The Professor's Commencement by Willa Cather: A Short Story #WCSSP2023

👨‍🎓 First of all, I had to google "commencement" before realizing the meaning of this academic term. It's good to have learned at least one word from a story, even if I didn't really enjoy it.

👨‍🎓 It is about Professor Emerson's last day of teaching in a high school before his retirement from thirty years of service. His sister, a widowed Agatha, laments his lack of ambition. The Professor himself is often disconcerted by massive industrialization of their society, which muted academic passions of his pupils.

👨‍🎓 On the night there is a retirement party, and the Professor, as a tradition, must give a speech. He decided, upon Agatha's advice, to read something which he had blundered years ago. Maybe this time, this last time, he could make up for his past humiliation?

👨‍🎓 No, he couldn't. He blundered again, but his sister consoled him, saying that "it's all right". Now the Professor is dejected and hopeless. He feels that he had achieved nothing. But had he?

👨‍🎓 Poor Professor Emerson is having a mid-life crisis. I pity him, not because he achieved nothing, but because even at his age (fifty), he still cannot accept himself as it is; he hasn't made peace with himself. So what if he's "just" a high school professor for thirty years, if he had given his best every day of it, and enjoying it all the while? A failure is he who possess much but does nothing; while a successful one is he who does all he could with what God has blessed him with.

👨‍🎓 All in all, though I felt this story rather boring (my least favorite of the year so far), at least it serves as a remembrance to always accept oneself as it is; make peace with one self; and be happy!

Rating: 3 / 5

 

The Professor's House by Willa Cather: A Review

🏠 The Professor's House is a frame story (story within a story). Professor Godfrey St. Peter and his wife is moving out to a new, more comfortable house - no doubt after their two daughters married.

🏠 But St. Peter couldn't be apart from his old house yet. He now realizes how uncomfortable his old house has been; yet, he loved it. Especially his study in the attic room - a room where Augusta, the sewing lady used to sew dresses for the ladies of the house. He even loved the "form" (mannequin bust) where Augusta put his daughters' pretty dresses. He didn't think it weird; on the contrary, he accepted it as an integral part of his study. Moreover, he enjoyed Augusta's silent company while they were doing their works.

🏠 The Professor feels acutely the loneliness which old age often brings. He feels mentally farther away from his family. Lilian, his wife, was jealous of his relationship with his pupil Tom Outland, whose arrival to the St. Peter's would change their entire life, even long after he died in the war.

🏠 The Professor's reminiscences of Tom Outland is the frame story I was talking about. And what a remarkable story! Together with his friend Rodney "Roddy" Brake, he found a hidden cliff city of an Indian tribe in the Blue Mesa of New Mexico. It was of a fine civilization that they found, which Tom treated as a solemn object. On the other hand, Roddy treated it as mere intrinsic object. He sold the remnants in good price without consulting Tom. This enraged Tom and resulted to their quarrel and separation.

🏠 Studying under St. Peter's direction, Tom excelled in science. He invented a vacuum system, which he patented right before he served in the Gulf War, and never came back. In his will, he bequeathed the money from the patent to Rosamond St. Peter, to whom he was engaged before leaving for the war.

🏠 So, this story, which at first I thought as easy and straightforward, turned out to be a complex and thought provoking one. There are few things that left me pondering hard. One of these is why or what made St. Peter felt isolated from his family and peers - besides mid life crisis? I think Tom Outland and the values which he stands for had a huge influence over him. That explains also Lilian's jealousy of Tom; it's him who pulled St. Peter away from her.

🏠 St. Peter and Tom Outland valued history and heritage higher than money. Lilian, the daughters, the son-in-laws didn't understand why St. Peter was annoyed when Marsellus (Rosamond's husband) proudly announced that they would named their new house (bought from Outland's patent) "Outland" (while realizing that it's from his wife's ex fiance's money). The same thing must have been felt by Roddy on Tom's annoyance over the selling of the curios from the cliff city.

🏠 I think this was Cather's silent critic of modern civilization's high praise of money and wealth. St. Peter and Tom Outland both belonged to the old world, where a house is more than a building to protect you, and a lost civilization is more than its charming remnants. These old objects became an identity, it's what had made one who one is today. And that's why they are precious.

🏠 I was surprised at how deep this reading has brought me reflecting, and am grateful to have read another of Cather's remarkable works. I can't say this as a fun read (it's more confusing than fun when I was at it), but I realized its meaning after much reflection. This is one proof of the importance of reviewing or blogging of classics; I often realize the true value/impact of a book while trying to write a review/post. This has really been an unexpected read.

