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I'd probably give this 3.5 stars, actually. The first four parts weren't bad (though a bit too descriptive at times), but the last part ("Kronborg") seemed to drag. It was enjoyable, but I probably wouldn't read it again. I read this book for my American Women Writers class.
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
Willa Cather is my favorite Americana voice from the early 20th century. This novel is such a perfect example of her ability to create interesting and deep characters who look inward often, while at the same time observing the beauty and expansiveness of the American Southwest and also it’s newly developing cities like Chicago and New York at the turn of the 20th century.
Thea Kronborg is one of seven children born to a loving and kindly minister and his wife in a provincial small town in Colorado. Thea is a much loved and indulged child who is outgoing and friendly, and not the kind of child who sticks to the proper folks in town. Thea finds pleasure in the town’s outsiders, like those living in Mexico Town and the nice German couple that hosts her first piano teacher, an old drunk who still has enough capacity to teach and see the specialness in Thea. This teacher awakens in Thea a true love for music and a feeling in herself that she is made for something greater than the small town of Moonstone. Thea is also befriended early in life by the town’s young doctor, who also sees something special in the child. Throughout the years the doctor remains her friend and comes to her aide when it is most needed.
Thea has a rare talent that can only be kindled and cultivated if she leaves her small hometown and ventures out alone into the world. But, even then, it is questionable if Thea will find the strength of character and the fortitude to thrive in the international world of music. As Thea leaves her home as a 17 year old, there are several people who meet her in her new life and who understand her talent and nurture it. However, in the end, it is Thea herself, sitting in an empty old Indian town on a high Arizona Mesa, contemplating her future, who makes the final determination to do what has to be done to fulfill her dreams and destiny.
This is not the easiest of Cather’s books to read but the payoff is worth the time. Thea’s introspection and struggles as she figures out how to leave her life behind and make a new life for herself as an artist in that day and age are fascinating to read. Also, the adoration many men feel for Thea is an interesting plot twist as well. She engenders a need in men to help and support her in her rise to fame. Yet, many of these men find themselves in bad marriages that they can’t get out of, which constantly puts Thea in an untenable position. And yet, she overcomes it all in her efforts to fulfill her dreams.
In the end, Thea becomes who she is meant to be through strength of will, determination and raw talent.
There are so many wonderful supporting characters in this book, including the land, which Cather is great at depicting and describing. Reading this was such a wonderful experience. The cadence of Cather’s language is beautiful and rhythmic. Her story allows us to learn about how women earned a career in the arts way back at the turn of the 20th century. It’s also a bit autographical I would think. Nothing was easy, but people could be kind.
Willa Cather is my favorite Americana voice from the early 20th century. This novel is such a perfect example of her ability to create interesting and deep characters who look inward often, while at the same time observing the beauty and expansiveness of the American Southwest and also it’s newly developing cities like Chicago and New York at the turn of the 20th century.
Thea Kronborg is one of seven children born to a loving and kindly minister and his wife in a provincial small town in Colorado. Thea is a much loved and indulged child who is outgoing and friendly, and not the kind of child who sticks to the proper folks in town. Thea finds pleasure in the town’s outsiders, like those living in Mexico Town and the nice German couple that hosts her first piano teacher, an old drunk who still has enough capacity to teach and see the specialness in Thea. This teacher awakens in Thea a true love for music and a feeling in herself that she is made for something greater than the small town of Moonstone. Thea is also befriended early in life by the town’s young doctor, who also sees something special in the child. Throughout the years the doctor remains her friend and comes to her aide when it is most needed.
Thea has a rare talent that can only be kindled and cultivated if she leaves her small hometown and ventures out alone into the world. But, even then, it is questionable if Thea will find the strength of character and the fortitude to thrive in the international world of music. As Thea leaves her home as a 17 year old, there are several people who meet her in her new life and who understand her talent and nurture it. However, in the end, it is Thea herself, sitting in an empty old Indian town on a high Arizona Mesa, contemplating her future, who makes the final determination to do what has to be done to fulfill her dreams and destiny.
This is not the easiest of Cather’s books to read but the payoff is worth the time. Thea’s introspection and struggles as she figures out how to leave her life behind and make a new life for herself as an artist in that day and age are fascinating to read. Also, the adoration many men feel for Thea is an interesting plot twist as well. She engenders a need in men to help and support her in her rise to fame. Yet, many of these men find themselves in bad marriages that they can’t get out of, which constantly puts Thea in an untenable position. And yet, she overcomes it all in her efforts to fulfill her dreams.
