University of Nebraska Books

While revealing many interesting facts about Whistler's life and the portrait itself, Walden shares with the reader his inspirations, insecurities, and values, but none of these reveals a tragic or heroic character. She reveals him as simply a passionate artist. The book is efficiently organized according to topics such as "The Moment of Creation," "The Portrait as Patriotism," and "Restoration: the Elusive Original," and I admit to jumping to sections in which I was most interested. I was not glued to the pages in the way I would be to a narrative, but I found the information a good supplement to my enjoyment of Whistler's paintings. Certainly any reader with an appreciation for Whistler or a broader interest in late 19th century art would enjoy this book.

The artist James McNeil Whistler was an American, but he spent his professional life in Europe, especially London, and had no homesickness for his homeland. Asked how he came to be born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he replied, "I wanted to be near my mother." And it is his mother that his countrymen remember him for. "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother" is one of the most famous paintings in the world, better known as "Whistler's Mother." Sarah Walden, a leading picture restorer, got the job of restoring it a few years ago. She researched the work extensively before she took on the intimidating task of renewing its surface. In _Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship_ (University of Nebraska Press), Walden has described the restoration process in her book's final chapter, but has also given a history of the picture and its changes in meaning. It is a book full of surprises concerning just how the world looks at a masterpiece.

Whistler's mother was sixty-seven when he came to paint her; she was a stand-in when the model of the day did not show, one day in 1871. Walden is firmly of the opinion that the portrait is Whistler's best work. Whistler, a dandy who liked attention and was profuse with his (sometimes foundationless) philosophy of art was reticent about this particular painting. When someone congratulated him on it, he said only, "One does like to make one's mummy just as nice as possible." He lived in England for thirty years, but got little recognition from the English. Even the portrait of his mother was not appreciated. It was cool, gray, and empty, and it puzzled London critics. It was a sensation, however, in Paris. The geometry, the gray, black, and white, the Japanese influence, and the detachment all were a hit. After complicated negotiations detailed here, it was bought for the Louvre, Whistler's supreme achievement. Indeed, the American affection for the painting, after it was lost to France, had to do with its being an icon of home, religion, and maternity. One of the surprising things revealed in Walden's work is that the painting itself physically changed in ways that would reinforce the American interpretation, ways that would have ideally been undone in the restoration.

Walden reveals some of the technical difficulties of the restoration process, but also admits that because of the particular difficulties of this work, we will never get to see it as the Royal Academy did. She has written before of the dangers of over-restoration of paintings, with a result that "... the most seasoned Old Master can come to bear a remarkable resemblance to a colored photograph." The dark blacks that are the signature of the painting are irretrievable, but the light areas did not suffer the same problems of thinned pigment, and ought to be fully restorable. There is here an introduction to the larger philosophy of restoration. Improving the whites of the bonnet and the handkerchief would ruin any remaining trace of the harmony which Whistler so valued. In an analogy Whistler would have understood, Weldon writes, "You cannot successfully readjust one note in a symphony, however historically accurate, if the others are several tones flat." Weldon tells of a number of compromises that left the painting if not like the day it was finished, then a clear reminder of what it used to be. The color before and after pictures here are dramatic. Through Weldon's work on the canvass, and now through this detailed and loving story of the painting, we get to see Whistler's work anew.

This is a great overview of the history of warfare from earliest times to 2001. Non-western military matters are also included. A good mix of theory and examples, nicely written.
My only complaint isthat the chapter on post 1945 warfare is very broad, and leaves out detail. Very little was included on the problems the Soviets faced in Afghanistan, or the Bosian conflict.

World History of Warfare
by Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H Herwig, Timothy H. E. Travers

Review by Michael W. Brandt

The World History of Warfare is designed to be a textbook for introductory college courses in military history. I think that the authors have exceeded this modest goal.

It should be understood that the authors of this book took on an enormous task. They condensed the history and evolution of thousands of years of warfare into 591 pages of text.For someone who needs a reference book on the development and evolution of warfare, this is a very useful text. It presents the development of arms, weapons and tactics of warfare against the flow of history. This process enables the student of history to have a background understanding of the effect of warfare on the period he is studying. It is worldwide in scope and gives a perspective which should be kept in mind by any historian.

There are four authors, and if you read carefully you can sense different tones between them. I personally found the last section about more recent warfare a bit weaker than the preceding three. It is a superior book for someone who needs a reference book covering the development and evolution of warfare.