Rating: 4 / 5

 

1st Impression on The Professor's House by Willa Cather

What it’s about

After completing his masterwork and garnering a great deal of money for it, history professor Godfrey St. Paul has purchased a new house. But when the time comes to move, he cannot bring himself to do so. Sitting in his comfortable study in his current house near the shore of Lake Michigan—and on the verge of a midlife crisis—he reflects on his past.

At fifty-two, he has dedicated himself to his work, his garden, and his wife and two daughters, but despite all of his successes, he is unhappy with the course of his future. He retreats into his memories—his career and fond recollections of Tom Outland, his most outstanding student and once his son-in-law-to-be, who was lost in the Great War. He also thinks of his present and the daunting mystery of what lies ahead. And soon the introspection takes over...  - Goodreads


First lines:

"The moving was over and done. Professor St. Peter was alone in the dismantled house where he had lived ever since his marriage, where he had worked out his career, and brought up his two daughters."

My 1st impression:

I sympathize with the middle-aging Professor Godfrey St. Peter. The older we grow, the more we need stability. I realized this after watching how terrified my parents (my father especially) were when I suggested to sell our house and move into an apartment about seven years ago. Our thirty-years-old house was dilapidated at that time and in need of massive renovation (which we couldn't afford). Surely to sell the house and use the money to buy a smaller apartment was the most sensible choice. But my father was adamant, with many excuses. My mother and I need about a year to persuade him, that he finally relented. But that was that. To move to even a better place, to leave the old one with so many memories, to be separated from old habits, is hard and uncomfortable.

And that's what the Professor must have felt when the family move to a new house. Uprooted - that's the most appropriate term. He realized of so many imperfections of the old house, but he had accustomed to them. The old house had become, to St. Peter, a beloved entity. When you love someone, you're aware of their flaws, yet you still love them for what they are. You learn to accept the flaws with affection, and soon the flaws are mere unique personalities to you, and you'll be sad to be without it. And that's what the old house is for St. Peter.

So far the story is quite promising. I got to know Mrs. St. Peter, Lilian, who is jealous of St. Peter's deceased beloved pupil: Tom Outland. Then there are the daughters and sons-in-law. The elder is Rosamond, who was engaged to Tom Outland when he's alive, but now married a Marselus. Outland bequeathed his patented invention to Rosamond, and now its revenues enriched the Marseluses, and they even named their new house: Outland. I guess this will soon create problems.


Keep or Stop Reading?

Definitely I'll keep reading. I am curious about the secretive Tom Outland's background. I don’t know him, but I begins to like him. One character which I want to see more is Augusta, the sewer woman, who has become like a friend to St. Peter.


Have you read this book? Did you like it?

 

El Dorado, A Kansas Recessional by Willa Cather: A Short Story #WCSSP2023

🌵If I must give this particular story a one-word review, it would be: swindle. Because that's what it is about. A poetical prose beautifully written by Willa Cather, about swindle.

🌵 Colonel Josiah Bywaters had lived peacefully in Virginia for years. Until one day, four years ago, his friend introduced him to a amiable young man called Apollo Gump. That's when his life was about to change completely.

🌵 This Apollo young man persuaded the Colonel to invest in Western land, but he rejected. Soon, however, the Colonel grew fond of the young man. They drank whiskey together, while Apollo told many stories about Kansas City, in particular a town called El Dorado: "the beauty of the location, the marvelous fertility of the surrounding country, the commercial and educational advantages of the town."

🌵 Soon enough the Colonel was persuaded, and after sold his business, left Virginia to move to El Dorado, along with some other men Apollo had also successfully persuaded.

🌵 El Dorado was practically owned by the Gumps. Every establishment was owned by one of Apollo's brothers; they were the banker, physician, architect, real estate agent, mayor, and so on. Apparently, El Dorado was founded by the Gumps, and now it was built by promise; promise that a railroad would be built, the waterworks would be put in, next spring. And Josiah was once more persuaded to invest his money on the land, while opening a grocery store.

🌵 When spring came, however, the Gump boys were summoned by their dying father. Excepting Apollo (he, too, later went away), they were all gone. And with them, all the funds - banking, real estate, etc. They realized then, that they were swindled.

🌵 All of them left El Dorado, but Josiah. He stubbornly refused to leave that deserted town, waiting to get his money back. Not even after other houses and buildings were torn down, and Josiah's store was the only building still intact. Would his patience bring fruitful result? Or would he be dying in the loneliness of the barren bluff?