In the end, Thea becomes who she is meant to be through strength of will, determination and raw talent.
There are so many wonderful supporting characters in this book, including the land, which Cather is great at depicting and describing. Reading this was such a wonderful experience. The cadence of Cather’s language is beautiful and rhythmic. Her story allows us to learn about how women earned a career in the arts way back at the turn of the 20th century. It’s also a bit autographical I would think. Nothing was easy, but people could be kind.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Artists are sometimes wonderfully selfish individuals. What is one willing to give up? Friends, love, family? Fame comes at a high cost. I don't know if Cather intended for the reader to LOVE Thea...but I didn't. I came to LOVE the dear friends that helped her get to where she was.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Cross-posted from my blog: http://quietandbusy.blogspot.com
One of the categories on the Back to the Classics Challenge this year was to read a classic with an animal in the title. I didn't have anything left on my Classics Club list that I could double dip with, so I had to search for something that would work in my stacks. I ended up finding The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, which I picked up at a used bookstore a few years ago. This is the second book in her Great Plains Trilogy. The first book is O Pioneers!, which I actually read last year for this challenge. The books aren't really connected to each other though, so it's not like I had to read them in order. I liked O Pioneers! for the most part back when I originally read it, so I was hoping to have a good experience with this book too.
The plot follows Thea Kronborg, a young girl growing up in the small town on Moonstone, Colorado in the 1890s. The story mainly follows her development as a pianist and singer, starting from her childhood. From the outset, Thea is shown to be a different sort of girl. She's intelligent, very musically gifted, and has a mature temperament that sets her apart from her peers. She studies piano faithfully as a youngster and travels to Chicago to continue her learning under a well-known teacher. Under the new teacher's instruction, she shifts all of her focus to singing and begins building a career as an opera singer. The rest of the story follows her rise as an artist, focusing on all of the internal changes she goes through as she reaches her full potential.
This is a very character-driven novel, with almost all of the attention focused on the changes Thea undergoes as she rises to fame. Even when we visit the minds of other characters, all of their thoughts are centered around Thea and her various good qualities. As such, there aren't many big plot events, but the beauty and depth of Cather's writing makes up for it. It's not a boring story, even though it isn't about very much. Any person who has ever put their heart and soul into trying to achieve something will relate to Thea's struggles. There was a very strong thread of truth running throughout her journey. While I don't think that the sheer amount of people utterly bewitched by her was particularly realistic, a lot of the thoughts and emotions she felt about her growth process were. It was interesting to watch her climb from her humble origins to the top of her craft. I especially liked that things weren't all perfect as Thea's career starts to take off. Becoming more successful certainly enriches her life, but she loses some of the old bits of herself along the way. It's left for the reader to ponder the true worth of her rise. Thinking about that was interesting. How much of one's old life are should they sacrifice to move up in the world?
One thing that was a little off-putting about this novel was all the attention that older men gave to Thea in the first section of the story. In particular, the character of Doctor Archie came off very creepy. He was overly interested in hanging out with Thea when she was a pre-teen and he was an adult, married man. He took her on outings with him regularly, held her hand, and commented repeatedly on how she was better than other children her age. They often hung our together alone as if they were buddies. There was an especially awkward scene at the start of the novel in which he nurses her back to health from an illness. He glories in being alone with her during treatments and comments on the beauty of her naked body while he is applying a plaster to her chest. I think this is a case of the writing just aging poorly, as I'm sure Cather didn't mean to include anything untoward here. Doctor Archie is never physically inappropriate with Thea, and I believe that his thoughts and actions were only meant to show the reader how Thea was uniquely wonderful. It felt very weird reading it though. Towards the end of the novel, even Doctor Archie recognizes that he was probably too absorbed by her when she was a child. It was...a lot.
So ultimately, I don't have much to say beyond that. This was a very good novel, but it was a very quiet one as well, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Back when I read O, Pioneers!, I was loving it right up until the ending, which I thought was quite disappointing. In The Song of the Lark, I maintained a more consistent level of enjoyment, although I probably didn't like it quite as much. In any case, I think Cather is an excellent writer and this book was worth reading. The third entry in the Great Plains Trilogy is My Ántonia. I've heard really great things about that one and I imagine I will get to it one day.
