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adventurous
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Song of the Lark seems to be a feminist classic in which the talented heroine is able to eschew the path of marriage (at least until the epilogue) and children. I wanted very much to cheer her on, but felt that the male fan club she accumulated throughout her life found much more to appreciate in her than I did. And I know it was written a long time ago, but the read was also marred for me by some casual racism.
Apart from all that, I have to give a shout out to some colorful language that reminded me of my mother’s wit: Did it seem like I “held my hat on by my eyebrows?”
Apart from all that, I have to give a shout out to some colorful language that reminded me of my mother’s wit: Did it seem like I “held my hat on by my eyebrows?”
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Thea Kronberg's perseverance has inspired me in my own creative endeavors, & I related to her in alot of ways. For one, we both grew up in a small town that we had to get out of, & that wasn't the most supportive & encouraging of our desires & efforts. I'm truly sad her story has come to an end. The forward by Doris Grumbach was useless, though. I learned the hard way, from her forward in O Pioneers! to treat it as an afterward, or she'd spoil the whole plot. Two pages in, she was discussing My Antonia, which is the next book in the trilogy, & giving away parts of the story again. Don't bother with Doris Grumbach's forwards at all.
I don't know how many times I fell asleep while Thea was at her music lessons!
I liked the first 60-75% quite a bit - Thea is an interesting character, and her passion and determination to learn and perform music sets her on a course quite different from those around her. The latter bit of the book is less interesting - once she has secured her place on the stage - as it is written from the viewpoint of the people who love(d) and support(ed) her. Found it overly long at this point and less interesting, although this technique did give the reader a more well-rounded view of Thea and her choices.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
what is art if not a striving for human connection?!?????
i loved this so much. i have typically preferred cather’s books that focus on people living on the great plains, so i was a little worried i wouldn’t like the song of the lark as much. additionally, i struggled to get into it during the first portion of the book, which is the only part that takes place on the great plains. but i so connected with Thea’s coming-of-age in Chicago that it felt like I raced through the book, even though it took me almost a month to finish. but i think i needed that month to really sit with it properly.
the portion in arizona was beautiful.
an artist’s bildungsroman at its finest featuring romance and weird relationships and not much closure on these relationships but who cares because the point of the book is the artist! and the art! and how she learns to connect with others through her art! i love it!!
and there’s queer vibes all around! it’s palpable how much you can tell cather is basing thea’s story off of her own experiences.
and the end made me cry so 5 stars automatically lol
this line!!!:
what was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mound in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself—life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?
like wtf yes exactly.
i’m going to be returning to this one.
i loved this so much. i have typically preferred cather’s books that focus on people living on the great plains, so i was a little worried i wouldn’t like the song of the lark as much. additionally, i struggled to get into it during the first portion of the book, which is the only part that takes place on the great plains. but i so connected with Thea’s coming-of-age in Chicago that it felt like I raced through the book, even though it took me almost a month to finish. but i think i needed that month to really sit with it properly.
the portion in arizona was beautiful.
an artist’s bildungsroman at its finest featuring romance and weird relationships and not much closure on these relationships but who cares because the point of the book is the artist! and the art! and how she learns to connect with others through her art! i love it!!
and there’s queer vibes all around! it’s palpable how much you can tell cather is basing thea’s story off of her own experiences.
and the end made me cry so 5 stars automatically lol
this line!!!:
what was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mound in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself—life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?
like wtf yes exactly.
i’m going to be returning to this one.
I love Willa Cather and have thoroughly enjoyed many of her other books, but this one just sort of fizzled for me. There are many beautiful passages -- descriptions of place, landscapes, and experiences that are just not to be missed, but something just didn't click for me and Thea. I also really dislike the plot device of telling the story in retrospect -- the next chapter tells you what has happened during the passage of time from the chapter before and if you miss a sentence, you miss some big happening. Cather does that a good deal in the book and I really don't like it.
Thea is such an interesting protagonist. I read this after Angle of Repose, which also has a female artist protagonist and it’s interesting to contrast the two; the way they approach relationships especially. The most interesting theme to me in “Song of the Lark” is that of the pursuit of art (and the pursuit of perfection/greatness in art) and its relationship to connection with others.
