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Youth and the Bright Medusa
Memorable short stories by a great American writer. "Coming, Aphrodite!" is an unforgettable novella of a young artist in New York and his relationship with a girl who hopes to become an opera star. "Paul's Case" reveals the frustration and pain of a lonely youth from the provinces who escapes to NYC for a brief, tragic time.
Coming, Aphrodite! --
The Diamond Mine --
A Gold Slipper --
Scandal --
Paul's Case --
A Wagner Matinée --
The Sculptor's Funeral --
"A Death in the Desert."
Coming, Aphrodite! --
The Diamond Mine --
A Gold Slipper --
Scandal --
Paul's Case --
A Wagner Matinée --
The Sculptor's Funeral --
"A Death in the Desert."
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1920
38 people are currently reading
371 people want to read
About the author
Willa Cather
890 books2,780 followersWilella Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley (Gore), Virginia, in December 7, 1873.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
September 11, 2024
Hedger melted a little. ‘My dear, I have the most expensive luxury in the world, and I am much more extravagant than Burton Ives, for I work to please nobody but myself.’
‘You mean you could make money and don’t? That you don’t try to get a public?’
‘Exactly. A public only wants what has been done over and over. I’m painting for painters, - who haven’t been born.’
Os protagonistas destes contos de Willa Cather são artistas, músicos, mulheres e homens de algum modo relacionados com o mundo do espectáculo e das artes e, além de serem todos maravilhosamente caracterizados, têm em comum a inconformismo. Há aqui personagens lutadoras, insatisfeitas, audaciosas, vítimas da má-língua tanto por estarem à frente do seu tempo como por não se coadunarem com a tacanhez e a mesquinhez dos seus conterrâneos. Willa Cather é uma autora realmente especial.
It was at the theatre and Carnegie hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things.
Coming, Aphrodite – 5*
The Diamond Mine – 4*
A Gold Slipper – 5*
Scandal – 3*
Paul’s Case – 5*
A Wagner Matinée – 5*
The Sculptor’s Funeral – 4*
A Death in The Desert – 3ª
‘You mean you could make money and don’t? That you don’t try to get a public?’
‘Exactly. A public only wants what has been done over and over. I’m painting for painters, - who haven’t been born.’
Os protagonistas destes contos de Willa Cather são artistas, músicos, mulheres e homens de algum modo relacionados com o mundo do espectáculo e das artes e, além de serem todos maravilhosamente caracterizados, têm em comum a inconformismo. Há aqui personagens lutadoras, insatisfeitas, audaciosas, vítimas da má-língua tanto por estarem à frente do seu tempo como por não se coadunarem com a tacanhez e a mesquinhez dos seus conterrâneos. Willa Cather é uma autora realmente especial.
It was at the theatre and Carnegie hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul’s fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant things.
Coming, Aphrodite – 5*
The Diamond Mine – 4*
A Gold Slipper – 5*
Scandal – 3*
Paul’s Case – 5*
A Wagner Matinée – 5*
The Sculptor’s Funeral – 4*
A Death in The Desert – 3ª
May 11, 2014
If you care for 20thC American Lit, you love Willa Cather. She breaks hearts in a few sentences. Cather tops any American Lit List with Edith Wharton and Scott Fitzgerald. Who else is there on top 20th tier? In spare, concise style she digs into emotions and dreams.
This fine collection includes 'Paul's Case' (lad in midwest plans an escape with No Exit); 'A Wagner Matinee' (elderly aunt fr Nebraska meets nephew in Boston for a final, naked moment at a Wagner concert); 'Coming, Aphrodite!' (a young aspiring NYC painter luvs a young aspiring opera singer, but.--Well, this short is of novel substance about careers forged with a worldly irony that shatters).
Writes Cather, "A big career takes its toll, even with the best of luck." Cather knew-- and felt -- far too much. An American Great.
This fine collection includes 'Paul's Case' (lad in midwest plans an escape with No Exit); 'A Wagner Matinee' (elderly aunt fr Nebraska meets nephew in Boston for a final, naked moment at a Wagner concert); 'Coming, Aphrodite!' (a young aspiring NYC painter luvs a young aspiring opera singer, but.--Well, this short is of novel substance about careers forged with a worldly irony that shatters).
Writes Cather, "A big career takes its toll, even with the best of luck." Cather knew-- and felt -- far too much. An American Great.