🌵 I love this story! All the elements of what I love from Cather is here. Poetical prose, beautiful and poignant, vividly portrayal of the characters' struggles, all in a short story. And the ending is superb!

🌵 I also love how she described the landscape as a living creature:

"The river is a turbid, muddy little stream, that crawls along between naked bluffs, choked and split by sand bars, and with nothing whatever of that fabled haste to reach the sea. Though there can be little doubt that the Solomon is heartily disgusted with the country through which it flows, it makes no haste to quit it. Indeed, it is one of the most futile little streams under the sun, and never gets anywhere."

"Sometimes, in the dusk of night, when the winds were not usual and only the stars could hear, the dry little corn leaves whispered to each other that once, long ago, real yellow ears grew in the Solomon valley."

"Near the river was a solitary frame building, low and wide, with a high sham front, like most stores in kansas villages. Over the door was painted in faded letters, 'Josiah Bywaters, Dry Goods, Groceries and Notions.'"

🌵 Josiah himself is an inspiring character. His patience, his strong will to endure, not so much the poverty than, the loneliness. Many others in his place would have had fallen to pieces sooner than a year. But not Josiah. Maybe we can learn a bit from him - of his resilience, not his poor judgment - such as living life as if he'd live in his happy past. Josiah would always wear his best Sunday suit, and went for fishing - though there's scarcely any fish in that muddy river. These little things help him maintain his dignity, and ridiculous as it seems, I think it help him enduring his desolate situation. Do you agree?

Rating: 5 / 5

Jack-a-Boy by Willa Cather: A Short Story #WCSSP2023

💙 For the past five years I’ve been living in an apartment building. And so, I have a certain interest in stories which are set in apartment or flat, just like this one. The name of the building is Windsor Terrace. I don't know what 'Terrace' alludes to in this case, but the narrator - a piano teacher called Miss Harris - says that "people who live in terraces are not usually those who have made the most brilliant success in life." Does it mean that the Terrace is the humbler type of flats?

💙 Jack-a-Boy and his family just moved in to number 324. He's a six year old girlish boy with big violet eyes. At first nobody pays any attention to him. Children are usually boisterous, and in an apartment building especially, they are doubly annoying. We can hear their footsteps while running around along the corridor, or shouting excitedly to their parents inside the lift. Oh yes, little children aren't truly welcomed in apartment buildings. But Jack-Boy isn't just any boy.

💙 He's a sweet little boy, unassuming, quiet and polite, affectionately warm to others. Right after the family's arrival, he visited his neighbors one by one, and they instantly succumbed to his pleasant habit of wanting to please everyone! At the Professor's, who study Ancient Greek, for instance, the boy would curl himself on the rug, quietly browsing at a picture book borrowed from the Professor, without disturbing him. And then he asks the Professor to tell a Greek story (Trojan war), to which he listened attentively. The boy kept reverently an ugly toy dog made by another neighbor, just because he "wouldn't like to hurt her feelings". How sweet!

💙 Besides loving Ancient Greek stories and seemingly rather talented in playing piano, Jack-a-Boy doesn't like playing with other boys, because "they are such rough boys". But that doesn't mean he's a gentle coward either, for when a little girl was bullied by another boy, he bravely "flew at him like a wild cat, fists, teeth, feet and all the rest of him".

💙 Approaching May Jack-a-Boy busied himself preparing for his May-basket hanging - a basket filled with colorful tissue papers and flowers to be hung on the neighbor's door. What a sweet little boy, this Jack-a-Boy is - an angelic one, almost. And I think I've guessed all along how this story would end - what usually happens in literature to these kind of children, so I prepared myself.

💙 Reading this story, I could feel that Cather wrote it by heart; that this story is special for her. And I was right, searching on google, I learned that it's a reference to Cather's little brother whom she nursed through a serious disease.

💙 One more thing, the day after that fatal day, Miss Harris is discussing with the Professor about how missing Jack-a-Boy meant to them. The Professor's lamenting what Jack-o-Boy would have been if he were still with them - an exceptional Greek scholar. While Miss Harris was only missing him as himself, "It was the little human boy that I loved". I am perhaps more with Miss Harris, and I guess Willa Cather was too. But maybe it's better that he leaves this corrupted world while still being innocent. One might never know what he would turn into while growing up.

💙 A heartwarming little story about a little boy, that will leave you pondering more about human's frailty.

Rating: 5 / 5

 

A Singer's Romance by Willa Cather: A Short Story #WCSSP2023

💗 Our second Willa Cather's short story for #WCSSP2023 project has a very different tone from last month's. It is very short, light, and straightforward; and very appropriate too for a February read - a romance!

