Willa Cather Books

Ideally, a biography is meant to give the reader a true feeling of what the subject was really like. For Willa Cather, there is perhaps no biography that does this better than the account of her life by Edith Lewis, who knew, and lived with, Willa Cather for well over 40 years.

At 197 pages (in the original edition) this book is short by biography standards; yet, reading it, I came away with a greater feeling of what Willa Cather was like than in all of the other biographies on her that I have read.

We get great personal details in such passages as: "I think Willa Cather never got so much happiness from the writing of any book as from the Archbishop; and although Shadows on the Rock is of course altogether different in conception, in treatment, and in artistic purpose, it may have been in part a reluctance to leave that world of Catholic feeling and tradition in which she had lived so happily for so long that led her to embark on this new novel." (Pg. 155)

Or, "...Willa Cather had a great distaste for luxury hotels...She was extremely gloomy and discontented, even resentful, the first day or two [at a particular luxury hotel], as if she had been cheated out of all the things she had come back to Aix-les-Bains to find. It was not until we removed to the plain, old-fashioned Grand Hotel down in the town...that she recovered her happy spirits." (pg. 159-160) (Indeed, Cather loved her extremely austere, pastoral summer cottage at Grand Manan, Canada; which was purposefully rustic and simple, but where she spent a great deal of time.)

Or, "When her [Cather's] brother Roscoe's twin daughters were babies, and she went out to Wyoming to visit him, she never tired of playing with them. She played with children, not as if she were a grown person, but as children play--with the same spirit of experiment, of adventurousness and unreflecitng enjoyment." (pg. 169)

Or, "She was a little tired that morning [of her death]; full of winning courtely to those around her; fearless, serene--with the childlike simplicity which had always accompanied her greatness; giving and recieiving happiness." (pg. 197)

This biography is recently back in print (I had to scour and search to get my edition), which begs the question: how could such a fine biography--written by Cather's life-long friend and house-mate--written on perhaps America's finest writer, have gone out of print in the first place?

If you are looking for a very solid and informative biography of Willa Cather, you could do much worse than this book. It is not terribly long, but in its just under 300 pages of text (excluding notes and index) Ms. Robinson manages to cover in decent detail all the main events of Willa Cather's life. One of the reasons that it is possible to do this in such a short span is that Cather did not lead a terribly eventful life. Mainly what she did was write. She did not engage in a string of lurid love affairs, and did not do a great deal to register headlines. She had a couple of affairs with women, but they were quiet and nonostentatious. The second she lived with for forty years of her life.

I am a huge lover of Willa Cather's books, but for me the disappointment is that in this biography Cather did not emerge as someone who I especially would have liked to know. She doesn't appear to have been an especially great hearted person, and for someone who was a lesbian, she had disappointingly conservative political opinions in most other ways. She had little interest in issues concerning women as a whole. She doesn't seem to have been sensitive to race issues. In a sense, she seems to have been personally an isolationist in the same sense that the US as a whole was during most of her lifetime.

One of the points the biography makes is how terribly private Willa Cather was. She almost never gave interviews, and it is very hard even after reading this biography to get much of a sense of her as a person. To be honest, unless someone has an uncontrollable compulsion to know more about Cather, I believe I would recommend instead just rereading one of her books. There are very few writers of whom I believe I would make that statement.

I AM NOT A FAN OF WILLA CATHER - HAVING CONSIDERED HER WRITING TOO SIMPLISTIC, COMPARED TO SAY, THOMAS HARDY OR BALZAC. HOWEVER, THESE SHORT STORIES WERE QUITE BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN. ALL DEALT WITH THE ARTS AND ARTISTS. WHAT I ESPECIALLY LIKED WAS THE FACT THAT, UNLIKE SOME SHORT STORIES WHICH SEEM ONLY TO BE A SLICE OF LIFE, HAVE NO PLOT OR RESOLUTION, THESE STORIES ALL HAD AN INTERESTING STORY LINE AND A CLEVER OR INTERESTING RESOLUTION. I FOUND ALL OF THE STORIES TO BE ENTERTAINING ... AND THEY HELD MY ATTENTION TO THE END. I WANTED TO KNOW HOW EACH STORY WOULD BE RESOLVED. DO HAVE A LOOK!