May 25, 2017
I read the first three stories in the collection and set it down, feeling that I was reading the same story (somewhat at least) three times. After letting it sit, I picked it up, read the remaining stories, and decided that what I was reading was a set of variations on a theme. The theme was the contrast and conflict between artists or people who aspired in some manner to the "artistic life" versus the rest of society.
Ms. Cather obviously was a fine writer and almost every story has its jewel-like moments. My only problem with many of them is that "society" at large is often represented by what seem to me cardboard characters who are meant to act as foils for the purity of artists and the artistic. To Ms. Cather's credit, her artists aren't always completely pure, but the contrasts between them and the rest of the world is too distorted to completely ring true with me.
I hadn't read any of Willa Cather's work before I read this book and I thank Sketchbook for making the introduction.
Ms. Cather obviously was a fine writer and almost every story has its jewel-like moments. My only problem with many of them is that "society" at large is often represented by what seem to me cardboard characters who are meant to act as foils for the purity of artists and the artistic. To Ms. Cather's credit, her artists aren't always completely pure, but the contrasts between them and the rest of the world is too distorted to completely ring true with me.
I hadn't read any of Willa Cather's work before I read this book and I thank Sketchbook for making the introduction.
April 17, 2020
The collection, first published in 1920, comprises two novellas – ‘Coming, Aphrodite’ and ‘The Diamond Mine’ – and six short stories. The last four stories had previously appeared in an earlier collection, The Troll Garden, published in 1905.
Having finished the book, I was left puzzled by its title since none of the stories shared it (as if often the case with short story collections) or made direct reference to it. However, I was fortunate to come across an image from the first edition of the book in which its publisher, Alfred A Knopf, helpfully describes its theme as “youth’s adventure with the many-coloured Medusa of art”. (The collection is also praised as ‘a new exhibition of the writer’s power and remarkable artistry’.)
My previous experience of Willa Cather’s writing was through books such as My Antonia, and O Pioneers! meaning I associated her with the setting of those novels not the New York that features so prominently in the stories in Youth and the Bright Medusa. However, as I learned, although she grew up in Virginia and Nebraska, she moved to Pittsburgh and then New York, living in the latter for the remainder of her life.
In fact, many of the stories in Youth and the Bright Medusa present a far from pastoral view of frontier life. For example, in ‘The Sculptor’s Funeral’, the coffin housing the body of famous sculptor Harvey Merrick is returned to his home town in Kansas but the townspeople who gather to mark his passing are depicted as rather small-minded. Failing to recognise his achievement in rising from such humble beginnings, they are chided by one of the mourners who reflects, ‘The very name of their town would have remained for ever buried in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world in connection with Harvey Merrick’.
The story also contains some striking examples of the author’s closely-observed and often unflinching description of characters. So the sculptor’s father is ‘tall and frail, odorous of smoke, with shaggy, unkept grey hair and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about the mouth‘. The face of the sculptor’s grieving mother is described thus: ‘The long nose was distended and knobbed at the end and deep lines on either side of it; her heavy black brows almost met across her forehead; her teeth were large and square, and set far apart – teeth that could tear’. Conversely the opera singers who populate other stories such as ‘A Death in the Desert’ and ‘Coming, Aphrodite!’ are depicted as radiant and uncommonly beautiful.
The power of music or art to move and enrich is a consistent theme of the stories. In ‘A Wagner Matinee’, the narrator takes his aunt, who first influenced his love of music and is visiting from the small Nebraska town where he grew up, to a concert of classical music. He is amazed by her reaction to it. ‘The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her or past what happy islands.’ In ‘Paul’s Case’, a troubled young man who experiences ‘a shuddering repulsion for the flavourless, colourless mass of everyday existence’ finds solace in his work as an usher at Carnegie Hall where the music acts as an ‘orgy of living’. Determined to live the life he believes he was meant to, he indulges in one glorious period of indulgence, never to be repeated.
Having finished the book, I was left puzzled by its title since none of the stories shared it (as if often the case with short story collections) or made direct reference to it. However, I was fortunate to come across an image from the first edition of the book in which its publisher, Alfred A Knopf, helpfully describes its theme as “youth’s adventure with the many-coloured Medusa of art”. (The collection is also praised as ‘a new exhibition of the writer’s power and remarkable artistry’.)