I just love this book. I've never read anywhere else such an exact understanding of the artistic struggle. Now, I'm nothing like Thea, but what she goes through and where she ends up makes so much sense to me. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, (in fact, if you aren't driven by passionate creativity you might be bored at times,) but if you have an artistic soul you are likely to find a soul-mate in The Song of the Lark.
I know Thea Kronborg is a character, but I wish I could hear her sing!
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I wanted to like this novel, especially given how much I adore Cather's works, O Pioneers and My Antonia. But this novel was so flat and dry that finishing it felt like a chore. The deep flaw I found here is that the main character is a paper doll. I could not get myself to care about her. Thea Kronborg is a cold little genius, but throughout the 100+ first part that chronicles her childhood it is never once made clear if she actually enjoys the music that others use to define her. She's marked out for brilliance, but she doesn't excuse much. Barely any character flaws, she just performs all that is expected of her. The one defining passion we do see is that she likes to read, which I guess fleshes out some agency for her, but it doesn't make for a compelling heroine.
I found all the adjacent characters far more compelling, and for them I kept returning to this book when the stifling soporific of Thea's piano practicing got tiresome. The piano teacher Wunsch does very interesting things in the novel, and his whole origin demands a novel in itself: how does a tortured virtuoso from Germany end up a frustrated drunkard in Moonstone, Colorado? Ray Kennedy has lived ten lives, and while the age gap between him and his crush Thea was at first off-putting, the genuine emotion he exuded and the desires that shaped his action made him the most intriguing character. His devotion for flat Thea made her more interesting, though it spoke more to his character than to hers. The aunt, Tillie, self-effacing and essential to keeping the burgeoning Kronborg family functioning, is given so little spotlight, but the few pages Cather devotes to her shows a wildly interesting little life. Had she fleshes out Tillie more, as a possible foil to Thea's more ambitious trajectory, it would have justified an epilogue devoted almost entirely to her. As it was, I almost had to remind myself who this minor character was.
I was initially interested to learn about the first mentioned character, Doctor Archie, his comically failed marriage and his own activities, but as his character seemed only to exist as a lens for Thea, I soon got bored with any mention of his character as I knew it was just leading up to more praise for a character that did very little in scenes with him. It made me wonder why he, of all the characters, framed the story in its opening scene.
The novel does showcase Cather's meticulous staging: the attention to the landscape, the geographical and sociological mapping of a village, the social dynamics of men and women across professions and denominations. However, I arrived at the end of the novel caring not a whit for any of the characters I spent pages learning very little about.
I found all the adjacent characters far more compelling, and for them I kept returning to this book when the stifling soporific of Thea's piano practicing got tiresome. The piano teacher Wunsch does very interesting things in the novel, and his whole origin demands a novel in itself: how does a tortured virtuoso from Germany end up a frustrated drunkard in Moonstone, Colorado? Ray Kennedy has lived ten lives, and while the age gap between him and his crush Thea was at first off-putting, the genuine emotion he exuded and the desires that shaped his action made him the most intriguing character. His devotion for flat Thea made her more interesting, though it spoke more to his character than to hers. The aunt, Tillie, self-effacing and essential to keeping the burgeoning Kronborg family functioning, is given so little spotlight, but the few pages Cather devotes to her shows a wildly interesting little life. Had she fleshes out Tillie more, as a possible foil to Thea's more ambitious trajectory, it would have justified an epilogue devoted almost entirely to her. As it was, I almost had to remind myself who this minor character was.
I was initially interested to learn about the first mentioned character, Doctor Archie, his comically failed marriage and his own activities, but as his character seemed only to exist as a lens for Thea, I soon got bored with any mention of his character as I knew it was just leading up to more praise for a character that did very little in scenes with him. It made me wonder why he, of all the characters, framed the story in its opening scene.
The novel does showcase Cather's meticulous staging: the attention to the landscape, the geographical and sociological mapping of a village, the social dynamics of men and women across professions and denominations. However, I arrived at the end of the novel caring not a whit for any of the characters I spent pages learning very little about.