💗 Frau Selma Schumann is an opera singer. She had zealously worked hard her entire life to achieve the present level. Not that she minds it, as hard working is a spirit she inherited from her father. But at forty two years old, she begins to have a little regret for never having tasted the sweet taste of romance.

💗 The story begins on a rainy night when she is about to leave Metropolitan Opera House after finishing her performance. Struggling to replace her wind-swept mantilla, she dropped her jewels bag. A handsome Latin man with black hair, mustache, and a red carnation in his buttonhole, sprightly lept to snatch it, and returned it to the owner with a bow.

"The New Yorker" by Constantin Alajalov, 1937

💗 The incident is only one of several occasions where this signorino always appeares wherever Madam goes with her valuable maid/companion Antoinette. Antoinette is an orphan, daughter of a former opera singer, whom Frau Schumann took into her service.

💗 Naturally Madame believes the signorino is attracted to her. But why does he never say anything, nor attempt to communicate with her? She has even manoeuvred some incidents to let him take the first move. But nothing happens. Meanwhile, Madame decided to look after her appearance more carefully, and stop drinking champagne. Still, nothing happens. When she finally hears signorino's voice, things turned out very unexpectedly, and so she turns back to champagne again.

💗 Overall, it is a sweet, but melancholy story; a little humorous but ironic. It reminds me of Song of the Lark - the same hardworking women, sacrificing their private lives to be successful opera singers. And what then? They might or might not be successful, but in the end, is it all worth it?

💗 I quite love this story, although it's not the usual Cather's quality writing I always expect of her, it's sweet, simple, and entertaining.

Rating: 4 / 5

 

The Affair at Grover Station by Willa Cather: A Short Story #WCSSP2023

I've made a spur decision to join Chris Wolak's Willa Cather Short Story Project 2023. Well, I've actually been meaning to join since last year, but somehow haven't. This time I was more prepared. I've just found - and instantly bought - the e-book of Delphi Classics edition of The Complete Works of Willa Cather at Google Playbook, for under $2!

I was so delighted that all the 2023 stories are included in this copy, that I instantly joined in! For January we read:

**The Affair at Grover Station**

🔵 It is a story within story, or a frame story. A geologist met his college friend, a railroad clerk. Boarding on the train from Grover Station to Cheyenne, the geologist asked his reticent friend, "Terrapin" Rodgers (Terrapin = freshwater turtle = reticent), to tell a story about the mysterious murder of the Grover station agent.

About Grover:
"You know what Grover is, a red box of a station, section house barricaded by coal sheds and a little group of dwellings at the end of everything, with the desert running out on every side to the sky line."

🔵 Larry, the victim, is Rodgers' intimate friend. He promised to come to the inaugural ball at Cheyenne, and dance with a girl he loved: Helen Masterson. He will take an extra (train) from Grover station right after his work's done. The ball started and finished, but Larry never appeared.

🔵 Feeling uneasy, Rodgers came to Grover Station, and there's no sign of Larry, either at the office or every train started from Grover last night. He's no where to be found.

🔵 Rodgers got info from a girl, who'd seen a stranger meeting Larry on that fatal night at Larry's office, and seemed to quarrel with him. From the girl's description, Rodgers felt sure that the man is Freymark.

🔵 Freymark is portrayed as a shady character. He has involved in a shady business when he's the railroad chasier clerk in Cheyenne, and it was Larry who's given him up, resulted in his discharge, and Larry took over the position. Moreover, Freymark was in love with Helen, but Helen chose Larry instead. On that fatal night, he also overheard Larry's plan which he's dictated over the radio to Rodgers. Therefore, there's no question that Freymark has had something to do with Larry's disappearance. But, where was Larry, and what had really happened?

🔵 Rodgers stayed the night at the station office that night, when lo and behold... Larry appeared in an apparition, giving his friend clues of the real event!

🔵 An inaugural ball, a dance, a murder, and a ghost, all happens in a lonely small town, surely promise an interesting story. And it is interesting! But what interest me most is not that. It is the racism shade in this story.

🔵 Freymark is a mix-raced, his father is French, his mother Chinese. He's "socially ambitious and extremely sensitive of his Asiatic blood after having been blackballed at a club." He then went to Europe and let people assume him as Jewish. At the inaugural ball, Larry's wounded dog entered the hall, threw himself at Freymark's feet and uttered a piteous howl. At this, Freymark was madly enraged and cruelly kicked the wounded brute across the hall. The way Rodgers describe the incident isn't something that I can easily forget:

"There was something fiendishly brutal and horrible in the episode, it was the breaking out of the barbarian blood through his mask of European civilization, a jet of black mud that spurted up from some nameless pest hole of filthy heathen cities."

