struggles to find herself and her place in the limelight, this one's for you.

A couple of notes:
I believe there are some misconceptions about this novel arising from the fact that not many people have actually read it. First, this book is regularly billed as the second in Cather's "Prairie Trilogy". There is little if any prairie in this novel. Second, this novel also is billed as Cather's most autobiographical. I find this very hard to believe. The story is so entirely musical and Thea so self absorbed, that I do not believe Cather saw herself in her at all. If you want an autobiographical novel, read My Antonia which is based on short stories Cather wrote about growing up on the prairie in Nebraska.

This is a brilliant and readable novel about the struggles of an artist and the friends who helped her along the way. To be honest, the first part of the book didn't pull me in. "Friends of Childhood," which takes up the first 150 pages, is a simple story about a girl growing up in a small town, and the trouble and adventure she finds for herself. It's full of great characterizations, but wasn't quite what I thought I had gotten myself into. The story quickly takes a change of pace as Thea goes to study in Chicago, and her true artistic struggle begins.

Like in her short novel "A Lost Lady," Cather refuses to present Thea as a pleasant, likeable woman who fits some aesthetic ideal that the men in the book wish she could fit. She is at times distant, impersonal and mean. Becoming an artist changed her from the quirky, lively child in the beginning of the book to somewhat of a diva, even though the old Thea shines through. This is disappointing to the reader too, since this pushes us further from Thea as a character, but that's the whole point. This is the kind of book that lingers with you. The characters (mainly Thea, Dr. Archie and Fred Ottenburg) are some you will never forget.

I love Cather's work, and The Song of the Lark may be the best one of her books I've read yet...Death Come for the Archbishop has been my favorite of her books for so long that I may not be able to supplant it, but SoL is excellent.

The story revolves around the growth of Thea Kronberg into the artist that she is. We begin with her as a child around the age of 10. Her friends are adults and misfits in the town. We don't hear about her interactions with kids her own age nor really about her being a child at all. What we learn about Thea in the beginning of this book is that it is evident to everyone who knows her that she's gifted, but no one can agree about what. She knows, but she keeps her secret carefully guarded.

She begins to blossom when she is sent to Chicago to take lessons from a renowned piano instructor. It isn't until she mentions, almost on accident, that she sings at funerals that her piano teacher discovers her true musical gift--she has a phenomenal "instrument" (as it is often referred). She then switches teachers to a voice instructor and has to play accompaniment to his other lessons in order to pay for her own lessons. She is discovered by a rich cad-about who falls in love with her and worries that she is suffering under the pressures of being an accompanist to her rigid instructor. He sends her to his ranch in Arizona where she "nests" and comes into her art and her self.

The section in Panther Canyon is so well done that I could read it again and again. I finished it feeling the anticipation of what was going to happen to Thea when I turned the next page--was she going to become the artist she was destined to become or would she fail because of some poor decision or accident or simple poverty? Would she be able to accept her gift and learn to live with it, or would she reject it because it could never meet her ideal.

The last section of the book has Thea returning to New York after spending years in Germany discovering her art. She is singing in opera after opera--a different one every night it seems. She is different characters in different voice ranges and truly shows her artistic abilities both in acting and singing. The critics and public are impressed with her, and her old friends are as well. We finally get her reunion with her early friends, and they sit back and watch as the Artist Becomes.

SoL is such a beautiful book. There were passages that I want to keep in my mind forever. Sections of such perfectly written prose evoking such perfectly poignant thoughts that it drives home the images and reality that Cather was trying to create. I wish I knew more about opera so I could understand more of the symbolism of Thea's different characters, but even so I can "get it" that she's done something amazing in the end.

I enjoyed this book because of Jewett's turn-of-the-century language and simply accurate descriptions of the people living in a fishing town. Although some may wish for a more detailed plot (or any plot at all), "Pointed Firs" is an escape to a seemingly more innocent time. The characters struggle with many of the same issues we do: relationships, war, disease, and death. However, their sense of community, faith, and attitudes toward the sea form and strengthen their relationships with each other. Jewett is worth a read, merely for the beautiful way she creates a picture with the English language.

This book is full of timeless short stories that can either be read as a whole story or separately.

Sarah Orne Jewett's THE COUNTRY OF POINTED FIRS is a visitor's tale. Set in the fictional Maine coast town of Dunnet Landing where the author/narrator has settled for the summer to write. As a visitor, the narrator inevitably recounts only the pieces of history she comes in contact with through her landlady and the people she meets in the community. The stories are portraits, bits and pieces, of lives that exist outside the narrator's brief visit. As a result, the reader feels like a companion on this holiday. The novella moves at the pace of a quiet seacoast village, and is refreshing to read for that very reason. Like a vacation, outside cares fade while focusing on the lives, habits and landscape of this place. The writing is finely wrought. A real affection for a place and people one knows briefly shines through the work and makes one wish for a time and place when travel, life and writing unfolded at a the speed of a long walk.

Some editions incorporate other stories written about Dunnet Landing into the body of the novella. This can lead to a change in the narrator's voice that is incongruous with the rest of the work. Look for a version that preserves the order of one of the early publications with other short works in a separate section.

Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs seemed like a good choice for reading while summering in Maine. Indeed her character who narrates the book is a woman author spending the summer in a small seaside Maine town.
Sara Orne Jewett gets a mention in American literature classes as a local color writer. This book demonstates her style with its descriptions of the Maine countryside, village life in the 1890s, and insight into the lives of island dwellers and retired fishermen and sea captains.
There's not much that would be considered a plot, just casual meetings with interesting characters in the area. To glimpse life in coastal Maine more than a centruy ago, this is the book for you.
I look forward to visiting the author's home in South Berwick. It's a national historic site.

This is a beautifully written story. The author provides the reader with words that one can sink his teeth into. The characters are so well described that I would know them if they walked in my door. A beautiful escape from everyday life !!

WILLA CATHER HAS A UNIQUE WAY OF USING OLD WORLD PROSE IN HER DESCRIPTIONS OF EARLY AMERICAN LIFE. THIS IS A COMPELLING STORY OF LIFE IN THE NEBRASKA FARM COUNTRY AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY. HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS VERY RICH IN THAT SHE SUBLIMBLY WEAVES THE LIFE OF CLAUDE HER MAIN CHARACTER THROUGH HIS YOUTH. IT IS AN IMPORTANT WORK BECAUSE CATHER REMINDS US OF HOW IMPORTANT COURAGE IS, AND THAT MORAL, SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL LIFE WAS AND STILL IS IMPORTANT. A FAST READ.

...,but I can make a great city of a small state". Themistocles once said these words that might have been lifted from the thoughts of Claude Wheeler, the central character in Cather's Pulitzer winning novel. Claude is out of place in rural Nebraska, the initial setting of the novel. Only on the battlefields of WWI does he finally come in to his own.

Having read the critical comments of others, I sympathize with some of thier views. Cather did perhaps overreach in this novel. And certainly other of her works deserve more attention (Song of the Lark, My Antonia, Oh Pioneers). But for those of us who would read the technical specs for the muffler of a 73' Pinto if Cather had written them, this book is pure pleasure. Frankly, I can't imagine any of her books deserving less than 5 stars.

I also take exception to comments regarding the weakness of the final chapters. I found Cather's musings on fighting for a cause incredibly stirring. They offered resolution to the soul searching and final triumph of Claude. The epic scope of this story transcends the mere trials of finding oneself and speak to what it means to be human. No mere "fiddling" indeed.

For understandable reasons, "One of Ours" is perhaps Willa Cather's most underrated novel. Published in 1922, only four years after the end of the First World War, it is widely regarded as Cather's "war novel" and, although she visited Europe to research the battle scenes, she admitted the difficulty of writing such a novel when she had no direct personal experience of war itself. Judged simply as a war novel, then, it is certainly lacking in many respects; one won't find realist depictions of military action here. In addition, criticism that she glorified the war and its sacrifices has haunted the book since its publication.

But "One of Ours" is instead a eulogy for her cousin who served as an officer at the Western front. Only very small portions of the book actually occur during battle, and those that do are less about fighting than about a Nebraska boy who finds himself away from home, billeting with a French family and becoming friends with a fellow officer. Like some of her other works, "One of Ours" is a perceptive character sketch of a Midwestern youth struggling to escape the confinement of life on the farm.

The opening chapters follow Claude Wheeler from boyhood to an abortive college career, interrupted when his father insists that he leave school to work on the farm. One of the more absorbing sections describes his informal adoption by members of the Ehrlich family, who host a faux-bohemian parlor for their college-age friends and introduce Claude to Lincoln's social giddiness, intellectual intensity, and cultural pleasures: "He had never heard a family talk so much, or with anything like so much zest." After he returns home, his life begins a less satisfactory course, first by marrying an impossible woman and then by "escaping" to the war in Europe.

Readers and critics have often misunderstood Cather's novel; eighty years later, however, it's hard to see how anyone could say the novel prettifies combat. Instead, she probes, from Claude's perspective, those aspects of the war--camaraderie, adventure, patriotism--that entice young men to risk their lives. She explores the motives of those who serve their country while simultaneously lamenting the results. At the same time, she ridicules many of her usual targets--parochialism, bigotry, and righteousness--and lovingly portrays David Gerhardt, Claude's friend in Europe (who is based on a real-life violinist named David Hochstein). Taken as a whole, then, the novel is both Cather's celebratory tribute to "one of ours" and a grief-stricken remembrance of the tragic effects of war.

Man oh man...the description of Claude and Enid's wedding night and "marriage" is timeless!

Nothing can compare with Cather's O, PIONEERS, or even her SONG OF THE LARK, but this book is pretty darn close. The writing is the same--good--as in her other books, but the one thing I DID like better about ONE OF OURS is the fact that it explores a more psychological aspect of the main character---especially that of someone during the WWI period. As with all Cather's books, they are crafted well. A few may find her a little too wordy, but consider that these were written in a time when there was no TV, few movies, and barely any radio. It's what people wanted back then.

but I would not hesitate to write a book about a church that condones the death of children and adults and causes untold emotional suffering and insanity. Period!