One of the categories on the Back to the Classics Challenge this year was to read a classic with an animal in the title. I didn't have anything left on my Classics Club list that I could double dip with, so I had to search for something that would work in my stacks. I ended up finding The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, which I picked up at a used bookstore a few years ago. This is the second book in her Great Plains Trilogy. The first book is O Pioneers!, which I actually read last year for this challenge. The books aren't really connected to each other though, so it's not like I had to read them in order. I liked O Pioneers! for the most part back when I originally read it, so I was hoping to have a good experience with this book too.
The plot follows Thea Kronborg, a young girl growing up in the small town on Moonstone, Colorado in the 1890s. The story mainly follows her development as a pianist and singer, starting from her childhood. From the outset, Thea is shown to be a different sort of girl. She's intelligent, very musically gifted, and has a mature temperament that sets her apart from her peers. She studies piano faithfully as a youngster and travels to Chicago to continue her learning under a well-known teacher. Under the new teacher's instruction, she shifts all of her focus to singing and begins building a career as an opera singer. The rest of the story follows her rise as an artist, focusing on all of the internal changes she goes through as she reaches her full potential.
This is a very character-driven novel, with almost all of the attention focused on the changes Thea undergoes as she rises to fame. Even when we visit the minds of other characters, all of their thoughts are centered around Thea and her various good qualities. As such, there aren't many big plot events, but the beauty and depth of Cather's writing makes up for it. It's not a boring story, even though it isn't about very much. Any person who has ever put their heart and soul into trying to achieve something will relate to Thea's struggles. There was a very strong thread of truth running throughout her journey. While I don't think that the sheer amount of people utterly bewitched by her was particularly realistic, a lot of the thoughts and emotions she felt about her growth process were. It was interesting to watch her climb from her humble origins to the top of her craft. I especially liked that things weren't all perfect as Thea's career starts to take off. Becoming more successful certainly enriches her life, but she loses some of the old bits of herself along the way. It's left for the reader to ponder the true worth of her rise. Thinking about that was interesting. How much of one's old life are should they sacrifice to move up in the world?
One thing that was a little off-putting about this novel was all the attention that older men gave to Thea in the first section of the story. In particular, the character of Doctor Archie came off very creepy. He was overly interested in hanging out with Thea when she was a pre-teen and he was an adult, married man. He took her on outings with him regularly, held her hand, and commented repeatedly on how she was better than other children her age. They often hung our together alone as if they were buddies. There was an especially awkward scene at the start of the novel in which he nurses her back to health from an illness. He glories in being alone with her during treatments and comments on the beauty of her naked body while he is applying a plaster to her chest. I think this is a case of the writing just aging poorly, as I'm sure Cather didn't mean to include anything untoward here. Doctor Archie is never physically inappropriate with Thea, and I believe that his thoughts and actions were only meant to show the reader how Thea was uniquely wonderful. It felt very weird reading it though. Towards the end of the novel, even Doctor Archie recognizes that he was probably too absorbed by her when she was a child. It was...a lot.
So ultimately, I don't have much to say beyond that. This was a very good novel, but it was a very quiet one as well, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Back when I read O, Pioneers!, I was loving it right up until the ending, which I thought was quite disappointing. In The Song of the Lark, I maintained a more consistent level of enjoyment, although I probably didn't like it quite as much. In any case, I think Cather is an excellent writer and this book was worth reading. The third entry in the Great Plains Trilogy is My Ántonia. I've heard really great things about that one and I imagine I will get to it one day.
This book was way too long and for no decent reason. I liked young Thea and the first part entertained me. Something about the rest of story didn't do it for me. Maybe I was expecting something more the "bright lights, big city" plotline as Thea got older?
I adore stories about becoming an artist and in particular stories about performing artists, and I also love stories about the American West--and on top of that, I love opera. So a novel by one of the greatest American writers ever about a girl from a small town in Colorado and her journey to become a great Wagnerian soprano was basically guaranteed to be a home run for me--and it did not disappoint! I loved it!