🔵 Now, when faced with racism remarks or allusions in a book, I'm never sure whether it's the writer's personal view, or whether he/she is criticizing society racism views through the characters. Therefore, I won't jump quickly to the conclusion that Cather is a racist, but I found the passage really unsettling. It's not a mere generalization of a race (which ignorance could lead a writer to write innocently about). But to me "some nameless pest hole of filthy heathen cities" sounds full of hatred.

🔵 Again, I'm not sure it's Cather's personal view of Chinese race, but to include such hatred in her hitherto comforting books is quite shocking to me. In short, the racism has marred my enjoyment of the story, and I truly hope to be back to Cather's usual quality in next month's short story!

Rating: 3 / 5

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather

👒 The lady suggested by the title is a Mrs. Marian Forrester, wife of Captain Forrester, a noble pioneer of a prairie town called Sweet Water. She is an exceptional woman with elegant beauty and lively spirits; gracious, warm, and kind. People respect the couple, and the boys, in particular, always praises Mrs. Forrester.

👒 One of the boys who grows up idolizing Mrs. Forrester is Niel Herbert. It is from his point of view that we witness her gradual social decline, which, at the same time represents that of the American West frontier, amidst the rising of industrial capitalism.

👒 At first I thought Niel is falling in love with Mrs. Forrester, but it turns out that it is only what she represents that charmed him: elegance, dignity, and nobleness of a lady. How sad he becomes when first witnessing Mrs. Forrester's love affair with Frank Ellinger, and later on, Ivy Peters, the coarse, vulgar businessman.

👒 Mrs. Forrester wants to reach the glorious past which she missed, and to achieve that, she is ready to sacrifice her own self. Morality, dignity, are not important anymore, but that vague and glittering thing - the American Dream!

👒 And that's essentially what this novel (novella?) is about. It is a dreamy, poetic, and charming story of the glorious past, on the brink of modernization. It has the similar quality of The Great Gatsby - in fact, Fitzgerald himself owned that this book was his great inspiration for The Great Gatsby.

👒 As always, Cather never disappoints me; her writing is calming and beautiful. It's another of my favorites.

Rating: 5 / 5

One of Ours by Willa Cather

 
Claude Wheeler is a proud, restless, insecure young man who grew up in Lovely Creek, Nebraska - the son of a successful farmer. He acutely feels unfulfilled and purposeless in a passionless life dictated by his parents: the hardworking insensitive father Nat Wheeler and the pious mother Evangeline Wheeler. His mother has made Claude study at the Temple University against his will. But he then enrolled at the State University, and befriended the Elrichs, which are warm and charming - the opposite of his own family. That is the first time he felt at home, belonged to a family.

I was so devastated when Claude was forced to drop out school to manage the family farm. He had been a great student, and he seems to be happy doing it. Hate it when parents keep deciding their children's future without even listening to what they'd actually like to do.

Marrying the loveless and prudish, fanatic Enid Royce was a big mistake for Claude; he didn't even love her, I guess. It might be something that he felt he should do as a farmer... or he thought marriage will give him happier life, I don't know. His hope for happiness was smashed when Enid left him to China as a missionary. I always hate people like Enid, whose idea of doing a good deed is abandoning their own family to look after strangers in another continent. That is pure nonsense!

When we think Claude isn't about to be happy, the World War I erupted, and Claude enlisted in the US Army. For other young people, it might be the ideology of serving one's country, that encouraged them to enlist. But I think Claude saw it as a gate to freedom and purposeful life he had been dreaming of. It's nothing heroic; for the first time he felt he was needed, belonged to, and doing things that really mattered - a truly fulfilling life. And I'm happy for it. There's nothing more important for human being, than leading a fulfilled life. It's no matter what kind of life one's leading - as long as one has freedom and is at peace with one's self.

One of Ours has quite a different style from Cather's previous novels. It's not as quiet as Death Comes for the Archbishop or O Pioneers, though it still talks about life in the Prairie. However, it's also not as gruesome as usual war stories. Actually, it feels more like the war is just a background to write about Claude's feelings, maturing views about the world, and his journey to reach happiness.

Scattered bits that I've found interesting:

* The historical passage about Edith Cavell, the British nurse who saved soldiers' lives and helped some of Allied soldiers to escape from German-occupied Belgium, of which she was later arrested and shot by German firing squad. I have never heard about this until I read this book.