My previous experience of Willa Cather’s writing was through books such as My Antonia, and O Pioneers! meaning I associated her with the setting of those novels not the New York that features so prominently in the stories in Youth and the Bright Medusa. However, as I learned, although she grew up in Virginia and Nebraska, she moved to Pittsburgh and then New York, living in the latter for the remainder of her life.
In fact, many of the stories in Youth and the Bright Medusa present a far from pastoral view of frontier life. For example, in ‘The Sculptor’s Funeral’, the coffin housing the body of famous sculptor Harvey Merrick is returned to his home town in Kansas but the townspeople who gather to mark his passing are depicted as rather small-minded. Failing to recognise his achievement in rising from such humble beginnings, they are chided by one of the mourners who reflects, ‘The very name of their town would have remained for ever buried in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned in the world in connection with Harvey Merrick’.
The story also contains some striking examples of the author’s closely-observed and often unflinching description of characters. So the sculptor’s father is ‘tall and frail, odorous of smoke, with shaggy, unkept grey hair and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about the mouth‘. The face of the sculptor’s grieving mother is described thus: ‘The long nose was distended and knobbed at the end and deep lines on either side of it; her heavy black brows almost met across her forehead; her teeth were large and square, and set far apart – teeth that could tear’. Conversely the opera singers who populate other stories such as ‘A Death in the Desert’ and ‘Coming, Aphrodite!’ are depicted as radiant and uncommonly beautiful.
The power of music or art to move and enrich is a consistent theme of the stories. In ‘A Wagner Matinee’, the narrator takes his aunt, who first influenced his love of music and is visiting from the small Nebraska town where he grew up, to a concert of classical music. He is amazed by her reaction to it. ‘The deluge of sound poured on and on; I never knew what she found in the shining current of it; I never knew how far it bore her or past what happy islands.’ In ‘Paul’s Case’, a troubled young man who experiences ‘a shuddering repulsion for the flavourless, colourless mass of everyday existence’ finds solace in his work as an usher at Carnegie Hall where the music acts as an ‘orgy of living’. Determined to live the life he believes he was meant to, he indulges in one glorious period of indulgence, never to be repeated.
March 19, 2008
The stories in this collection are mostly set in NYC and Boston, and they're all about artists - writers, musicians, sculptors - and their relationship to society. There are stories about glitter, about inspiration, and about expectations. They are all beautifully written.
March 10, 2018
Excellent short story collection from Cather, featuring opera divas, dreamy adolescents, teary-eyed spinsters, to help explore a common theme, the trials and tribulations of the artistic temperament in a world of commerce.
'Coming, Aphrodite!' is the first and longest piece, where an unstoppable young starlet called Eden Bower (real name Edna) crosses paths with a struggling young artist at the very outset of her march to fame.
'The Diamond Mine' looks at the life of a very different diva, one ensnared by the practical demands of her various husbands and a blood-sucking family. The life of Cressida Garnet is not like the one you imagine when you think of a prima donna.
The next two stories are both fleeting glimpses into the world of the petite, zesty Kitty Ayrshire, the best of which is 'A Glass Slipper', where she has a chance encounter with a stolid businessman who was clearly bored at her concert, challenging him to entertain her on a train journey.
Moving away from the divas now, 'Paul's Case' is the tragic tale of a flighty youth at odds with the drabness of reality who longs for the transportation offered by luxury and the arts. It's the best story.
In 'A Wagner Matinee' it is a rural pensioner being transported by a first trip to the concert hall in thirty years. 'The Sculptor's Funeral' looks at the dead man's prosaic family and wonders how the artist could ever have emerged from such a home.
The final story, '"A Death in the Desert"', is about the brother of a much-loved composer, so alike his famous sibling that he is constantly being mistaken for him. In a touching tale he comforts a dying singer in love with his brother.
Intelligent, insightful and well written stories which expertly blend the directness of journalism with the subtle depths of fiction.
'Coming, Aphrodite!' is the first and longest piece, where an unstoppable young starlet called Eden Bower (real name Edna) crosses paths with a struggling young artist at the very outset of her march to fame.
'The Diamond Mine' looks at the life of a very different diva, one ensnared by the practical demands of her various husbands and a blood-sucking family. The life of Cressida Garnet is not like the one you imagine when you think of a prima donna.
The next two stories are both fleeting glimpses into the world of the petite, zesty Kitty Ayrshire, the best of which is 'A Glass Slipper', where she has a chance encounter with a stolid businessman who was clearly bored at her concert, challenging him to entertain her on a train journey.