More recent scolarship has shown this biography to be a polemic not a biography. See more scholarly work by Gillian Gill especially her comments on page 563 about Milmine's work.

It seems that all the reviews here show a bias that was held before this particular book was read. If one had a a prejudice agains Christian Science, they thought the book was wonderful. If one was in favor of Christian Science, they thought the book was terrible.

My feeling is, that at least in the US where we treasure religious freedon, to write a book that trashes another's belief is despicable. Everyone should be able to follow their beliefs without someone trashing them.

I am not Catholic, but I am not going to write a book denouncing the pope.

Dennis R.

In 1906 Georgine Milmine, a newspaperwoman who had spent years assembling an enormous collection of material about Mary Baker Eddy but doubted her own ability to write on the subject, sold it to McClures Magazine. Interest in Christian Science was at its height at the time, and McClure's turned the project over to Willa Cather, who was 32 years old and had 32 published short stories to her credit, but whose days as a great novelist still lay in the future.

Although Ms. Cather publicly disclaimed credit for the resulting series of articles which form the basis of this book, the editors provide convincing proof that she wrote it.

In addition to being a highly entertaining account of the rise of one of the more fascinating characters in American religious history and the church she founded, the book provides extensive factual detail to anyone seriously interested in the history of either. While it is critical of Mrs. Eddy, it is also complimentary. Factually accurate and extensively documented., it is perhaps the most objective account available of a truly remarkable woman and her church.

Although the book was the subject of favorable reviews when it was published in 1910, the response of the church was, predictably, less enthusiastic. According to the afterword, even before it was published, "three spokesmen for the Christian Science church visited the McClure's office and tried to suppress the series of articles. Christian Scientists were said to have later bought and destroyed most copies of the book, and library copies were said to be kept out of general circulation through constant borrowings by church members... The copyright for the Milmine book was purchased by a friend of Christian Science, the plates from which the book was printed were destroyed, and the manuscript also acquired. That this happened is supported by the fact that the manuscripts for the 'Milmine' book are held in the Archives and Library of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston." (pp. 497-498)

Perhaps the most important contribution that this book makes is to present Mrs. Eddy and her church in the context of their time. There is a tendency today to present her as an early oppressed feminist. That interpretation should be compared with Ms. Cather's hard-nosed assessment:: "The result of Mrs. Eddy's planning and training and pruning is that she has built up the largest and most powerful organization ever founded by any woman in America. Probably no other woman so handicapped-so limited in intellect, so uncertain in conduct, so tortured by hatred and hampered by petty animosities-has ever risen from a state of helplessness and dependence to a position of such power and authority... The growth of her power has been extensive as well as intensive." (p. 480)

In fact, the only complaint in an otherwise favorable review by a student of nervous disorders in the American Historical Review (Vol 15, July 1910), was that the author did "not do enough to explain the abnormal psychology of the founder of Christian Science-the record of hysteria, hypochondria, and the delusion of persecution." (p.498)

Well worth reading

December 2007 The Mary Baker Eddy Library has the real and whole story. I think that it must have been built to make everything available to everybody. Before you get lopsided on this book, better visit or call MBE Library for the Betterment of Humanity.
The real test of all this is to read her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. When you feel the change that comes over your whole life you'll be in a better position to write a review. And, it doesn't matter if you are an atheist, a Mormon, catholic or anything in between.

A nice coffee table book that has wonderful photos and very interesting commentary on each house. Not only are the associations with various movie people interesting but equally good was reading how most of the houses had to be rehabilitated and what was involved. A nice book to read in short spurts.

I loved this book. Something about the pictures... one feels like you're actually there... technically part of it is that the human eye sees inside and outside. Photographers get one of the other... but not both. In these pictures it feels like you are walking through a house... seeing it as a guest of the famous resident... and seeing it as you would if you were there in person. You can look at the room, the furniture, or out the window. There's an emotional quality that was stirred in me.

Likewise, the text is telling tidbits and gems that the famous owner might reveal to a friend... One learns things that you wouldn't dare ask. Its a great marriage between the past private and public lives of people that we all know. Though they are long in their graves, they come to life in this fascinating book.

I'd been in some of these homes. The Charles Laughton home in Palos Verdes, Portugese Bend, was a fascinating journey as a kid... walking over Peacock Flats, through the Vanderlip estate... looking for feathers, and hoping not to be caught. The fear that Quasimodo would emerge and chase us, I can still feel it. I think that going back there in the book, this was my favorite.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover. There are so many interesting stories and tid bits about the stars of Hollywood's golden age. From the suave Cary Grant to the powerful DeMille to the comic W.C. Fields. The homes are anywhere from spectacular to homey. This book also covers some famous theaters and restaurants. I highly recommend it!

The images and text in this book are of poor quality. If you are expecting a coffee table quality book of the same caliber as an Architectural Digest, look somewhere else.

Fantastic book that gives you access to the lifestyles of the truly privledged in Los Angeles. Jaw dropping pictures that other books can only dream of publishing. This is a must buy for anyone interested in Southern California architecture.