* I suspect, Claude represented Cather's love for her land. It's not the farmer life that he disliked. It's rather that modernity and prosperity (that comes with modernity) killed the old sentiment about the land as part of nature and human's life. Modern people tend to regard land as a mean of prosperity, not a harmonious companion or partner in creating better lives (for both parties). This quote reflects that sentiment:

"With prosperity came a kind of callousness; everybody wanted to destroy the old things they used to take pride in. The orchards, which had been nursed and tended so carefully twenty years ago, were now left to die if neglect. It was less trouble to run into town in an automobile and buy fruit that it was to raise it."

* Beautiful quote about LOVE, came apparently from the man who had just been broken-hearted:

"Human love was a wonderful thing, and it was most wonderful where it had least to gain."

* Another oh-so-true quote when Claude closed his house for the last time - the house that he's built and furnished with love. After the broken heart, it became mere building without any value:

"How inherently mournful and ugly such objects were, when the feeling that had made them precious no longer existed."

One of Ours is a deeply moving novel. Though it was written a bit romantically, it's full of philosophy that brought you to ponder more about your own purpose in life. For me, it's a gentle, down to earth story that gives one a little side view about the war impact of World War I. For some, it's evil and unnecessary, but for few others, it's like the freshness of a new spring - all depends on where do you see it from.

I must say... very inspiring, Ms. Cather! The Pulitzer Prize in 1923 is very well earned.

Rating: 5 / 5 (a new prospect for most favorite read of 2021!)

My Ántonia by Willa Cather

This third book of the Prairie Trilogy of Willa Cather is set around the turn of the century (19th to 20th). Narrated by the adult Jimmy Burden, it tells his memories and feelings about the pioneers life in Black Hawk, Virginia.

Jim arrived in Black Hawk as a ten year old orphan who would stay with his grandparents. He got acquainted with their new neighbor: the Shimerda family, immigrants from Bohemia, who were poor and unskilled in farming, but believed that their lives would get better in America. Little Jim soon befriended Ántonia Shimerda, the older daughter, who was a few years older than him. It's so pleasant to follow their adventures - Jim killed a huge rattlesnake! And through their innocent eyes, we see the real lives of these pioneers, as if we  live and struggle with them, feel the loneliness of immigrants who were uprooted from their friends, family, and everything dear to them in their old country, and must build a new life in a new and strange place. I was so sad for the death of Mr. Shimerda. I could imagine his blissful moment when celebrating Christmas with the Burdens, and how it must hit him so hard when realizing his own sad predicament. The contrast could have made anyone wants to die of broken heart. I felt your pain, Mr. Shimerda!

After Mr. Shimerda's death, Ántonia worked hard in the field, doing man's works to help her brother Ambrosch. Meanwhile, Jim's grandparents moved to the town. He went to school, and continued on to the state university in Lincoln. Mrs. Burden, who took pity to Ántonia, got her a job as housekeeper to the Burdens' new neighbor: the Harlings. She had a good time and good wages there, even learned much about fine housekeeping.

Fast forward to twenty years later, when Jim has become a lawyer after studying at Harvard. During those years, Jim hasn't visited Ántonia, who had returned to hard life in the field, dumped by a young man whom she loved, and then marry a Bohemian called Cuzak. Jim finally went to Black Hawk and visited the Cuzaks. Ántonia has become a stout woman, after the hard life and having ten children, but Jim was amazed to see the vigor of life is still in her. She had become for him, the true spirit and soul of the prairie. She, who loved and was proud of their land, and was happy with her life as a farmer's wife, with all the hard working.

My Ántonia is like a plate of nice comfort food. It's delicious, not too rich, but also not too light, where every ingredient compliments each other, creating a perfect combination. The blissful moment is when you're savouring it in your mouth; you don't want it to end, enjoying every chew. A moment before you're about to swallow it, you realize how amazing the taste is. Then after swallowing, you let out a satisfactory sigh. That's My Ántonia for me. It might not be a masterpiece, but it's so satisfying. And I know I'd want to reread it (often) in the future.

I realized that there are more in My Ántonia than a "delicious" story. The discrimination and prejudices against Bohemians or foreign people, for example. But for now, I would just enjoy the novel as it is; I might read more critically in the next reread.

Rating: 4,5 / 5

The Song of The Lark by Willa Cather

The Song of The Lark is the second book of Cather's Prairies trilogy (preceded by O Pioneers! and succeeded by My Antonia). Its the third Cather's I've read so far, and to be honest, the most disappointing.

