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hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
My Antonia was one of my favorite books for years and years. I have come to love "The Song of the Lark" even more - even though the story has some thin spots, and there are a couple of really jarring bits of prose, I like the picture that this book paints about becoming an artist. I always feel like Willa Cather writes people so sensitively that even the peripheral characters could walk out of the books into their own stories, and this book is a great example of that
Cather’s writing is beautiful and unparalleled, but I struggled to get behind the story and the protagonist. To be honest, I started to dislike Thea in the second half of the book, which didn’t help anything.
In my year of reading all of Willa Cather's novels, this has been my least favorite. It has taken me forever to read, as I picked up and read several other books while I was reading this novel. Thea Kronburg is born in the small town of Moonstone, Colorado and the novel follows her early life a pianist going onto develop into an opera singer. She is a very strong character, able to have a career without a husband, but she loses her family of origin as Moonstone is not a place where her talent can develop or be discovered. I found the first part of the novel tedious, as her youth was presented in rich, if not tedious details. The pace picked up after she has left for Chicago the first time and then returned to Chicago to work on her voice. Likewise, at the end, when her friends meet up with her in New York City after she has been in Dresden, I felt it got bogged down in details. It was written in 1915, so the style and language was different from contemporary fiction, but I felt that some of Cather's other books were more streamlined. I have read My Antonia, so onto one of Ours!
I was both wary and excited to read The song of the Lark after I've read and loved O pioneer's by Willa Cather. I was not at all disappointed by this book as it's just as beautiful and a emersive story with great descriptions. In this we get to follow our heroine Thea on her journey to gain fame and success in the big city. I'm so glad I started to read this series as I found them to be a joy to read. I'm hopeful I would like My Antonia as well. *Fingers crossed*
I feel kind of meh about this book. The only character i liked a lot was Fred. Thea was kind of insensitive for my tastes. I liked seven year old Thea best. I understand why her character was the way she was... she was an artist/feminist/go-getter who looked out for number one and chased her dreams and achieved them. I guess I just felt like after all that running ragged, there was never a true "yes finally this is it!" moment. I dunno. I didn't really like it. Thea was super self-absorbed, and as she wasn't very lovable, I don't understand why everyone loved her so much.
I've now read six Cather books, and I probably liked this the least. It seemed to meander too much and had too many unnecessary details. I gather Cather edited down the book for later publication, but that edition would still be under copyright, and I'm kindle-bound.
The book started out quite well, making me feel like it might rank up there with O Pioneers! or My Antonia as most awesome books by Cather. The early parts deal with the life of an independent girl in a small town in southeast Colorado.
The girl, Thea, has musical talent and eventually heads off to Chicago to study piano. After a while, her teacher realizes that her special talent is singing. That sounded pretty cool to me. I've studied singing and was hoping for good things. But I'm not all that convinced that the singing background and details Cather supplies is all that accurate. Anyway, the piano teacher sends her off to a singing teacher, who knows all there is to know about voice, but who apparently is a class A jerk.
Even so, while studying with the jerk, Thea meets a young man who understands her artistic soul and, eventually, gets her off to Germany where she can really study singing. She turns into a great opera diva. She also turns into a completely uninteresting, self-absorbed, petulant artiste. While I was in love with Thea during the first half of the book, by the end I didn't like her much at all.
Overall, I was rather disappointed with this book. Cather tried to do too much, and as a result ended up with too little. This book if worth reading if you are a Cather junkie, but if you've never read any Cather, please do yourself a favor and begin with My Antonia, or Death Comes for the Archbishop, or O Pioneers! or ....
The book started out quite well, making me feel like it might rank up there with O Pioneers! or My Antonia as most awesome books by Cather. The early parts deal with the life of an independent girl in a small town in southeast Colorado.
The girl, Thea, has musical talent and eventually heads off to Chicago to study piano. After a while, her teacher realizes that her special talent is singing. That sounded pretty cool to me. I've studied singing and was hoping for good things. But I'm not all that convinced that the singing background and details Cather supplies is all that accurate. Anyway, the piano teacher sends her off to a singing teacher, who knows all there is to know about voice, but who apparently is a class A jerk.
Even so, while studying with the jerk, Thea meets a young man who understands her artistic soul and, eventually, gets her off to Germany where she can really study singing. She turns into a great opera diva. She also turns into a completely uninteresting, self-absorbed, petulant artiste. While I was in love with Thea during the first half of the book, by the end I didn't like her much at all.
Overall, I was rather disappointed with this book. Cather tried to do too much, and as a result ended up with too little. This book if worth reading if you are a Cather junkie, but if you've never read any Cather, please do yourself a favor and begin with My Antonia, or Death Comes for the Archbishop, or O Pioneers! or ....
Oh man. Terrible and disappointing, especially since I've liked every other thing I've read by Willa.
I enjoyed this novel thoroughly! Funnily enough, reading this novel really reminded me of when I read Emma last semester. I feel as if the themes in both novels are the same, just in vastly different settings. Both novels follow a woman through her youth and into her adulthood, and I saw a lot of similarities in personality between Emma and Thea. Obviously, their stations in life are a bit different, but I feel as if Thea is the American version of a “gentry” class; her father is a minister, and her family seems to be well-off financially, or at least not struggling to get by. To be honest, I did not really care for Thea as a character as she did not really seem to have much empathy for those around her, much like how I felt about Emma at the beginning of Emma. There are circumstances that surround both characters, such as the marriage market and their “ways to make a life” that inclined me to be a bit fairer when delivering judgments, and though by the end I was still not the biggest fan of Thea’s, I had respect for her individuality and growth, just like I had for Emma in the closure of her novel.
I also thought that there were similarities between Mr. Knightley (from Emma) and Dr. Archie. Obviously, there is the (and I know this is dated but it still made me uncomfortable) creepy interest in a child from someone far too old for them, but the mentoring and moral-teaching aspect of both men was very apparent as well.
To get away from the comparisons, I think that there are a lot of interesting things at play in this novel. For example, there were many moments where readers viewed Thea through a man’s eyes, and though this novel focused on a woman, it did not feel very sympathetic towards them. I do not really know how to put this best, but this novel felt like it was written by a man. The constant descriptions of Thea’s body (and using her physicality to describe her emotions) felt… uncomfortable (?) to read because Thea was being objectified (or at least it felt that way to me). The only descriptions of Thea’s body that were okay for me were the descriptions of her warming her bed with a brick and taking a bath. I think I liked these more because they focused on the body internally versus externally. I feel like the description was also coming more from Thea than from an outsider, which to me was more intimate and less creepy.
I also thought that there were similarities between Mr. Knightley (from Emma) and Dr. Archie. Obviously, there is the (and I know this is dated but it still made me uncomfortable) creepy interest in a child from someone far too old for them, but the mentoring and moral-teaching aspect of both men was very apparent as well.
To get away from the comparisons, I think that there are a lot of interesting things at play in this novel. For example, there were many moments where readers viewed Thea through a man’s eyes, and though this novel focused on a woman, it did not feel very sympathetic towards them. I do not really know how to put this best, but this novel felt like it was written by a man. The constant descriptions of Thea’s body (and using her physicality to describe her emotions) felt… uncomfortable (?) to read because Thea was being objectified (or at least it felt that way to me). The only descriptions of Thea’s body that were okay for me were the descriptions of her warming her bed with a brick and taking a bath. I think I liked these more because they focused on the body internally versus externally. I feel like the description was also coming more from Thea than from an outsider, which to me was more intimate and less creepy.