I'm reading this book 100 years after it was written and astonished at how Cather's observations about human nature still ring true. This is not a quick read and some of the dialogue is dated, but it's an interesting examination of the artist. And there were so many sentences I wish I could frame and hang up to appreciate as the works of art that they are.
this book was a beast to finish and honestly i don’t know why it took me so damn long. but i finally finished!
this was a really interesting book and it didn’t even feel cather-y in the sense that half of the book is set in cities like chicago and new york. i’m very much still processing all of the book because it’s a novel but also much more, and also because i haven’t yet decided if i like thea kronborg. she is definitely a difficult character to be around and to like, but i think that’s the point. quite possibly we would not be friends in real life, but i so admire her grit and perseverance and drive and AMBITION to be where she wants to be. she had a passion and she wanted it and honestly she took the path that made everything a bajillion times harder but it was one that was true to her and so she went for it 500% and as someone who has been steeped in the tradition of the arts her entire life, i very much value and appreciate that. i think this book did a really good job of just how difficult it is to be a singer and how much you have to love music to make a career out of it. obviously things are different now but i like how cather was able to show a side of the music industry that is less glamorous and more back breaking than the general public might expect. i also generally loved the little excerpts of music that were mentioned here. maybe i’ll ACTUALLY sit down and listen to some wagner, who i run away from hahahahha. i was thinking that gluck’s orpheus was a really great metaphor for fred and thea because thea is always running to something or somewhere, and she’s basically written as this unattainable girl because she’s devoting herself to her art. she’s basically eurydice. i don’t know if cather meant to do that, but i saw the parallel quite clearly. i also like how thea had so much agency in not only a time period and in a society that was so patriarchal, but also within an industry and music tradition that is notoriously misogynistic. her characterization felt like a HUMAN and not some surface level portrayal of a woman. of course there were times where mansplaining and other sexist condescension happened, but i thought for the most part thea was portrayed really well as a single young woman fighting to be an artist at all costs. then again i don’t know about the whole “you have to struggle to be an artist” thing. but i thought cather did a beautiful job explaining that.
thea’s relationship to fred was a bit odd, i thought, in the whole discourse about holding her back etc. but their ending was good. archie was weird to me because the boundaries with him and thea were so blurred between mentor and like possibly lover ?? but i guess it was nice for thea to always have someone in her corner. i am convinced archie and thea are gay, or at least thea is bi, or maybe they’re both ace/aro, but that’s my interpretation. both were mentioned explicitly to have never fallen in love so i wonder at the ending between thea and fred. it was also one line so it’s not a big deal but. i’m glad for them? i’m debating whether it would have been better for them to have ended where they did in central park. it’s not so much sad per se as regretful in the sense that it was the right person but they couldn’t ever be together.
there were points where thea was Not Like Other Girls, or General Misogyny And Racism (not ray wanting to marry thea when he was a literal man and she was a CHILD. nice man, but that’s disgusting) or the concept of the beautiful free west (still not sure how i feel about this—i love the writing of how the west is beautiful and how thea always returns to that because i share in that emotion but also at the same time i wonder at romanticization of this and the issues it brings) that i was raising my eyes at. there is that entire part where thea is wandering around the ruins of ancient native peoples and has her “musical epiphany”, so to speak. this really did not sit well with me and i really did not like that section because it is SO “white woman learns about The World from BIPOC and their OpPrEsSiOn”. the other thing i could do without was that thea literally embodies the american dream (a myth) in her story of growing up as a poor white girl in the middle of nowhere, colorado and then becoming an opera star through SO MUCH struggle. the whole pulling yourself up by the bootstraps thing was very present in thea.
upon reflecting, i get why this book, my antonia, and o pioneers are considered the great plains trilogy. not only do they take place in the midwest, but they also center european immigrants AND especially women who defy social conventions. unfortunately i feel that the way these women defy social norms of the day was just to literally fall into the trap of Not Like Other Girls—ie, rejecting mother and wifehood, never getting married, looking down on women who did get married, etc. that’s not to say they didn’t face hardship or backlash because all of them do, but this portrayal is just so limited. i was reading a review that basically said thea is the most feisty and “cool” for lack of a better word because she did NOT conform to expectations about womanhood and that antonia is not because she was feminine and “gave in” to marriage, and that’s just bad feminism. obviously cather was a gay woman writing in the late 19th and early 20th century, so her ideas of what women and resistance to the patriarchy meant were very narrow, but i feel like we all could learn a thing or two about the Not Like Other Girls trope (having been a Not Like Other Girls person myself for a long time when i was younger). i admire cather’s strong and self possessed, unapologetic heroines, but recognize at the same time there are limitations to their characterizations.
on the whole, though, i thought this was a very good book! it’s definitely made me reflect on things. i’m excited to see what our tour guide says in nebraska about cather and this book.