The story is centered on Thea Kronborg - a teenage girl, daughter of a Swedish Methodist priest who lives in Moonstone, a small town along the rail line of Colorado in the 1890s. Thea is a talented teenager with extraordinary character: intelligent, independent, reserved, strong-willed, passionate, hard working. This book is a bildungsroman, telling the making of an artist from zero.

Thea knows that she's different - more superior - from her peers. Only Doctor Howard Archie (a young town physician with unhappy marriage) and Ray Kennedy (a 30 years old railroad conductor who dreams of marrying Thea when she's grown up) who fully understand and support her. There are also Thea's mother, Aunt Tillie, and Spannish Johnny from the Mexican settlement, who can see - though not fully understand - Thea's exceptional talent, and support her, though silently.

It's Herr Wunsch, an old drunkard German music teacher, who first teaches Thea to play piano. However, after one drunken frenzy, Wunsch leaves town, and Thea takes over his pupils - starting a professional career at age fifteen. Then an accident takes Ray Kennedy's life, and he leaves Thea six hundred dollars to study music in Chicago. And so, at seventeen, Thea Kronborg leaves Moonstone to study music under Andor Harsanyi, who, accidentally finds out that Thea's real talent is not music, but singing. So he let's Thea go.

(The Song of the Lark is a painting by Jules Breton, 1884, in which Thea Kronborg identifies herself with the girl - and from which Cather titled this book)

Returning to Moonstone, Thea finds her family (excepting her mother) are weighing her ambition down with their narrow-mindedness and mediocrity, and so she makes a tough decision to leave her town and family for good - cutting off a useless relationship.

Back to Chicago, she's diligently studying to become an opera singer. That's how she meets a rich, handsome son of a brewer who takes interest in opera singer: Fred Ottenburg. I honestly feel that Fred - though supportive - has changed Thea's personality... to worse. I know that Thea is reclusive from teenager, but she's also affectionate to ones she cares about. Her intimate relationship with Fred changes her to be more into herself and selfish. I hate Fred, he's an egoist man who flirts with Thea while still married. He knows that Thea is vulnerable and innocent, yet, excusing himself of raising Thea's career, lies and lets Thea falling in love with him. What a jerk!

Thea then goes to Germany for further preparing her professional career as opera singer, by borrowing money from Doctor Archie - who has grown rich from silver mines investment, and so after his wife died, leaves Moonstone and lives in the city. He is my most favorite character in this book. I've had a vague hope that he would fall in love with Thea in the end, because, apart from Fred Ottenburg, Howard Archie is the only man who can understand Thea. He's mature, kind, calm, and supportive. He would have been a perfect husband for a raising star (who came from humble and simple town) such as Thea. I imagine Doctor Archie, smiling and beaming, accompanying Thea during all the hustle bustle of showbiz from theater to theater. Smiling proudly from his seat during performances, calming the singer on the way back home when she's depressed because she has missed one high note, and nervously anticipating what the critics would say the next day. He would be Thea's counterbalance to live a quiet and meaningful life at their happy home, amidst the glittering world of operas. But... Cather thought differently; she made Archie's a fatherly (or brotherly) love, and picked instead the scoundrel Fred, who only brings bad influences, to be Thea's love interest. Bah!

(Olive Fremstad is an opera diva, by whom Thea Kronborg's story was inspired)


And perhaps, because of that, Thea has grown up as an egotist, arrogant woman, who chose an important performance rather than her dying mother. I have discussed before how Thea's unwise judgement would inevitably influence her future life. I don't know whether it's the best path for making a great artist, but if it's so, I'm truly grateful for not possessing such talent and ambition. Yes, in the end Thea might made many people happy (represented by Spanish Johnny and Aunt Tillie), but damn it, you should have put your mother's feeling on top of others, Thea Kronborg!!

I've had a lot of expectations before reading this book. I thought it would be a soothing book like Death Comes to the Archbishop or O, Pioneers! and indeed, I have been savoring every chapter from the first and second part. But starting part III, the book tone changes, along with Thea's personality. The title of part III is "Stupid Faces", which gave me foreboding of how Thea would change to be arrogant and full of suppressed anger. Afterward, it's kind of a disturbing read. Hopefully the next one, My Antonia, would make compensation for this disappointment.

Final rating: 3,5 / 5

O Pioneers! By Willa Cather

When you feel like reading but your present mind is like a spinning wheel, trust Willa Cather! And so did I. O Pioneers! was my second Cather after Death Comes for the Archbishop. 'O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel..' is printed on the back of my copy, the Vintage edition. And indeed, it was great for a first work!