My book was supposed to be new -- a purchase straight from the amazonstore. However, my copy looked used: It's front and back covers were badly creased. I would've expected this from a book that was in good but used condition. If I had known that amazon would send me a new book in such condition, I would definitely have ordered a USED copy and PAID FAR LESS for it. I feel tricked and cheated. Beware buyers! As long as amazon has your money they don't care if a customer gets what s/he paid for or not.

I had to buy this book for a Lit class I had to take at school. It was ok. I'm not much for analyzing literature but thought it was a good story.

I first read this book when I was in junior high school. I admit that, at the time, I did not appreciate the strengths of the book and the quality of its writing. I am quite glad that I decided to give it another chance, as, having re-read it, I now understand why it is considered to be a classic in literature. It is simply a beautifully written book, covering many of the themes that one stumbles across in life and coalescing them into a work of extraordinary breadth.

The book is the story of two young people, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda. They meet for the first time when Jim is ten years old and Antonia is fourteen. Recently orphaned, Jim has moved to the Great Prairie to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. Antonia, on the other hand, has been wrenched from her homeland in Bohemia, emigrating with her parents to the United States and finding herself in Nebraska. Jim and Antonia's chance encounter on a train sets the stage for the forging of a friendship and unconditional love that time will not diminish.

The book relates the harshness of immigrant life through the eyes of Jim, who narrates the events contained in the book. There is a relentless stoicism about the book, which is written in spare, clear prose. With intense imagery and descriptive exactitude, late nineteenth century Nebraska comes to life. It also relates the paths that each of the characters choose to follow, as well as the vicissitudes of life that mold and shape them in ways that no one would have imagined.

The focus of the book, which is also a coming of age tale, seems to be on the female characters and their strengths. All the women in it seem to be survivors, despite the hardships that they encounter. This is, without a doubt, a life affirming book, wrought with great feeling and a decided sense of time and place. Yet, despite its poignancy, the book is surprisingly unsentimental and straightforward. It is a testament to the author's literary talent that this book has emerged as a timeless classic. Bravo!

This video is alright. Eric Roberts is not very believable as a young school aged boy, and his physical acting during the painting and symphony scenes is distracting and overdone. The video has elements not included in the story, perhaps to make Paul seem a more humane character than the cold portyal in print. In the written story, he seems to simply shut out his father and look down on his peers with an aloof disdain. However, the movie shows a boy who tries to please his father; a boy treated cruelly by his classmates. Though nicely filmed and authentic in appearance, the film tries too hard to accomplish what the story did not.

This is film is based on of one of the finest short stories ever written. Eric Roberts is nothing short of brilliant as the young man I always thought had to be the prototype for Holden Caulfield. The sensitivity & simplicity of this film is to be commended because it never would have worked as well as it does otherwise. This movie should definitely be seen by a far wider audience.

I am currently taking an undergraduate course on Cather, and I hoped that this book would provide some insight into a side of her not covered in the course. However, I found the book full of jargon which rendered it incomprehensible to me. Perhaps if you are already initiated into the world of "queer studies" you will find it interesting, but I don't recommend it for a casual reader.

Lindemann's deft analysis of Cather and her "queer" sensibilities is a refreshing change of pace from the boring, disconnected aesthetic-based criticism that has dominated Cather studies for some time now. Written in a delightfully engaging prose style, _Willa Cather: Queering America_ provides us with insight into the next phase of Cather scholarship that dares to situate the author within the sexual-political environment of the early twentieth century. A must for queer and gay and lesbian Americanists, as well as anyone interested in American literary history and the traditions that frame such a field.

Willa Cather's New York: New Essays On Cather In The City is a fascinating and informative collection of essays offering a wide-ranging spectrum of observations on how the pace and diversity of New York City life and its literary community affected, influenced, and was celebrated by Cather's perceptions both in her writing and in her life. The diverse and exceptionally well written essays are arranged in to four major sections: Geographical City and Home Town; Art Capital of the World; City Contacts and Literary Connections; and Urban Perspectives. These informative commentaries are enhanced for the reader with twenty-four illustrations, a list of contributors, and an index. Willa Cather's New York is enthusiastically recommended reading for students of her work and the New York literary establishment of the early decades of the twentieth century.