Moving away from the divas now, 'Paul's Case' is the tragic tale of a flighty youth at odds with the drabness of reality who longs for the transportation offered by luxury and the arts. It's the best story.
In 'A Wagner Matinee' it is a rural pensioner being transported by a first trip to the concert hall in thirty years. 'The Sculptor's Funeral' looks at the dead man's prosaic family and wonders how the artist could ever have emerged from such a home.
The final story, '"A Death in the Desert"', is about the brother of a much-loved composer, so alike his famous sibling that he is constantly being mistaken for him. In a touching tale he comforts a dying singer in love with his brother.
Intelligent, insightful and well written stories which expertly blend the directness of journalism with the subtle depths of fiction.
June 14, 2018
Eight short stories: Coming, Aphrodite!; The Diamond Mine; A Gold Slipper; Scandal; Paul's Case; A Wagner Matinee; The Sculptor's Funeral; and A Death in the Desert. I really enjoy Cather's storytelling and the way she uses words to define the location and characters. There are lots of artistic characters (singers, musicians etc.) or settings in these stories and references to the great plains and deserts that will appear in her other work. These stories work a lot of feeling into shorter stories that do a great job of pulling the reader into their world and their artistic accomplishments, goals, or desires.
January 13, 2011
I reread Cather's short stories every few years. She has a radiant, powerful punch for me which few writers share. "A Wagner Matinee" is brilliant. "Coming, Aphrodite" would make a stunning movie.
September 18, 2019
I love Willa Cather... This book is a compilation of short stories she wrote in the early 1900's. Some had been previously published in magazines like McClure's & Scribner's and others were previously published in her book The Troll Garden.
I can't help thinking of these stories as typical Willa. Her descriptions of both people and settings are so descriptive that it's hard NOT to feel like you're back in 1910, which is quite interesting for someone like me, living over 100 years later. As per the norm, her stories themselves never have classically happy endings and all in this tome concern people in the arts...painters, sculptors, singers, musicians, the theater. So interesting to a nerd like me who enjoys all of the above so much. After having it on my Kindle for ages (it's a free download by the way), I'm very happy I finally got around to reading it. It was a welcome light-reading diversion from the very HEAVY The Romanovs, which I'm still only halfway thru after reading for months. LOL Back to the annals of Russian History...
I can't help thinking of these stories as typical Willa. Her descriptions of both people and settings are so descriptive that it's hard NOT to feel like you're back in 1910, which is quite interesting for someone like me, living over 100 years later. As per the norm, her stories themselves never have classically happy endings and all in this tome concern people in the arts...painters, sculptors, singers, musicians, the theater. So interesting to a nerd like me who enjoys all of the above so much. After having it on my Kindle for ages (it's a free download by the way), I'm very happy I finally got around to reading it. It was a welcome light-reading diversion from the very HEAVY The Romanovs, which I'm still only halfway thru after reading for months. LOL Back to the annals of Russian History...
January 17, 2020
Eight short stories but the last four were published earlier in The Troll Garden short story collection, which I have already read. I chose not to re read them. Cather likes to write about artists, singers in particular. The stories focus mostly on the interpersonal relations between the artist and one or more non-artists. I like the descriptions of the characters which illustrate the characters’ feelings.
April 29, 2020
It is the hundredth anniversary of the publication of this book of Cather stories. It is still as relevant today as it was then. In some way all the stories deal with the price of pursuing an artistic dream as compared to a more conventional life. The story Paul's Case which is quoted in the publishers summary is perhaps the most well known. The Sculpter's Funeral, which deals with how different people assess an artist's life, was also a favorite of mine.
October 9, 2020
Again, Cather has charmed and bewildered me with the loveliness of her prose. How like a poet she is, matching scenes, emotions, sensations with the perfect words to convey their essence to the mind of her reader. Delightful heartbreak as the tragedy of little lives is portrayed with genuine sympathy, and the hidden lives of the great are exposed, revealing their own brand of insecurity and loneliness.
October 14, 2017
"Miss Cather's book is more than a random collection of excellent tales. It constitutes as a whole one of the truest as well as, in a sober and earnest sense, one of the most poetical interpretations of American life that we possess."
-The Nation
-The Nation
April 5, 2018
I kept thinking all the stories of musicians, singers and travelers were inter-related and would all wind back around to a crossing of their paths. Alas, I was wrong and disappointed. The first story of the painter and singer neighbors was the best one.