O Pioneers! is the first of Great Plains trilogy, succeeded by The Song of the Lark and My Antonia. Depicting the first immigrants who settled as farmers in the Nebraska country, the story focused on the Bergsons, a Swedish-American family who owned and farmed their land. Before the father died, he trusted the land management to Alexandra, his only daughter who was much more able compared to her two brothers, Lou and Oscars, while their youngest brother Emil was still a little boy. The Linstrum's land was next to Bergson's farm, and for years Alexandra and Carl - the Linstrum boy - were friends. After two years of tereible drought and crop failure, many of their neighbors left the land to seek better opportunities in other counties, including the Linstrums. But Alexandra, despite of Lou and Oscar's objections, kept staying. Bold, strong-willed, and intelligent, she loved and trusted their farmland, and by her intuition and eagerness to learn modern techniques, she succeeded in making it prosper, while their neighbors failed.

Sixteen years later, the Bergsons were the richest landowner there. Carl Linstrum visited for the first time after he tried (and failed) to prosper in Chicago. Lou and Oscar suspected him of wanting to marry Alexandra. They trudged the idea if receiving an outsider into the farm, while it was they who had worked hard for years. Carl, who has realized after those years that he truly loved Alexandra, had no choice but left, this time to Alaska. But not before he witnessed a growing flirtatious relationship between Emil (now a handsome young man) and a married Bohemian woman, Marie Shabata, who, with his husband, has brought Linstrums' land after they left.

If you seek a slow-paced, soothing book, O Pioneers! is perfect for you. But for one tragedy near the end, this book is generally calm. It gives us chance to witness the characters dynamically developed. At the beginning, Alexandra was my favorite. But I was disappointed after she blamed Emil and Marie, while pitied Frank over the tragedy. I realized that adultery is never right, but you can't stop people of falling in love with anyone. And really, it's Frank's fault too that his wife must find another love. She fell in love head over heels with him in the first place, but he just wanted her to suffer during their marriage. Marie is flirtatious in nature, but never unfaithful. And on top of everything, murder is the ultimate crime. I can probably (though difficultly) forgive adultery, but never murder - passionately or coldly. I personally will never forgive a man who deliberately seized a gun when he was just suspicious. No, Frank has always been a murderer-to-be from the beginning. He just sought for a justification to take revenge on Marie. (-_-)

Fortunately Cather ended the story happily. At least, Carl Linstrum deserved it!

All in all, 4,5 / 5 is my final score.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

It’s official! Willa Cather will join the short list of Fanda’s favorite female writers. Other than Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling, and Edith Wharton, most of my favorite writers have been males.

Ruth has told me that it is a slow-moving read, very quiet, a-lazy-day reading. And since my previous reading is Siddharta, which was so deep and meditative, I was so grateful to get next into this book (and will definitely read more of Willa Cather!).

Actually Death is based on life and career of two historical French Catholic priests who served as missionaries on the New Mexico around 19^th century. Cather then wove them into this beautiful and quiet narrative; following neither plot, nor chronology. From scattered stories or events, Cather took us to learn not only the missionaries’ struggles against rooted faith of the Mexicans and Indians, but also the unfriendly landscape, the corrupt priests, and the injustice suffered by the innocent people.

With her slow pace, Cather was able to show vividly the raw but beautiful wild nature among the desserts and prairies. It is interesting and at the same time entertaining. And she was also brilliant in building the characters and highlighting the two priests’ sweet and mutual friendship. Their friendship, especially, is so sweet—how they were so different, but could understand each other, and always ready to support the other when needed. And through Cather’s deep scrutiny of these two personalities, we can see what make a good missionary.

Bishop (later archbishop) Latour is really fit for the post; he’s intelligent, healthy, mature, organized, with high discipline and self-respect. However he always feels lonely and unfulfilled, though he has achieved his ambition to build a cathedral, in the end his mission felt like a duty satisfyingly accomplished, and that’s all. The very opposite of his archbishop, Father Joseph “Blanchet” Vaillant is a warm, humble, and easy going person with weak health. He might not have had brilliant achievement, but he does his works with humble joy, even when he must sacrifice his own comfort. I think Father Joseph is the true missionary—he is chosen by God to do His Wish. And with his simplicity, he earned many souls. But in the end, both are really chosen by God—side by side, each with all in his power—to plough His Field in New Mexico.

What a refreshing, calm reading this has been!