There is something almost obsessive about this collection of essays on Cather's engagement with New York City. These authors have not only visited (almost fetishized) every geographical place associated with Cather, but they have painstakingly combed her work for every possible reference to New York. This collection is an attempt to "rescue" Cather from being known in literary history as "only" a regionalist writer. While I admire the thorough scholarship that went into this work, I feel on the whole that this collection undermines the excellent work that feminist literary critics have done on American women regionalists like Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Willa Cather, etc. The implication behind Skaggs et al's work is that regionalist writing, rather than an important development in American realism, is of lesser value and that Cather is "better" than that.

This is an amazing story about a successful engineer and his simultaneous romantic relationships with two brilliant and capable women. Originally published in 1912, it must have been scandalous, creating sympathetic portrayals of each of the three main characters: Bartley Alexander, a leading bridge building engineer; Winifried Alexander, his intelligent, enabling, supportive, and capable wife; and Hilda Burgoyne, Alexander's mistress, a talented and spirited British stage actress.

This is not a perfect book. And in the preface written by Willa Cather in 1922, ten years after it's original publication, it seems Cather almost apologizes for some of the choices she made in telling her original story - conceding it was not truly a story she understood from personal history, but rather a young writer's attempt to tell a story similar to the stories told by authors she admired.

It is not a long novel, so I was able to read it for the first time over the last few weeks. I enjoyed it very much.

The title "Alexander's Bridge" refers to several primary metaphors, including:

a) The story is about Alexander's attempt to bridge his life between two great loves, the two amazing and unique women in his life.

b) "Alexander's Bridge" is also a metaphor for the institution of marriage, a "singular span" that is capable of bearing conventional loads, but that may not be the safest or most facilitative structure to handle the demands of some modern expanses, loads, and conditions.

c) And "Alexander's Bridge" refers to the Alexander's repeated and unavoidable attempts to bridge his current life and responsibilities with the passions, memories, and goals of his youth.

Alexander, for many good reasons, not only loves Hilda (his current mistress and first love), but maybe as importantly he also loves the person he was in his youth when he was around her chemistry and environments. And he regularly struggles with his present life, where his marriage, career, and all the related societal and work obligations have taken over almost all his time and concerns. Throughout the story, he is consciously, and unconsciously in his sleeping dreams, struggling with the relentless memories of the past.

While I love the insight and universal perspectives in this book, unfortunately, my two least favorite sentences are the last sentence of Chapter X, and the last sentence of the Epilogue. It appears Cather was torn with what summarily should be said about Alexander's choices, because the Epilogue is in notorious conflict with the last sentence of Chapter X.

The whole book is an intelligent exploration of morality, ethics, and dualities - it seems unnecessarily disarmed with such an overriding negative spin as is suggested in the final sentence of Chapter X. I understand Cather must have been under a great deal of social pressure in 1912 to identify Alexander's behaviors as destructive, but almost the entire rest of the book is one big long wink to savvy readers that she was under pressure to put such a pat moral perspective on the totality of his actions.

In later books, like My Ántonia, Cather created a male narrator that does not identify his undying loves as destructive. My Ántonia, as a book, is one man taking the time to recollect and share his fond memories of one of his first love's (Ántonia). A beautiful aspect of My Ántonia is a concession by the narrator that his love for Ántonia never died, even though she married and lived a life separate from him.

Alexander's Bridge, in almost every other part of the book, suggests that Alexander was not intent on being self-destructive; but rather, he had excellent reasons for loving both women and for pursuing so many hard to achieve simultaneous business goals. Both women are drawn lovingly (as Cather is so capable of doing).

Cather was brilliant. Notice that Alexander does not die because his bridge crushes him, or because its weight and undertow drown him. He does not die of hubris. He does not die because he is arrogant and ignores the engineering data. As soon as he receives data suggesting the one bridge cannot meet all the demands placed on it, he immediately changes directions and makes best efforts to get everyone off the bridge. He does not die because he is not self-sufficient or because he is unable to swim. He dies because fearful people around him panic, and they pull him under the water as they drown.