One thing which I did not find recognized was the fact that despite the terrible effects of warfare, such periods were often times of enormous creativity in a variety of areas. I would also stress the fact that each of these four authors could have written a 500 page book on the period they covered.

It is therefore a valuable book for any library. The book is also organized and concise enough for the reader to quickly find and identify the periods he wishes to investigate with regard to warfare. I also think it is a book few could read without learning a great deal from.

Warfare is more and more treated as an unpleasant business that should simply go away. There is no indication that this is going to happen, but if it does a clear understanding of its history, circumstances, development, and causes will be the key to such a change. This book is an invaluable aid to any who are seriously interested in warfare, its affects, and a possible solution.

Mr. Stiller has completed a formidable task in combining the corporate, regulatory, and environmental viewpoints of Montana's mining history. This book provides a solid technical understanding of hard-rock mining (and its environmental aftermath) in Western Montana, yet it covers the historical development, operation, and degradation of the area in human terms as well. If you like the style of John McPhee, you'll appreciate this read. Just about anyone with a general interest in Western U.S. history, economic geology, or environmental policy as it applies to federal mining law, state regulation, or environmental remediation should appreciate Stiller's prose. I imagine that many similar texts could be written about numerous localities in Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, etc. But, as a geologist myself, I also hope that this book will bring home some of the reality of mining's impacts in a country that so voraciously demands (and wastes) the finite resources of our earth.

Author Dave Stiller's book about hard-rock mining in Montana is a story full of the history of men's migration to the west to find their fortune in the elusive mountains and hills of mineral ores. At the same time it is well tempered to lead us through the often colorful federal and state political scene that played such an important part in mining development. It is also about mining's true risks, rewards, frustrations, and as well about good old-fashioned work ethic. It is one fine read.

Stiller's description is clear, easy to understand and most educational for the uninitiated in mining terminology. Those looking for a human story will not be disappointed. His character analysis of George and "Rosie" Kornec penetrates deeply into our desires and emotions to see them gain an upper hand in their struggle. Stiller's delivery stays fair and impartial as he explores the drives and motivations of the environmentalists versus the major mining corporations. His style touches on that of John McPhee with a little Colin Fletcher thrown in from time to time. In the end, after all the ups and downs at the Mike Horse Mine, after the clean-up appears to be in order, the reader realizes just how well Stiller has brought us through this complex subject and how well he stayed focused. Certainly we leave this book with our own hope that considerably more attention will be paid on a continuous basis to the other 500,000 neglected mines in the west needing similar action.

I was somewhat lost as to what the aunt intended to do with the dolls. I mean were they given to the nieces to watch over them and protect them or were they just given to the nieces just because she loved them and wanted to give them the dolls out of love. Did she know (aunt) that the doctor was just using her for her money or did she find out when he tells his son in front of her this is how he paid his eductation. I was unsure of this I didn't know if she knew this from the beginning or found out as mentioned before.

I read this story in Spanish while in college, and I absolutely loved it. I believe there is a great deal of symbolism and everything is not what it seems. I think it's a strong commentary on Puerto Rican culture. (How a woman with a slight imperfection is destined to be alone; How the doctor only married the girl because of her status and displayed her, etc.) Maybe I read more into it than the author intended but it's one of my favorite stories.

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.

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!

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.

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.

**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.

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.

What a beautifully intricate and poignant story! It is a complex tale of love and land and the relationship of the individual to their environment. Tragic but full of hope and faith, Willa Cather successfully paints a portrait of the American West and the pioneering spirit of its first settlers.

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.

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.

Mr. Hyde is a known murderer. Dr Jekyll is an honorable doctor in the scientific community. These people's lives should never cross, but why is Hyde the heir of Jekyll. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Luis Stevenson is set in Edinburgh, Scotland. The plot focuses on the duality of man and our capability to do both good and evil. The book does not take long to read and can probably be read in under 2 hours depending on your reading speed. This book is not hard to understand, it is written in prose. This book is not a murder fest and is probably better off for that. The book is written as a mystery. It would be better to compare it to a Hitchcock horror film than to Saw. I like it because it was a chance for me to read a classic, but not spend a month reading it. The plot was interesting and raised some interesting questions. All in all it is an interesting, but not time-consuming book.