June 23, 2019
Several of these stories were interesting in their depiction of the Great Plains not as the epic, magnificent place we expect from Cather, but more like a cultural wasteland. I was very surprised by this.
October 30, 2024
I recently came into possession of four books of short stories by Cather, none with entirely unique contents with regard to the others. This one contains four pieces that formerly appeared/still appear in various editions of The Troll Garden (the famous "Paul's Case," "A Wagner Matinee," etc.) The remaining pieces all co-star aspiring or established opera divas (Lucy Ayrshire, Eden Bower nee Edna Bowers, Cressida Garnet). I'm a huge opera fan, but I definite prefer the bittersweet village/domestic tales of Cather vs. what she might want to say about artistry and Manhattan. You can spot common themes in all the stories, and that through-line is satisfying, but this one not a keeper for me, ultimately.
January 4, 2020
One hundred years ago, Willa Cather selected these eight stories, written over a period of 20 years, for this excellent collection. Her characters and their dilemmas still resonate in today's world.
March 17, 2021
I needed something good, and as always Willa Cather did not disappoint. This collection of short stories is brilliant.
July 24, 2021
Cather Master Piece
Willa Cather never disappoints. Each of these stories is rich in description, literary excellence and plot. Such a pleasure to read.
Willa Cather never disappoints. Each of these stories is rich in description, literary excellence and plot. Such a pleasure to read.
January 31, 2024
This was tough. My favorite stories were some of the ones from The Troll Garden. The others were a bit slow and didn't get me as much. I really prefer her full length novels.
February 6, 2024
four life-changing stories, three clunkers, and one that was just okay
June 17, 2024
4.22⭐
Coming, Aphrodite! 5⭐
The Diamond Mine 4.5⭐
A Gold Slipper 4⭐
Scandal 3.25⭐
Paul's Case 3.5⭐
A Wagner Matinée 5⭐
The Sculptor's Funeral 4⭐
"A Death in the Desert" 4.5⭐
Coming, Aphrodite! 5⭐
The Diamond Mine 4.5⭐
A Gold Slipper 4⭐
Scandal 3.25⭐
Paul's Case 3.5⭐
A Wagner Matinée 5⭐
The Sculptor's Funeral 4⭐
"A Death in the Desert" 4.5⭐
July 19, 2022
I listened on Libravox.org which combined it with The Troll Garden
Excellent story telling (as anyone who has read Willa Cather already knows)
Pace a bit slow at the beginning of each story, then, spell-binding!
Excellent story telling (as anyone who has read Willa Cather already knows)
Pace a bit slow at the beginning of each story, then, spell-binding!
June 22, 2016
This collection contains one of my favorite short stories ever -- the wonderful "Coming, Aphrodite!" which does much to investigate modernity, isolation, the difference between performance and art, the sanctity of art, what it means to be a success, the power of individuality, and so much more. It's fantastic.
What follows is Cather's continued exploration into the themes of celebrity and the music world. It's amazing how relevant these stories still are. If this book were written today it would be written about rock musicians and it wouldn't ultimately be that different I think.
"The Diamond Mine" is another perfect story, almost as good as "Coming, Aphrodite!" I think, but it's not quite as inventive. It is remarkably dense and relevant. It is the most focused Cather is the entire collection.
"A Gold Slipper" is a nice story with a good solid interaction between an old stick in the mud and progressive feminist Kitty Ayrshire. It's perhaps not as relevant today as it would have been a hundred years ago, but that said it is still a fascinating read.
The next story "Scandal" follows the same basic idea as "Gold Slipper" and indeed stars Kitty once again. However it I think perhaps the low point of the entire collection. I wouldn't call it a bad story, but if you were going to skip one in the collection, this might be it.
"Paul's Case" is moving if a bit standard by today's measure. Cather knows how to develop characters like no other and "Paul's Case" rests solely on Paul's shoulders. It's a testament to her abilities that this doesn't feel like a one character story.
"A Wagner Matinee" is short and beautiful.
"The Sculptor's Funeral" is another slight misstep, but again it is still good. It begins very slowly, and I had trouble paying attention until we got to the central conflict between the old townsfolk and the visiting cities folk and how they view the deceased.
"A Death in the Desert" is classic Cather. Moving, searching, sad and hopeful all at the same time.