The book is an exploration of this important question: Is it possible for good and moral people to have a healthy extra-marital affair? And in 1912, seriously and carefully examining that question in a mainstream and literate novel had to be controversial. The book suggests that when people are faced with more than one great love, whether or not they choose to pursue only one of those loves (and therefore exclude the other), the conflicts inherent in those decisions continue the rest of their life, regardless of whether they choose to love only one or both.

I recommend people read this book to read the internal dialogues of all the main characters. The book challenges common presumptions, and it questions its own presumptions. Buy a version that includes Cather's 1922 preface.

When Alexander sees that one bridge (one relationship) will not safely support the load, he is not a fool. He doesn't stand idly and sink with the ship (the bridge). He makes best efforts to save himself and as many others as possible by letting them know that his one bridge will no longer keep them safe. And he personally goes back out onto the unsafe bridge and tries to save as many of the other men as possible.

The book is not simply a critique of the traditional love relationship formula. Rather, it is more intent on being illustrative of circumstances that might merit something other than simple Victorian guilt as a response to non-singular love relationships. It compassionately shows how one man had separate and distinctly beautiful relationships with two unbelievably good women. It shows how the social constructs of that era led good men and women to live with self-inflicted and sometimes crushing guilt. Each character loves deeply and genuinely. But in that era, they were forced to choose only one. The book considerately examines the inherent negative consequences that often arise out of the traditional marital contract.

This was Willa Cather's first novel, and, while showing glimpses of her later talent, is mostly disappointing. The metaphor of the bridge--the conduit to both the past and the future--figures prominently in this story of a Boston architect torn between his ongoing "mid-life" crisis and his energetic, passion-filled past.

The story contains some heavy-handed symbolism (e.g., the bridge), melodramatic action ("With one [hand] he threw down the window and with the other--still standing behind her--he drew her back against him), and awkward phrasing: "'He was simply the most tremendous response to stimuli I have ever known.'"

Still, the story moves along well, and there is an interesting Henry James-like contrast of Europe and America. The beginning nicely portrays the Boston upper class, and the dramatic conclusion includes passages of great strength and imagination. It is in this last chapter, especially, that her skills are most evident. Willa Cather is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "O Pioneers!" "My Antonia," and other great works. Definitely recommended for those with an interest in her work.

I'll make this review brief:

Cather didn't know how to write very well when she put this novel together. I have read iher style here as being comparable to Henry James... no way. This novel is too short, too abrupt, and too lacking in the details needed to pull off decent character motivation, somethng I find vital to novels dealing with infidelity and love.

The scenes read as disjuncted and they do not develop very well. If you want a short Cather novel that is better and want to avoid the commonplace Death Comes for the Archbishop, then try "My Mortal Enemy" This shows Cather off at the better end of her career.

Light on plot, heavy on symbolism, and a little predictable, Cather's first novel (a novella, actually) still contains moments of brilliance, especially in its strong characterizations and occasional flashes of wit. The story concerns a Boston architect who is contendedly married but suddenly embarks on an affair in London with an old flame from his youth. He soon becomes tormented over his double life but finds himself unable to resolve his conflicted feelings. Heavily indebted to the Gilded Age novelists, "Alexander's Bridge" reads like a typical first novel from a writer who shows a lot of promise.

Later in life, Cather wrote an essay entitled "My First Novels (There Were Two)," as close to an apology for a first novel as most writers ever make. She admitted that most of the "younger writers" in her peer group followed the manner of Henry James and Edith Wharton, "without having their qualifications"; she "thought a book should be made out of 'interesting material.'" Only while writing her next novel, "O Pioneers!," did she realize that "taking a ride through a familiar country"--the rural Nebraska of her youth--was "a much more absorbing process." Nevertheless, "Alexander's Bridge" hints at the virtuoso novelist she was later to become, and it's certainly better than many writers achieve in an entire lifetime.