Mr. Hyde is a known murderer. Dr. Jekyll is a honorable doctor in the scientific community. These people's lives should never cross, but why is Hyde the heir of Dr. Jekyll. This book by Robert Luis Stevenson "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", focuses on the duality of man and Jekyll's beleif that the evil in a man can be seperated from the good. This classic book can be read in as little as an hour and is a peice of literature that can surprise you in many ways. This book is not wriiten as poetry and as hard to read as The Odessy or Shakespeare. This book will make you think

A scientist invents a formula that can bring out man's dual nature. His opposite number, in this case, is somewhat of super-powered wanton, who does whatever he likes. Free of the social restraint of his other half, he happily commits any crime that comes to mind as he feels like it.

Eventually, investigators begin to suspect something, and a hunt is on for who is behind it.

This book was very interesting. It had its ups and downs and at time was hard to understand. I like the suspence and the mystery. For example I liked the part when out of no were Mr.Hyde lashed out and killed another man. I also liked the part were the lawyer went to go see Dr.Jekyll and there was a letter that the Doctor gave to the lawyer which was from Mr.Hyde the scary part was that there was no retern address and the door worker said that no one had hand delivered it. That is why i liked the book.

I thought this was a very challenging book, and it was hard to understand. I couldn't understand alot of the words since it is so old. But once you start understanding it, it really is a great story. Even though I already knew before I started reading it that they were the same person, I didn't know the rest of the story, and it was very interesting how Jekyll had written his will to Mr. Hyde. I like how he had the potion to stop and he was doing a good job, but then he finally gave in. I like this book, but it was challenging.

I agree wholeheartedly with those who already wrote critical reviews of Che's book. Frankly, he was in the right place at the right time in Cuba, then he rode that success to become the spiritual figurehead of the Latin American Marxist movements. Che fans, I hate to burst your bubble - okay, that's a lie because I enjoy it - but HE NEVER ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING! And this book really shows why.

Che was essentially kicked out of Cuba - Castro was glad to support him elsewhere, he just didn't want him in his own country. After that, he didn't accomplish anything of importance until Bolivians acting in conjunction with our own SF took care of him permanently. He may have been living for "the cause," but he didn't know what he was talking about. Even his contemporaries among insurgency theorists knew far more about what they were talking about than Che. If you want to get a better understanding from the perspective of an insurgent, read Mao Zedong. But seriously, quit lionizing Che because it's getting really annoying.

Ernesto "Che" Guevera was the leader of a tin pot commie insurgency.
In this book it outlines how to gain followers for your cause,care and feeding of your guerillas, how to spread propoganda and how to use hit and run attacks againsted a large incompetent 3rd world military force.

This book could be useful for possibly an anarchy situation (causing one rather than surviving one) create your own communist mercenary group, or further reading for those in the middle class who read "Motorcycle Diaries" and value all of Che's "wisdom" ... zen master he is not.

I hope every terrorist reads this book and goes by it to the letter...The information is so hopelessly obsolete!

All good for the perspective terrorist or social misfit. For me as a former Soldier the only value this book had is showing the basic mindset of a common terrorist.

Knowing how our enemies think, makes it easier to defeat them. And rest assured we are killing scores of insurgents like Che on an hourly basis...and the terrorists are losing, believe me.

This book is the true companion of his other Magnum Opus "The Motorcycle Diaries"

In conclusion: You can get some useful yet obsolete info on how terrorists work but this is no Art of War.

More like the "The complete idiot's guide" version. Ernesto Che Guevara is a ovverated retard. Read for a good laugh.

You're better off going to the library and checking this one out there. I didn't care for this book at all. Only good as if you want to build your personal reference books library.

This guy was educated, but not smart enough to follow his own preaching. He separated himself from his popular base, communist/leftist college students, and went out to help aid the people. If he had paid attention in Guerilla Warfare 101 (read: On Guerilla Warfare by Mao Tse Tung) he would done more than fight in the wilderness.

Guerilla tactics involve (as most everyone knows now) convincing as many civilians, proletariat or not, to fight by your standard. Che only became a martyr when photos of his corpse, incidentally posed Christ-like, were released to a largely Catholic public.

narrow-mined, outdated. would have been a great read in the early 50's. Please forward an edition to all of our "un-friendlies".

The Song of the Lark is Willa Cather's somewhat autobiographical novel about artistic growth.

It follows the life of a fictional opera singer, Thea Kronborg, as she develops her musical and interpretive gifts.

Thea is not an entirely lovable character, but I deeply identify with her passion, ambition, and - most of all - her fierce struggle to protect and nurture her talent.

Throughout the work, Cather brings up questions about what it means to be an artist and how the process of becoming one affects the artist herself and those around her.

As in so may of Cather's works, the land (the vast, untamed American Midwest) is both a metaphor and a character in its own right.

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.