I'm excited to have a whole lot more of Cather's fiction to read!
What follows is Cather's continued exploration into the themes of celebrity and the music world. It's amazing how relevant these stories still are. If this book were written today it would be written about rock musicians and it wouldn't ultimately be that different I think.
"The Diamond Mine" is another perfect story, almost as good as "Coming, Aphrodite!" I think, but it's not quite as inventive. It is remarkably dense and relevant. It is the most focused Cather is the entire collection.
"A Gold Slipper" is a nice story with a good solid interaction between an old stick in the mud and progressive feminist Kitty Ayrshire. It's perhaps not as relevant today as it would have been a hundred years ago, but that said it is still a fascinating read.
The next story "Scandal" follows the same basic idea as "Gold Slipper" and indeed stars Kitty once again. However it I think perhaps the low point of the entire collection. I wouldn't call it a bad story, but if you were going to skip one in the collection, this might be it.
"Paul's Case" is moving if a bit standard by today's measure. Cather knows how to develop characters like no other and "Paul's Case" rests solely on Paul's shoulders. It's a testament to her abilities that this doesn't feel like a one character story.
"A Wagner Matinee" is short and beautiful.
"The Sculptor's Funeral" is another slight misstep, but again it is still good. It begins very slowly, and I had trouble paying attention until we got to the central conflict between the old townsfolk and the visiting cities folk and how they view the deceased.
"A Death in the Desert" is classic Cather. Moving, searching, sad and hopeful all at the same time.
I'm excited to have a whole lot more of Cather's fiction to read!
August 25, 2025
I had somehow never read Willa Cather to date. Wait, I do remember reading half of Death Comes For the Archbishop, in a Taos library over a sea of chamisa. Yes. I remember thinking it was a bit special and then I just never got back to it.
By sheer chance i picked thnis volume up because it was near my hand on a library shelf.
Quite a storyteller.
How did we get from Willa Cather or Zora Neale Hurston to Bell hooks?! When did turgid illiteracy, a tin ear, and a general incompetency to express oneself become launchable, by academic conspiracy, as a literary ballistic package?
By sheer chance i picked thnis volume up because it was near my hand on a library shelf.
Quite a storyteller.
How did we get from Willa Cather or Zora Neale Hurston to Bell hooks?! When did turgid illiteracy, a tin ear, and a general incompetency to express oneself become launchable, by academic conspiracy, as a literary ballistic package?
March 15, 2016
This book is a collection of short stories that Willa Cather published in various periodicals between 1905 and 1920. Four of them, I believe, had previously appeared in an earlier short-story collection, The Troll Garden. With one exception, the stories are about the lives of various artists, mostly female singers, but include one painter, one sculptor, and indirectly, one composer. The stories are written in Cather's calm, but realistic, style. She doesn't much romanticize things, but shows life as it is. Cather is a true gem and I should be ashamed of myself for not having discovered her some half century ago.
June 4, 2012
With four new stories and four previously published in The Troll Garden, I didn't find much new to fall in love with...too many opera stars/famous girls. Of the four new stories (Coming, Aphrodite!, The Diamond Mine, A Gold Slipper, and Scandal) Coming, Aphrodite! was certainly the fullest, with vivid scenes and interesting characters. Of the four republished stories (Paul's Case, A Wagner Matinee, The Sculptor's Funeral, and A Death in the Desert) A Wagner Matinee remains my favorite. It contains that real warmth of spirit and reflection that I love about Cather.
April 24, 2013
Beautiful characterizations, it felt like each story was composed of two or so portraits, they would have very thick and primary coloring. Most of the settings she writes about tend to be portrayed as either full of air and light or dark and rot, environments that typically inspire sort of lacy prose. I like how Cather writes of just human flesh... the interplay of justness/justice in these stories is really great, added a billion more books from Cather to my reading list)))
August 8, 2021
Everything I've read by Willa Cather surprises me, in a good way. Not too many authors can so quickly create characters of interest and depth. Previously I had read her stories set in the mid-west, so it was interesting to see her write stories set in the big city, as well as stories of people who exist in both places.
May 7, 2024
I bought this at a used bookstore in Omaha and only then realized that Cather (always associated with NE) was born near Winchester, VA, and later worked as an editor in Pittsburgh. Very much enjoyed this memorable collection - described rather heavy handedly by her publisher as “youth’s adventure with the many colored Medusa of art.” Lyrical and moving.
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