Willa Cather's first novel, it concerns the life of engineer Bartley Alexander, the bridge he's building across the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, and the triangular relationship he has with his wife and mistress. The bridge becomes a symbol for his failures: the great bridge he's building collapses (causing his death) at the same time his affair with Hilda collapses. Cather had only published short stories before this, and was reluctant (though resigned) to writing a novel. It's a short work, and Cather herself thought it was shallow and trite (she almost disowned it). Her next work, O PIONEERS, would be much better.

Having never read a novel by Willa Cather, but only knowing of her work by it's reputation, I was anxious to read something of hers when our book club chose her as an author. Not wanting to pick something everyone had read I picked "Sapphira..". While the lead character of Sapphira was an interesting psychological study in narcisistic behavior in the face of sexual and physical repression, I found the depiction of African Americans, and slavery as a whole, to be unrealistic and naive. While there is an obligatory anti-slavery sentiment in the book, it is under-cut by the impression that the slaves are basically simple, happy folk, who are only upset when they are mis-understood, have somehow displeased thier owners, or are the objects of sexual predators. While the young slave girl, Nancy, does escape and become something of a success (as a domestic) in Canada, that part of her life is never detailed, and is only briefly mentioned. It is evident from the characterization of the strongest Black characters that the author subscribed to the liberal ideal of race relations found during her time (wise Whites can lead Blacks out of ignorance if only Blacks will let themselves be lead). This can be seen by Nancy's mother Till, and her former relationship with an English housekeeper, the Miller and his head Millhand who refuses to be freed, and Nancy who turns to Sapphira's daughter Rachel for advice and finally escape. This book is best read for the insights it can give us into the attitudes towards race, and slavery, fostered during the first half of the century soon past, rather then anything resembling historical accuracy.

As I was reading this book (which is thought provoking) I also was thinking thoughts similar to the previous reviewer, i.e., would the black people in the book really think this way in real life; (Example, some of the slaves would talk about the other slaves calling them "no count niggers". One of the slaves was offered freedom and a job in Pennsylvania but turned it down saying he wanted to stay where he was). I assume there were all kinds. All kinds of slave owners and all kinds of slaves. Perhaps some of what the author writes was true for some people but not true for others.

I really find it interesting that The "Master" (Mr. Henry Colbert) and his daughter (Mrs. Blake) would go to such trouble to make sure that Nancy (the slave girl) did not come to any sexual harm by Mr. Colbert's nephew Martin. Would this have really happened or would, in most cases, people in their position have turned a blind eye? Would a slave actually have felt comfortable going to a white person about this trouble?

I found it a bit hard to digest that the slaves were so ultimately loyal and simple and that the slave owners were to some extent so lenient. Was this a truthful depiction based on some facts the author uncovered or were theses all-false assumptions that she accepted as truth?

Of course I am reading this with all of the influences of a 2003 consciousness.

I think this book is perhaps showing a side to slavery that maybe did exist, just perhaps not on a widespread basis. I would hope the author did some type of research to substantiate what she wrote. It does make one contemplate...

Review written by a black person.

WILLA CATHER ON WRITING, Critical Studies as an Art, published by the University of Nebraska Press, is a slim(20 page introduction by Stephen Tennant, 126 pages by Cather) and valuable, though selective, work. Tennant attempts, with effort, to pull the contents together by his introduction. The contents are extensive pieces Cather wrote on writers and pieces of writing familiar to readers. The attempt is forced and the contents are wedged into the title and purpose of the publishers or Tennant. The Contents: Four letters: On DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP, On SHADOWS ON THE ROCK, Escapism, On THE PROFESSOR'S HOUSE The Novel Demeuble Four Prefaces: THE BEST STORIES OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT Gertrude Hall's THE WAGNERIAN ROMANCES Stephen Crane's WOUNDS IN THE RAIN AND OTHER IMPRESSIONS OF WAR Defoe's THE UNFORTUNATE MISTRESS My First Novels [There Were Two] On the Art of Fiction Katherine Mansfield Light on Adobe Walls [An unpubished fragment] The pieces are critical and hold advice for would-be-writers. Selections read like pieces of conversation with Cather on aspects of writing. Given Cather's talent and output, she deserves a more thorough collection with a more accurate title.