After much anticipation, it is finally Virago Reading Week hosted by the delightful Rachel and the lovely Carolyn, two of my favourite bloggers even when they’re not giving me reason to discover new books and explore the offerings of a publisher who, until now, had rather intimidated me. I’m not sure where this sense of intimidation came from – really, with a catalogue as large as Virago’s there’s something for everyone – but until now all the Virago Modern Classics I’ve picked up have been incredibly depressing. For me, this week is all about banishing those negative associations so I’ve started with a very approachable book and one that has been on my To Be Read list for – and this is a terrifying thought – a decade: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather.
The Song of the Lark details the life of Thea Kronborg from her beginnings in a large Scandinavian-American family in a small town on the Colorado prairie to her eventual glory twenty years later at the Metropolitan Opera House. But it is less a tale of her career development as an opera diva than a coming of age story, detailing how Thea both discovers and then comes to train and understand her musical gift:
The growth of an artist is an intellectual and spiritual development which can scarcely be followed in a personal narrative. This story attempts to deal only with the simple and concrete beginnings which color and accent an artist’s work, and to give some account of how a Moonstone girl found her way out of a vague, easy-going world into a life of disciplined endeavor. Any account of the loyalty of young hearts to some exalted ideal, and the passion with which they strive, will always, in some of us, rekindle generous emotions. (p. 397)
I’m struggling to find the words to describe this novel. It is primarily a novel about desire and about devotion to one’s art. A devotion that drives everything else and also excludes everything else. It is a magnificent, noble emotion, the natural but all too rare result of desire. For Thea, it is everything, an all-consuming passion that is hinted at in her childhood by an extraordinary, insightful music teacher but not fulfilled for another ten years until she comes to know herself:
‘Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing – desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.’ (p.68)
A less subtle writer than Cather could have made this a very narrow, very trite novel about the value of hard work in making dreams come true. Cather, however, rises about such mundane considerations, describing the spiritual awakening of an artist discovering her calling. Thea is neither forceful or dominant but rather quietly focused and determined. She is intelligent and serious, remarkable enough to find a kindred spirit in the town’s stifled doctor, Dr. Archie, who has known, loved, and encouraged her since childhood and, as a young woman, to attract the energetic Fred Ottenburg who loves and guides her to both acknowledge and fully develop her talents. But though these men – and others, primarily music teachers – help Thea along the way it is she who devotes herself to her art, she who makes the sacrifices necessary to become a great artist. This is not a Pygmalion story, of men molding a perfect woman as they think she should be, but a tale of a woman who takes on almost god-like significance to the men who revere her and worship at her feet. I was particularly interested by the secondary, almost servile role men play in Thea’s life, always adoring supporters who respect her art and encourage her without demanding or expecting anything in return. Even Fred is more eager to give than to receive: his primary interest is in Thea the artist rather than Thea the lover. As a aficionado of the opera perhaps he knew long before Thea what it meant to be a true artist, knew before her what kind of relationships she might be able to sustain when her whole being was devoted to aesthetic perfection:
Your work becomes your personal life. You are not much good until it does. It’s like being woven into a big web. You can’t pull away, because all your little tendrils are woven into the picture. It takes you up, and uses you, and spins you out; and that is your life. Not much else can happen to you. (p. 378)
Is it worth it? Even for true musicians life Thea, are such sacrifices – so emotionally draining, so destructive to any hopes of a personal life – ever worthwhile? The final section and then the epilogue attempted to answer this question with muddled results. The epilogue seems to contradict everything we’ve learned in the three main volumes of the novel. Things were tied up too neatly, an attempt to give Thea a conventional happy ending completely at odds with all that she stands for. It was a “have your cake and eat it too” ending, guaranteed to make some readers smile while the others wonder what just happened.
I suppose, as with any of Cather’s Prairie novels, it is necessary to discuss her passionate descriptions of the landscapes that so influence her characters. Indeed, Thea’s pivotal maturation and self-discovery take place in a great and desolate desert, a location as grand and majestic as the score of any opera. I know I’m missing something from Cather’s novels by not enjoying these descriptive passages but I can’t bring myself to care about physical surroundings when there are characters to be discussed. I am particularly apathetic about prairies and deserts, which are of course where Cather’s novels are set, so her lyricism is wasted on me. Cather’s fascination with and respect for the native tribes of the region and Mexican immigrants would also probably be of interest to a more socially conscious reader but I was reading primarily for the story of Thea the artist, not the historical significance of how minority groups were portrayed. I’m sure those who are concerned by such things would be intrigued to see how Cather approached those groups and her characters from them.
I loved both O, Pioneers! and My Ántonia, the two other novels that make up her “Prairie Trilogy”, but I think The Song of the Lark might be my favourite of the three. Cather’s honest and passionate treatment of artistic devotion is both fascinating and humbling, a reminder of the author’s own life as this is generally described as her most autobiographical novel.
What a lovely review! I have been meaning to read Willa Cather for the longest time. I should get out A Lost Lady (I think that’s the title – it’s been a while since I looked) to read for this special Virago week.
So glad you enjoyed the review! I’ve only read the three Cather novels in the Prairie Trilogy so I’d love to read more reviews of her other works, including A Lost Lady.