this was a really interesting book and it didn’t even feel cather-y in the sense that half of the book is set in cities like chicago and new york. i’m very much still processing all of the book because it’s a novel but also much more, and also because i haven’t yet decided if i like thea kronborg. she is definitely a difficult character to be around and to like, but i think that’s the point. quite possibly we would not be friends in real life, but i so admire her grit and perseverance and drive and AMBITION to be where she wants to be. she had a passion and she wanted it and honestly she took the path that made everything a bajillion times harder but it was one that was true to her and so she went for it 500% and as someone who has been steeped in the tradition of the arts her entire life, i very much value and appreciate that. i think this book did a really good job of just how difficult it is to be a singer and how much you have to love music to make a career out of it. obviously things are different now but i like how cather was able to show a side of the music industry that is less glamorous and more back breaking than the general public might expect. i also generally loved the little excerpts of music that were mentioned here. maybe i’ll ACTUALLY sit down and listen to some wagner, who i run away from hahahahha. i was thinking that gluck’s orpheus was a really great metaphor for fred and thea because thea is always running to something or somewhere, and she’s basically written as this unattainable girl because she’s devoting herself to her art. she’s basically eurydice. i don’t know if cather meant to do that, but i saw the parallel quite clearly. i also like how thea had so much agency in not only a time period and in a society that was so patriarchal, but also within an industry and music tradition that is notoriously misogynistic. her characterization felt like a HUMAN and not some surface level portrayal of a woman. of course there were times where mansplaining and other sexist condescension happened, but i thought for the most part thea was portrayed really well as a single young woman fighting to be an artist at all costs. then again i don’t know about the whole “you have to struggle to be an artist” thing. but i thought cather did a beautiful job explaining that.
thea’s relationship to fred was a bit odd, i thought, in the whole discourse about holding her back etc. but their ending was good. archie was weird to me because the boundaries with him and thea were so blurred between mentor and like possibly lover ?? but i guess it was nice for thea to always have someone in her corner. i am convinced archie and thea are gay, or at least thea is bi, or maybe they’re both ace/aro, but that’s my interpretation. both were mentioned explicitly to have never fallen in love so i wonder at the ending between thea and fred. it was also one line so it’s not a big deal but. i’m glad for them? i’m debating whether it would have been better for them to have ended where they did in central park. it’s not so much sad per se as regretful in the sense that it was the right person but they couldn’t ever be together.
there were points where thea was Not Like Other Girls, or General Misogyny And Racism (not ray wanting to marry thea when he was a literal man and she was a CHILD. nice man, but that’s disgusting) or the concept of the beautiful free west (still not sure how i feel about this—i love the writing of how the west is beautiful and how thea always returns to that because i share in that emotion but also at the same time i wonder at romanticization of this and the issues it brings) that i was raising my eyes at. there is that entire part where thea is wandering around the ruins of ancient native peoples and has her “musical epiphany”, so to speak. this really did not sit well with me and i really did not like that section because it is SO “white woman learns about The World from BIPOC and their OpPrEsSiOn”. the other thing i could do without was that thea literally embodies the american dream (a myth) in her story of growing up as a poor white girl in the middle of nowhere, colorado and then becoming an opera star through SO MUCH struggle. the whole pulling yourself up by the bootstraps thing was very present in thea.
upon reflecting, i get why this book, my antonia, and o pioneers are considered the great plains trilogy. not only do they take place in the midwest, but they also center european immigrants AND especially women who defy social conventions. unfortunately i feel that the way these women defy social norms of the day was just to literally fall into the trap of Not Like Other Girls—ie, rejecting mother and wifehood, never getting married, looking down on women who did get married, etc. that’s not to say they didn’t face hardship or backlash because all of them do, but this portrayal is just so limited. i was reading a review that basically said thea is the most feisty and “cool” for lack of a better word because she did NOT conform to expectations about womanhood and that antonia is not because she was feminine and “gave in” to marriage, and that’s just bad feminism. obviously cather was a gay woman writing in the late 19th and early 20th century, so her ideas of what women and resistance to the patriarchy meant were very narrow, but i feel like we all could learn a thing or two about the Not Like Other Girls trope (having been a Not Like Other Girls person myself for a long time when i was younger). i admire cather’s strong and self possessed, unapologetic heroines, but recognize at the same time there are limitations to their characterizations.
on the whole, though, i thought this was a very good book! it’s definitely made me reflect on things. i’m excited to see what our tour guide says in nebraska about cather and this book.