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expendablemudge 's review for:
Sapphira and the Slave Girl
by Willa Cather, Hermione Lee
Rating: 4* of five
I suspect that the passing of time has improved my ability to read what writers don't write. This book's many creaks and wobbles mattered to me as a younger reader, whereas now I'm not really that interested in cataloging failures.
As one important example of this trend in my analyses, the concept of a woman "marrying beneath her" once made me furious: If you don't want what's offered, don't say yes! Now I see a shade of grey I never thought to look for: How else is a smart woman going to stay on top? That shift in perception alone made this less a mean old bat's vicious competitive streak running roughshod over all about her and more a natural leader's recognition of a threat to her power.
Cather was old and ill when she wrote this roman à clef. She likely knew that the end was nigh and felt the strong need to get this one down on paper before she lost it into the winding-sheet, that final dreamcatcher. I love reading first and last books by dead authors. Nothing makes a career trajectory so clear as experiencing the starting gun's firing and the bullet's landing place in close temporal proximity.
I suspect that the passing of time has improved my ability to read what writers don't write. This book's many creaks and wobbles mattered to me as a younger reader, whereas now I'm not really that interested in cataloging failures.
As one important example of this trend in my analyses, the concept of a woman "marrying beneath her" once made me furious: If you don't want what's offered, don't say yes! Now I see a shade of grey I never thought to look for: How else is a smart woman going to stay on top? That shift in perception alone made this less a mean old bat's vicious competitive streak running roughshod over all about her and more a natural leader's recognition of a threat to her power.
Cather was old and ill when she wrote this roman à clef. She likely knew that the end was nigh and felt the strong need to get this one down on paper before she lost it into the winding-sheet, that final dreamcatcher. I love reading first and last books by dead authors. Nothing makes a career trajectory so clear as experiencing the starting gun's firing and the bullet's landing place in close temporal proximity.