I have read both of the other Prairie books which I loved but did not realise that another of her novels was a third in a trilogy. I will have to seek this out soonest!
I hope you do – it’s just as wonderful as the other two Prairie novels!
The only Willa Cather book I’ve read is The Professor’s House and I’ve been wondering which of her books to try next. This one sounds wonderful – I’ll have to add it to my list along with the other two Prairie books!
All the Prairie novels are wonderful but this is – at least for now – my favourite. Though they have many similarities, I got something different and special out of each when I read it. Can’t go wrong with any of them!
okay, you’ve convinced me to try Cather again!
Excellent! Enjoy!
I’m sorry to say that I read Willa Cather for only the first time this summer — Death Comes for the Archbishop — and now want to read more. This trilogy sounds wonderful. I love the passage about work becoming your personal life…. somehow, we should all have that passion for our work (hopefully, with more balance!), but all too often, it just consumes our time and energy in a negative way. So it’s interesting to think about from Thea’s perspective.
Why sorry? You’ve read her now and clearly are excited to read more of her novels – there’s absolutely nothing to apologize for! There are so many books out there and never enough to to read them all.
I hope you do get to read this; I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it!
This is on my to-read shelf along with The Professor’s House so I hope to read one or maybe even both this week! I’m also scheduled to read Death Comes for the Archbishop with my IRL classics group this spring. I never realized there were so many Cather books I hadn’t read!
Cather was certainly prolific and the quality of so many of her works is remarkable. I’ll look forward to seeing what you’re able to cover this week!
My mother owns this book and I keep picking it up every time I visit home but never actually start it. I think I may be bringing it back with me on our next visit!
Definitely worth grabbing if your mother won’t mind!
I am steeped in the world of the prairies right now. I just finished O, Pioneers, which was obviously wonderful, and I began My Antonia this morning…Willa Cather has a way with words that I adore, and I just can’t get enough of her, and her descriptions of the bleak and barren land that somehow manages to be beautiful despite its depressing nature. I love Cather’s descriptions of nature – they are a perfect background to the often windswept and battered characters she portrays, who rail against their circumstances and have dreams too big for their hearts. You have written a magnificent review and I love how you are so obsessed with the characters that the prairie fades into the background – it goes to show that there is something in Cather for everyone! I look forward to reading this myself one day…once I’ve got through the massive pile of unread Cathers I already have!
I was much more affected by the landscape descriptions in O, Pioneers! and particularly My Antonia than I was with The Song of the Lark. To me, the characters in those novels were much more connected to the land and their surroundings while for Thea that overwhelming force, that source of inspiration and reflection of herself that other characters find in nature is her music.
I’m really looking forward to reading your thoughts on Cather’s other novels!
The Song of the Lark is one of my all time favorite books. I think you captured it very well. It’s about Thea the artist. In fact, we don’t get to know the interior life of Thea much at all.
I love Cather and I lost this story. But I think my absolute favorite Cather and, therefore, one of my absolute favorite books is Shadows on the Rock. I’d love to read your take on it if you ever get around to it.
Hi Nancy, I’m glad to hear that I’ve done justice to one of your favourites! I’m not familiar with Shadows on the Rock (Cather was busy, wasn’t she?) but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it!
Thanks for the wonderful review, Claire. In my own life, I’ve had trouble balancing work and life before, and when you are passionately devoted to something, it does tend to take over your life. At the same time, life has so much more to offer, other interests, places, and, most of all, people, that you give up so much by being devoted to your work. I’ll have to pick this up sometime soon. Thanks again!
If you’re looking to balance your life, I’m not sure this is the book! As much as I know what a destructive toil Thea’s work ethic and lifestyle would take on me, I can’t help but admiring her for her dedication and commitment. Some things can’t be done by half measures.
I’m hoping Willa Carther will be an author for 2011 – at some point. I like you thought ‘but I can’t bring myself to care about physical surroundings when there are characters to be discussed. I am particularly apathetic about prairies and deserts’… if there were descriptions of flowers, gardens or clothes then I’m right in there but hmm prairies and deserts…
I’ve spent too much of my life living in prairies or deserts and while they’re beautiful I don’t need all the descriptions to remind me of what they look like and how it feels to be surrounded by them! But, as I said to Rachel above, in Cather’s other prairie novels I really did feel that the descriptions enriched the narrative and my understanding of the characters who were so much an extention of their surroundings.
Great review! You’ve inspired me to get My Antonia off the TBR shelf sooner than later. 🙂
Oh excellent! I’m always happy to hear that I’ve inspired another reader to try a volume that might otherwise have languished unread on a shelf somewhere!
This sounds inspiring and you’re the first to make Willa Cather sound like something I might want to read, for some reason she always seemed too bleak before. (Although I may have read a short story by her, about a singer, hmm. Can’t quite remember the title, it may have been something to do with flowers… the cover’s more distinct though!)
I only started reading Cather a few years ago, having been, like you, a little intimidated by what I thought her books were about. So when I picked up O, Pioneers! I was both delighted and surprised to discover what a perfectly Claire-like book it was! She’s definitely an author worth trying if only to determine whether your preconceptions were correct (as mine were not).
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